Learning Leadership

HOW TO ALLOW YOUR ORGANIZATION/PROGRAM SUCCEED WHEN YOU ARE GONE

This past week marked the second year that A Day of Hope has been operating without me leading it.

I am grateful to say that last year and this year the new team leading A Day of Hope fed more families each year than I had. They have continued to grow the program to serve and help more people (just as the need for the service has increased too).

While journaling about my observations of A Day of Hope, I believe there are a couple of reasons why A Day of Hope has continued to have success without me.

Today I will share the first reason, and tomorrow will be the second the reason.

The first reason is that I have a passion to serve others and a tremendous work ethic. The model I showed everyone who was involved with A DAy of Hope over five years was my passion to serve others with the tremendous work ethic to back up that passion.

Several volunteers with A Day of Hope can attest to me sleeping in the church, staying up half the night, and working more than 12 hours a day every day for more than a month to make the program successful.

Leadership is caught more than it is taught and I sincerely believe that the new regime of people leading A Day of Hope also have that passion to serve others and tremendous work ethic. I believe they share the work load more effectively so there is less pressure on one person, but I see the same passion and work ethic in all of them.

Tomorrow I will share with you the second reason the program has continued to succeed: I modeled good leadership and then I got out of the day.

Question: What are some leadership characteristics that you modeled which have been caught by the people you lead? 

Affirmation for the Work I Do, and Hope to do More of It

In the fall of 2009 I attended training for small group leaders at our church where I heard a silent and subtle voice say to me, “Christopher, go and make leaders of everyday men and women.”

To give more context to this, let me back up. For almost a year I had felt a strong desire in my heart to serve leaders. I had already started writing a book to help nonprofit leaders and organized a leadership seminar at our church. I attended this small group training because I next wanted to create a group of men who wanted to study the topic of leadership from the Bible.

This week I am encouraged when reading Ajith Fernando’s chapter, “Affirmed by God,” in his book, Jesus Driven Ministry because at times I feel inferior, ill-equipped, and not gifted for the desire in my heart and what I believe God has told me to do. When I work hours to develop a Bible study only to have it not seem relevant to the participants, I feel discouraged. When I spend three hours at a book fair only selling one book the entire time, I feel lonely. However, Fernando provides great encouragement to me when he writes, “When we experience this affirmation [of our Christian service] over and over again, the messages we got from the world that we are useless, inferior, and insignificant lose their power” (pg. 54). 

Going forward with my ministry to serve leaders I pray that God will continue to encourage me to keep creating content for leaders because little bit by little bit, with his encouragement, I will overcome the negative messages the world sends me about ministry. 

Question: How do you feel affirmed in the work you do? 

Do What You Love

Here's part two of chapter three of my book, A Day of Hope.  If you missed the first section, you can follow the link below.

Passion: Discover & Deploy Your Strengths

DO WHAT YOU LOVE

As we’ve worked through these areas, you’ve probably started to think about the areas you’re strong in and how those are the things you love to do.  Often our passions and our strengths are mirrored closely in each other.  There are times where we’re really good at something we don’t like to do, but those are the exceptions.

Thinking through this process of discovering your strengths, here are some good questions to ask yourself:

• What do you love to do? 
• What are your hobbies? 
• What’s your favorite activity? 
• What’s your favorite part of your normal day to day job? 
• What would you do for free simply because you love doing it?

The things you love to do have a good chance of being the things that you’re great at.  Those might be the things where you have some natural talent that should be used and developed. 

Why I'm up at 4am on Saturday

It’s a Saturday morning here in California and I’m ready to rock-n-roll for the day (at 4am).

But why be up so early on a Saturday? On a day where most people can’t wait to just sleep in.

Two reasons:
Passion – I’m passionate about the work I do. I know my work makes a difference in the lives of others and it makes a difference in my own life. 

Work Ethic – Because I know the work I do makes a difference, I must work hard to continue to make a difference to meet the needs of our community. I know that the harder I work, the more people we help and the bigger difference that we make.

What time do you wake up and why?