Leadership

How Inclusive Is Your Church Community?

May 2, 2011 by Steve Crenshaw · 1 Comment

Are we really inclusive in our churches?

Many of us answer with a resounding, “Yes, of course. We welcome anyone who comes to our church.” Take a minute and think about your community, right now scan your church service from this morning. What do the people look like? Are they all the shades of brown we have as skin tone, or are they predominantly one shade? Are there older people and younger people, democrats and republicans, poor and wealthy? Is your church filled with all types of people or do they look pretty much like you?

I know the studies. I know how we should target everyone or we are going to reach no one. But do you really believe that Jesus wanted you to focus on an age group, or a socioeconomic subset of society? C’mon man! This is not predominately white conservative churches I am talking to. Every church should look at it’s congregation and ask are we as welcoming as Jesus.

The next time you are taking communion I want you to think about what is said as you partake of the bread and the wine or grape juice.

As you receive the bread you hear, “The body of Christ that was broken for you.” AS you receive the cup of wine or grape juice, “The blood of Christ that was shed for you.”

While the body of Christ was broken just for you, it was also broken for every one else on this planet. He did not die to save people like you, he died to save mankind. Are there people in your church that you need to welcome more? What about your work or community? It is up to us as individuals to be welcoming. If we really believe that the love of Christ can and will shine through us we need to let it shine, even to people that are different from us.

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged: anglican eucharistic theology, blood of christ, Body of Christ, Christ, Christianity, church, church community, church services, churches, community, eastern orthodoxy, eucharist, glorify, inclusive, methodism, people look, real presence, resound, sacraments, skin tones, transubstantiation

Do The Work

April 27, 2011 by Steve Crenshaw · Leave a Comment

The second book from Seth Godin’s Domino Project is out. Do the Work By Steve Pressfield is for all you work from home, I want to build a blog and make money types who can’t seem to sit down and do the work. (ME)

From the About Section,

This book is designed to coach you through a project (a book, a ballet, a new business venture, a philanthropic enterprise) from conception to finished product, seeing it from the point of view of Resistance.

We have all been there. The day needs to start, but the desk is so far away, and the couch is so comfortable. Rachel Ray is coming on after the morning news, or there is something I really want to see on Discovery or ESPN. This book is going to help those of us who suffer from the can’t get started syndrome a real kick in the pants.

For Instance,

Where butts need to be kicked, we shall kick them. Where kinder, gentler methods are called for, we’ll get out the kid gloves.

I probably need this book more than anyone, that is why I am writing this post. I am also reading the book and hating it. Get a copy, it’s not long so you can read it in a day then refer back as needed.

You can read the synopsis on the Domino Projects blog

Oh I forgot the best part.

The Best part is that the book is free so you can pick it up here Do the Work

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged: books, do the work, morning news, rachel ray, Seth Godin, steve pressfield

Pride Comes Before A Fall

April 25, 2011 by Steve Crenshaw · 3 Comments

Pride comes before a fall but having a Godly self-image can stop the fall.

I work with people all the time that believe they are the reason their company or church is in existence. I find that funny since most of their companies and church existed long before they came to them.

Self confidence is a touchy subject. It is touchy because it can lead to pride which is defined as:

a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.

Pride is over self-confidence.

When we have a healthy Godly self-image it is hard to become prideful. We understand that we are good at what we do because God has gifted us that way. We also understand that there are other people who can do our job. We know that God make people great, not what they do.

Pride Can Limit Our Choices

This may be because we think we are to good for a certain job. It may also be because to many people have seen us act inappropriately because of our pride. When we think we are to good for something many time we treat others poorly. I know a man who uses the word “stupid” when he refers to people who don’t agree with him. He believes it will make him look smarter if he tears someone else down. When I asked him why he thought someone was stupid he just said, “Because they are.” I don’t know if he thinks I’m stupid, but I know I won’t want to work with him on a project.

Pride Can Limit God

It can cause us to believe we don’t need help from God or anyone. We lose out on what He really wants for us. If we don’t see our it for what it is we can lose our contact with Him and begin living a life filled with other sins.

So if pride comes before a fall, the next time you think you are the be all end all, try walking on water. Then get back to doing what you are good at.

What in your life are you becoming prideful about? How can you stop?

Filed Under: Leadership ·

Take Time to Listen To Your Team

April 21, 2011 by Steve Crenshaw · 1 Comment

Being a leader means being out in front, casting vision, and setting goals for the team. One of the best ways I have seen to help a leader gain capital with his or her people is to listen to them. I recently read on Ron Edmondson’s blog where he asked his staff to evaluate him, The Team Evaluates the Leader 2011

When I first read this it blew me away that a pastor would give his team a chance to grade him in his work. The next thing that struck me was that he asked them to Name His Weaknesses and Do You See My Role Changing.

This got me thinking about a few things.

What do I need to hear? I assume there are people who need to tell me something but don’t feel comfortable doing so.
Am I willing to hear it? What sin is in my life that will prevent me from hearing what others are saying.
What other areas do I lead in? I am a leader in more places than church. Home, sports teams, businesses and more.
Who needs to evaluate me? Not everyone needs to be in on the process.

Are you willing to listen to others evaluate your leadership? Do you think evaluation is necessary to grow?
Image used under cc2.0 license from flickr user banlon1964

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged: casting, evaluating, evaluation, gain capital, grow, human interest, leader, leader evaluations, Leadership, Leading, listen, Listening, ron edmondson, setting goals, staff evaluations, team, teams, Time

A Relentlessly Loving Christian Community

April 15, 2011 by Steve Crenshaw · 1 Comment

Do You Have What It Takes To Love Relentlessly?

We live in an individualistic world where we work, live, and pray next to people we don’t know. We are separated by cubicles and garage doors. We hurry to get in to and out of our homes so we don’t have to say, “Hi!” to our crazy neighbor.

Our churches have become much the same. Many of us come in late and leave early so we don’t have to say, “Hi!” to anyone who may see us. We sit beside people we may or may not know, we sing and praise Jesus with as much fervor as we can muster, and still we know no one. Don’t forget we all attend a small group so we can participate in the community. But how much do we really participate in the lives of the people in our small group.

Jenna and her boyfriend aren’t getting along, so we pray for her. No one want’s to get involved so they don’t ask how she bruised her hand.

Mary and Tom are having financial “problems” so we pray for them. We don’t ask if they need some money, we wouldn’t want to pry.

Bill is always just fine, as he glances away and stares at the floor. What have those eyes been doing when no one is around?

The word relentless is defined as unyielding in one place, I define it as not giving up or not giving in.

I grew up in a small town and I saw what community was. When my mother passed away people flooded our house with gifts of money and food. We wanted for nothing for several weeks after that the cause of the love that was poured out on us from that community.

Living in a relentlessly loving Christian community means getting yourself involved in other people’s lives. Praying for God to open up relationships for you to love people. The letters written in the New Testament were not written to just correct things that were going wrong. Those letters were written by men who loved Christ and loved the believers that were in Christ’s church.

As we begin to love others in a way that Christ loved the church it may not work out as we plan. As we begin to see other through God’s eyes we will see things we never knew existed.

Filed Under: Discipleship, Leadership · Tagged: Christian community, Intentional relationships, Loving community, Relentlessly Loving community, Steve Crenshaw

Making Work Life Balance Work – Nigel Marsh (TED)

March 16, 2011 by Steve Crenshaw · 1 Comment

Liked Nigel’s talk from TEDxSydeny. Good lesson we need. Get Nigel’s book; Fat,Forty,Fired at Amazon

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged: Leadership, Nigel March, Personal Growth, Sydney, TED, Work Life Balance

How To Read A Book For All It’s Worth

January 13, 2011 by Steve Crenshaw · Leave a Comment

Learning How to Read a Book Will Help You Learn More and Faster

I read a 3-4 of books a month. When a book really catches my attention there are several thing I do to make sure it sticks with me.

1. Take Notes

I take notes on everything I read, listen to, and watch. I am a note taking machine. But I usually just file those notes away for future reference. When I read something that I know I need right away, I keep the notes where I can get to them and read them several times a day.

2. Underline, Bookmark, or Highlight

This only applies to books you own. I get books from the library all the time so I can’t mark up the pages. But if I own a book it gets well annotated. I put sticky arrows to pages that are highlighted and underlined. I write in the margins and dog-ear at the top and bottom to make sure I know where I am supposed to be reading.

Now that I am doing more reading on the Nook or Kindle and on my computer, I bookmark and highlight passages. I need a way to get those passages straight to Evernote (Developer Idea Here).

3. Reread

If you own a book this is easier, but if it is borrowed or from the library you can buy it or just check it out again. The second reading is where the deeper lessons come from. I just finished a book I read over a year ago and the lessons really hit home the second time around.

4. Teach Someone Else

When you teach, you get more out of it than your students do. When you develop a lesson plan it helps you dig deeper into the material. Even blogging requires you to get deeper into what you are writing about. Blog about what you read, just don’t steal it and rewrite it.

5. Apply It

When you use what you learn, you put it into your habits. Adding this step to what you want to learn will increase your chances of doing what you want by 100%. Go do it instead of just reading and memorizing it. Knowledge may be power, but knowledge doesn’t get stuff done.

The best book on learning how to read a book is How to Read a Book
By Mortimer J Adler. Adler was the editor of Great Books of the Western World
from Encyclopedia Britannica. I used to own the 54 volume set from 1952 but only have the St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

Filed Under: Discipleship, Leadership · Tagged: a book, Amazon Kindle, Book Reading, E-book, educational psychology, encyclopedia britanica, Evernote, Highlighter, How To Read A Book, IPhone, kindle, lesson plans, Nook, note taking, Reading, take note, underlined, writing systems

Innovation Breeds Complaints

August 30, 2010 by Steve Crenshaw · Leave a Comment

Have you ever changed something? If you have then you know exactly what I am talking about. When innovators see beyond the here and now and begin to move toward what they see, many people will stand up and try to stop them from going. If this is you, it is your job as an innovator to keep going and see the dream fulfilled. People can’t see your vision, they can’t know what you know. You can tell them everything you see but they will still not have as clear a vision about your dream as you will.

Surround yourself with people who will tell you the truth. If you are going somewhere you need people to tell you to stop if you are going in the wrong direction. Don’t confuse these people with the ones that are trying to get you to stop because they do not like change. Rehoboam failed this test when he did not listen to the elders but listened to the younger leaders. (1 Kings 12) You need people in your life to keep you from going off a cliff. Leaders cn not lead from a vacuum.

Surround yourself with positive people. These are people who may not see your exact vision but they will urge you to get there, and help you in any way they can. Negativity can stop you dead. Having just one person to cheer you on and tell you that you are doing a good job can drowned out the negative talk.

Put yourself in the shoes of the complainers. ask yourself, what are they losing, and what do I need to give a little on to help them make the adjustment. Moving to fast may be your only real problem. Slowing down and taking the time to explain what you are doing may be all you need to get more people on your side and stop the complaints.

Remember there will always be people you can not please. Use your positive influences to help you get past their arguments on to what you are called to do.

Image by alonso_inostrosa via cc 2.0

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged: Chang My Attitude, Complainers, Complaining, James MacDonald, Steve Crenshaw, Stop Complaining

Practices For Life

August 12, 2010 by Steve Crenshaw · Leave a Comment

The practices you choose to use in your life will make a difference on your success and failure.As we go through life we all need to be reminded about some simple lessons. These are simple thing that each person can do but still so difficult for so many to grasp.

Gratitude Will get you pretty far. Being thankful for what you have and for anything you receive will change your outlook on life. Once you are content with what you have you won’t need anything else. You can choose to be grateful everyday. Write down three to five things you are thankful for every night before you go to bed and begin to cultivate a new attitude.

Your thought life determines how you live. This is a play on the first one since all that we put into our mind is what we are going to get out. If you are continually thinking, “I wish I had that,” or “He’s lucky to get that promotion.” You will never find happiness. Seek the Lord first and all you need will be given to you.

Know where you are going. If you have a destination in mind you are more likely to get there than if you don’t. Take the time to find out where God wants you. We were given the Holy Spirit as a counselor to help guide us in our walk with Christ. If you are not seeking him in where you are going then you may not be going the right way.

Don’t worry about what others think. This is a hard lesson to learn but ties in with the first two above. We buy and want a lot of new stuff because we are scared of what people think about us. Grown men shop at clothing stores for teenagers, plastic surgery is sky rocketing, and the lines are around the block to get the newest cell phone that doesn’t even work very well. All because people worry about what others think. Look at the birds and the flowers, do they worry and toil, no. God still provides them with everything they need.

You can only give what you have. Put good stuff into your mind every day so that when you meet people who need what you have you can give it to them. Listen to good music and teachers, read good books and blogs, don’t watch the news or graphic television shows. You can get the top news headlines at Google News or newsmap. When I learned that my TV watching was nothing more than a habit it was easy to stop watching and change my habit.

Be kind. When you find yourself not being kind think about why you are not. What is in your mind that is causing you to be anything but kind to those around you. Jesus said to, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The person that is closest to you or in need of your help at any point is your neighbor. Love every one like you would yourself.

Image courtesy of Samuel Stocker via cc2.0 licences

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged: chosen, Christian Growth, Christian Living, confucianism, difference, failure, holy spirit, Kindness, lessons, life, Life Practices, Personal Growth, practice, practices, practices for life, Steve Crenshaw, Success, taoism, thankful, Thoughts

What Traveling Can Teach You About Leadership

August 1, 2010 by Steve Crenshaw · Leave a Comment

My wife, children and I just got home from seeing her father in Indiana. It is a twelve-hour drive so we spent a lot of time thinking, conversing and planning the future. Here are some points on leadership we came up with.

Not Everyone Goes At The Same Speed

When you are driving this is obvious as cars go flying by you at 90 mph, or maybe for you it is reversed but that’s your business. When you are leading you may not see it as clearly. When you want to see growth in a group of people your first tendency may be that, “I got it, why can’t they.” Not every concept is as obvious to those we lead as it is to us. Whether it is their maturity level, or the place they are at in their growth, not everyone will get it at the same time.

Not Everyone Will Follow You.

This has to be one of the most overlooked aspects of being a leader. You may think everyone will follow you but the odds are that some one will not. Just like cars people will go faster or slower than you do. People will pass you and some will drop off altogether. This is usually proportionate to your level of leadership. We all know that if you have a lower level of leadership, people with a higher leadership aptitude will not follow you. The reverse is true as well. If you are an eight or nine there are threes and fours that will be jealous of your leading and they won’t follow.

Big Ideas Don’t Come Along As Often As Small Ones.

We went through tens of small towns along the way several medium towns but only three big cities: Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville. Big ideas are direction changers and take time to work through. Developing a big ideas may take outside help to give you direction, but they also provide more options than smaller ideas. Small ideas keep you going and build on the momentum of the big idea. Smaller ideas may add to the big ideas or they may help your sort out details, but they are not direction changers. Some small ideas may become big ideas if they are developed right, but that is for another post.

When Coming Out Of Something Big It May Take Time To Get Everyone Up To Speed.

When a big idea has run its course there will be people who want to stay at that level. They want to hang on to the big idea because it gave them security and some it gave a leadership position to. If it worked before why will it not work again many ask, not able to realize that times change and ideas become safety nets to keep us from being stretched and changed. Some will abandon you or the organization for another place that can give them the safety of that one big idea that meant so much to them.

The Going Can Be Slow At Times

Traffic moves slow at times, and so does growth. There will be times when you are developing an idea and it will feel like no one but you gets it. Whether it is your growth, your people’s growth, or just the wrong time it will feel like you are going nowhere fast. During these times you may want to give up or get off the road, but now is not the time. It is okay to pull over and reevaluate and check your direction, but you need to get back on the road and keep going in the direction you believe you should. Eventually you will see the pace start to pick up and changes start to take place.

image by flicker user kool_skatkat used under cc2.0 liscense

Filed Under: Leadership · Tagged: Growth, Leadership, Leading, leading growth, Personal Growth, Steve Crenshaw, Teamwork, traveling leadership, Vision Development