This week is one of the largest annual gatherings of church planters in America. It's the Exponential Conference in Florida. Men and women who have planted churches, who are thinking about planting churches, or who are simply curious -- all will converge on Orlando. I've been myself ... and it was worth every dollar and every minute. There is something contagious about being around a group of people who believe they serve a God who can change the world. You get to sit in sessions with other risk-takers and the risks you're taking don't seem so insurmountable. It's a safe place to share stories -- mostly war stories, failures, things you would do over. No one goes there to brag. You go to learn, be encouraged, and to encourage others. As I sat in one of the main sessions back in 2005, I looked over the room and saw hundreds…
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Thanks to his bathtub, Archimedes discovered the concept of displacement. As he sat down in his bathtub, he noticed the water level would rise. The weight of his body displaced the water. From this epiphany, he realized he could use similar experiments to measure the volume of certain objects. In life, we have ... Placements -- things that are in their proper place. Misplacements -- things that are not placed in their proper place Displacements -- things that are replaced by other things. Displacement shows up when we transfer our feelings about one thing/person/situation to another thing/person/situation. In counseling terms, it's called "kicking the dog." You "kick the dog" when, after a hard day at work, you come home and kick the dog. The dog didn't cause your bad day -- you simply displaced your frustration. Often times, we practice displacement and don't even know it. Little things that might…
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Perry Noble says the number one sign of an insecure leader is that they see people as working for them and not with them. (Read the full list here). These two small words (a combined seven letters, average of 3.5 letters per word) reflect a large difference in attitude. This difference not only affects the leader's style but how the people respond to their leadership. I've told my children, "There's a difference between 'I've got to do something' and 'I get to do something.'" When you've got to do something, it's often viewed as a burden. You do it because you are obligated or fearful of what will happen if you don't do it. When you get to do something, it's act of passion or purpose. You don't watch the clock or groan about it. As a leader, if you view people as working for you it is likely they…
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As a young preacher, I learned one important truth: people will forget your main points but they will remember your stories. In fact, I've become convinced that I could preach the same points multiple times and people wouldn't notice -- but tell the same story and it's immediately familiar! That's the power of a story. Are you harnessing the power of stories? If you are a communicator, stories are your best friend. They take your main point from grayscale to full color. Stories do more than fill space: they motivate, inspire, challenge, and create memories that become portable. A well-told story is a gift to your listeners. It allows them to say in a different time and place, "That reminds me of a story." If you are a leader, stories become the glue that holds a vision together. "Do you remember when ..." is the beginning of a story that…
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If you're wondering, "Who in the world is John Cleese?" then you were probably born after 1980. For the rest of us, we remember him from Monty Python. Brain Pickings, a wonderful web resource/curator of interesting facts, has an old video of Cleese talking about the creative process. Here are the five main points: Space (“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”) Time (“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”) Time (“Giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original,” and learning to tolerate the discomfort of pondering time and indecision.) Confidence (“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”) Humor (“The main is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”) What do you think? How do you approach…
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