The Seabourns

Leadership

MPD as Leadership Development

by Leave a Comment

I recently shared these thoughts with someone on my team who is entering a season of focused MPD.

MPD :: Ministry Partner Development. It’s the process God has used for 34 years to provide salary and cover ministry expenses for Kay and me. It has provided for 3 children. Helped provide college education. Helped with two weddings and four grandchildren. It has shaped my soul. It has empowered my ministry.

MPD is the process of God leading us to partners who engage in ministry through helping with funding and covering us with prayer.

We cannot do it without God but he has decided to not do it without us. [From an article by Rick Warren that covers a similar thought in the area of church growth.]

MPD is deep leadership development. It is a process that works deeply to grow faith, develop soul skills, develop interpersonal skills, develop spiritual skills.

I don’t know of any action in the Christian life that more exemplifies the God/human divine plan for engaging in changing the world than MPD. I have to work like it all depends on me (calls, letters, emails, appointments, using every “marketing” and “psychology” strategy that has biblical integrity) but I also know that unless God moves peoples’ hearts, my work will have very limited results. I think that a major part of CCCI’s continued service in God’s plan is that the MPD process forces us to regularly remember how God accomplishes his plan on earth.

These are thoughts I review regularly as I work on MPD.

Philippians 2:12, 13. … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Galatians 2:20. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Colossians 1:29. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

  • I toil
  • in His energy

1 Corinthians 15:10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

  • I worked hard
  • Though it was God, not me

Ephesians 2:9-10. … not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

  • We are his workmanship
  • Created for good works
  • God prepared them beforehand
  • We should walk in them

Proverbs 16:9. In his heart a man plans his course,but the LORD determines his steps

What about you? How has MPD shaped who you are?

A Discernment Process for Spiritual Leadership

by 3 Comments

I’m nearing the end of Ruth Haley Barton’s excellent book Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. In Chapter 12, Finding God’s Will Together, she outlines a process for discerning God’s will as a group. The emphasis is on discernment. I’ve used some of these before, but I found this to be the best explanation and most complete process I’ve heard described.

I really appreciate Barton’s emphasis on both solitude and group. I really appreciate her statement that combines spiritual community with spiritual leadership.

You get somewhere by discerning God’s will and doing it together.

  1. Clarify the question for discernment.
  2. Assemble the community of wise stakeholders who have used discernment processes in their individual lives. Involve people who are committed to the process of personal transformation, who have experienced personal discernment in their own decision-making.
  3. Establish or re-affirm guiding principles that will govern the process. Discernment at the leadership level requires an extraordinary amount of safety in the group process. Trustworthy relationships are crucial. Discuss and agree on the values.
  4. Begin with a prayer of quiet trust. Barton suggests this from the Book of Common Prayer:

    Oh God, by home we are guided in judgment,
    and who raises up for us light in the darkness:
    Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties,
    the grace to ask what you would have us to do;
    that your spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices,
    and in your straight path we may not stumble;
    through Jesus Christ our Lord; Amen.

  5. Pursue a state of indifference to anything but God’s will — nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Ask “What needs to die in me in order for the will of God to come forth in and among us?”
  6. Listen on many levels. Listen to our experiences. Listen to inner promptings by the Holy Spirit. Listen to fact and information. Listen to testimony from those most affected. Pay particular attention to distress, confusion, desolation and difficult emotions.
  7. Listen within through periods of silence. Break up group meetings with periods of individual “listening prayer” where individuals spend time in silence focusing on a common passage, then share with each other what they heard from God from this passage regarding the question for discernment. Not all may hear something specific, while others may. Listen as a group to what each shares he or she heard from God. Manage group dynamics through periods of individual solitude. Allow dysfunctions to be named. Allow periods for self-awareness.
  8. Select an option consistent with what God is doing among the group. If no single option stands out, identify 2 or 3 options and refine them. Ponder the options to see which sit well with the group, which bring consolation or desolation. Seek inner confirmation.
  9. Agree together. Unity is the fundamental marker that God’s will has been discerned. As an expression of faith, thank God together for his presence and his gift of discernment.

You get somewhere by discerning God’s will and doing it together.

What do you think? How have you used a discernment process for hearing God’s direction and doing it?

Solitude doesn’t mean alone

by Leave a Comment

There was another good interaction following my original blogference article.

My highly extroverted friend Rich asked: “Being alone drains me. How does an extrovert like me take advantage of “alone time” without me giving in and making contact with someone else? ”

I’m repeating this extension of the concept of solitude here in my blog. To read the original interaction, click here.

The article Solitude and Leadership outlined several components of solitude. One is: deep, intimate conversations where you hear your thoughts out loud in a safe environment.

The author Deresiewicz writes:

But there’s one more thing I’m going to include as a form of solitude, and it will seem counterintuitive: friendship. Of course friendship is the opposite of solitude; it means being with other people. But I’m talking about one kind of friendship in particular, the deep friendship of intimate conversation.

He continues:

Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to yourself is by talking to another person. One other person you can trust, one other person to whom you can unfold your soul. One other person you feel safe enough with to allow you to acknowledge things—to acknowledge things to yourself—that you otherwise can’t. Doubts you aren’t supposed to have, questions you aren’t supposed to ask. Feelings or opinions that would get you laughed at by the group or reprimanded by the authorities.

So, Mr. Extrovert, talk to a close friend!

Followup to Solitude as a Leadership Path

by Leave a Comment

The Blogference is continuing to generate good interaction even though (fortunately) the firehose flow is reduced somewhat!

Justin posted a very insightful comment in a different discussion thread called Get Over Yourself. I and others responded. I’m repeating the (slightly modified) response here since it’s another part of the Solitude as a Path discussion. You can read the full interaction here.

Time is often a forgotten factor in our immediate-focused world. We all grow throughout our career with CCC, however long it is. In the early years, we’re just trying to learn the skills, learn the methods, figure out which way is up. Think about all the things a new believer has to figure out about the Christian life. Much is by rote mimicking others in the early years. This is normal. It’s kind of like early childhood in which kids mimic the way parents talk and walk and hold their spoons and speak about others. This is the time of dependency.

But over time, the basics become second nature. That’s when the growing of Leadership skills really kicks in. That’s when it’s important to start testing out your own ideas and sharing them with others to see what they think. That’s when questioning is normal, often trash-talking the status quo. Think about adolescence and middle and high school. Even college years. It’s when we try out our own thoughts. It’s a time of independency.

Eventually we move into an adult world in which we learn how to be our own person but to value and respect others also. We learn how to collaborate where we can share our ideas while valuing others. We can give and take without our identity as a person being challenged. This is interdependency.

The challenge to us as leaders helping others develop is to help the process along over time. Recognize the stages. Accept where people are but also help them keep developing.

I really connected with the Greenleaf quote that Brian Virtue used in his post on Serving Self Leadership. The measure of our servant leadership is how well others develop as servant leaders. How well do they move from dependency through independency and into interdependency.

Solitude as a Path to Develop your Leadership

by 2 Comments

This is my contribution as 1 of 15 posts in RE-think: Campus Crusade’s 3rd Annual Blogference, running April 13-15, 2010. Please join the conversation.
Before you stick a “Leader” name badge on the next disciple who can share the Four Spiritual Laws without a single mistake, take heed. He can follow the process with excellence. But is he a leader? In our movement, we like to call everyone a “leader.” But then we’re stuck with how to separate the Leaders from the leaders. I’ve been interested in the process of developing Leaders for several years.

The author of Solitude and Leadership: If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts has given me handles for some thoughts I’ve been wrestling with recently. His concern is that we train people to be world-class hoop jumpers who can achieve any goal set before them, pass any test, climb every mountain. Thought to be creating leaders, organizations are actually creating followers and bureaucrats–people who know how to achieve excellence within an existing system. Leaders, in contrast, are people who have the moral courage to develop their own ideas and argue for them even when they aren’t popular.

Christ Himself, a leader par excellence, frequently withdrew to focus His thoughts. The solitude of prayer and reflection is where strength, wisdom, and courage needed to lead well is refined.

This is the essence of self-directed leadership development. Concentrated, intentional time to think. To pray. To reflect. Slowing down. Developing and clarifying ideas in writing. Sharing those ideas with trusted others to see how they sound out loud. Asking–and answering–the hard questions.

I found such a time today while washing my cars. I received a message this morning from a friend telling me he would not lead his part of our organization to join a common direction we are pursuing. I found that the solitude of two hours working on my cars to be a very fruitful time to understand his thoughts and to refine my own. I’m now much better prepared to interact with him because I’m clearer about why I believe this direction is the best.

Memorizing facts and performing well are exemplary traits. But if our quest for achievement isn’t tempered with periods of quiet reflection on what we are actually trying to achieve, have we simply jumped another hoop and successfully failed to lead?

[This post was greatly improved through the excellent help of Karin Tome, who assists me in my Leadership in many ways.]