"I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand" (Psalm 40:1-2). Mud and mire. While playing in the mud was fun as children, most of us have spent our adult lives trying to avoid it. And not just the dirt mixed with water type of mud. Verbal mud. Emotional mud. Habits. Behaviors. Messy relationships. Toxic environments. Ironically, apart from mud-slinging (where someone else throws mud at you), I have to assume responsibility for generating a good amount of the mud that has entered my life. I make poor choices or get sloppy with words. I am a maker of mud. Not only has God offered rescue from the mud, but he can lift us out of…
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Tenzing Norgay was one of the best known sherpas of all-time, made famous for his climb of Everest with Edmund Hillary. In his autobiography he tells the story of climbing a different mountain with George Frey, an experienced climber. The story reminds us how important it is to have a climbing partner. At first the going was easy enough, following a long snow slope into which we could kick good steps, and not so steep that we needed a rope between us. But after a while the angle grew a bit sharper, and the snow harder, and I stopped and put on my steel-spiked crampons, so as to have a steadier footing. “Aren’t you going to put yours on?” I called up to Frey, who was in the lead. “No, I don’t need them,” he answered. And we continued climbing. Once again there is the question of whether I should…
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The following is a great post by Craig Groeschel from lifechurch.tv. It's about the who and what of leadership. ****************** Instead of always knowing “what” is happening with a project, what we really need to know is “who” is covering the project. If we have the right “who,” we shouldn’t have to worry about the “what.” If we have the wrong “who,” then we need to know the “what.” If you always need to know the “what,” you have one of two problems: You are not an empowering leader. You have the wrong “who.” Either way, the problem needs to be fixed.
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One of the tests of a great leader is not so much the quality of her work but the quality of people she surrounds herself with. Put another way, you can measure the competency of a leader by the competency of those they gather around them. To create a scalable culture -- one that is easily reproduced and expanded -- requires competent leaders. Many organizations, churches included, will hit a ceiling based upon the competency level of one leader. To continue to grow and expand requires a growing and expanding layer of competent leadership. This requires hiring the best people possible and releasing them to do their jobs. It also requires developing the in-house talent that already exists in latent form within the organization. May your greatest competency as a leader be the ability to spot and develop the competency of others!
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