Leadership

Many good intentions will die in the next seven days. It's not that they were bad ideas. They might have been the intention to exercise more, lose weight, get out of debt, or pray on a regular basis. Starting with a bang and ending with a whimper. While there might be several reasons for the whimpering, often it stems from the lack of a compelling why. Why should I stick with this? Why does this matter? What will happen if I don't follow through? One of the most driven individuals in the early church was the apostle Paul. Few accomplished as much as he did - starting churches, baptizing people, and enduring hardship and hostility. But why? Some might say that Paul was simply acting out of guilt, that he was trying to overcome his years of persecuting the church. Or, it could have just been his personality. Some people are…

While every day is a gift from God, the turn of a new year is a great opportunity to reflect, re-vision, and recommit. Most of us are not intentional enough about ending one year and beginning the next.  What I want to do below is offer a simple template y0u can use to help create momentum in the new year. Questions to Ask What about the last year can I celebrate? What do I need to grieve over and then leave in the past? What negative habit or attitude do I need to stop? What positive habit or attitude do I need to start? What did I do well that I need to continue or improve upon? In working through these five questions, here is what you are doing: Reflecting - being intentional about learning from your experiences. Re-visioning - looking forward (the past is past and moving forward is…

Thomas Edison was a dogged man. From his mind came things like the phonograph and the first commercially-viable incandescent lightbulb. But they didn't magically drop from his mind to reality. In the case of the lightbulb, the number of failed attempts is legendary. But he didn't quit. Thomas Edison once said that "vision without execution is hallucination." Three key words emerge from that statement: Vision. Execution. Hallucination. Vision is a popular topic for business leaders and pastors, as well as football coaches and politicians. We write vision statements. We talk about visionaries. A simple definition of vision is "to see a preferred future." This preferred future could be for your family, your ministry, or team. It's how you want the future to be. Not everyone who sees a preferred future is by default a visionary. The second key word in Edison's statement is execution. Edison didn't think the incandescent lightbulb into existence, though…