BLeach

It is Finished

I just sent the greatest email of my life.  This afternoon my editor sent me the final revisions on my compiled integrative project.  So I joyfully attached it to an email and sent it off to my professor. 

Leah held my hand as I hit "send."

I know what you're thinking.  I already graduated.  That's true, technically. I already walked the line in my cap and gown, so maybe this moment is a bit anti-climactic.  But to be honest, this feels like the real graduation to me!

Now what will I do with all my extra free time?

Oh yeah...I've got some diapers to change:)

In Class to Change a City

I'm back in class this week studying evangelism strategies for the local church. Looking forward to dreaming about inspiring a life-transforming movement in Metro Detroit.

Mark Batterson is teaching our class today and tomorrow. I really respect Mark's passion to pastor one church for life and see Washington DC transformed. He's also the person who inspired me to start blogging. Really appreciate his friendship.

Honestly though, my feelings are mixed. This feels like a tough week for me to be away from home.  I miss my wife!  This is also a big week for our church since we're launching in our new location this coming Sunday.  As tough as it is to feel like I'm away from the action for a few days, I'm really appreciating our solid team of leaders who are back home getting the last minute details nailed down.

I'm also in the home stretch of my Master's Program.  Only two classes left!

Where Hurry Comes From

I'm back in class this week.  I'm in the home stretch.  After this one I've only got two more to go!

This week we're studying Disciple-Making with Bill Hull.  He's been reminding us that making disciples is intricately connected to being disciples.  Changing a city begins by living a changed life.  Corporate transformation begins by experiencing personal transformation.

Here's the challenge for some of us.  Experiencing progressive spiritual growth takes time, and patience is something I don't always have.

Bill said something this afternoon that I want to remember.  Pride and worry create hurry.

In other words, I'm afraid something important is not going to get done (worry), and I'm equally convinced that I'm the only one who can do it (pride), so I end up living in an adrenaline fueled state of hurry.  And hurry is not the place in which personal discipleship, change and transformation take place.

If you want to lead change in your church, city, family, or workplace, try starting here.

Slow down and be changed.

The Fruit of His Life

Pastor Max Yeary spent the day with our cohort.  He began pastoring Christian Life Center the year I was born (1978).  He's been there ever since.

Today he put his life into his lecture and I observed something meaningful.

Max loves his staff members like a father loves a son. 

Almost all of them were saved at CLC and have been discipled through Max's life. He honors each of them with his words (even though none of them are here). And he speaks with pride about former staff members who have gone on to lead great churches.

During one of our breaks I thanked him for giving me such a vivid picture of servant leadership. When I did tears filled his eyes.

There's something compelling about a leader who wears his heart on his sleeve.

What's Your Conflict Management Style?

I wish it weren't true, but conflict is an inevitable part of life. I'm back in class this week learning how to manage conflict in the church. It's helped me to realize that everyone has a preferred style for conflict management, as well as a fall back style that they revert to as tension increases. Here are the styles:

• Avoiding: Attempting to stay out of conflict by refusing to be identified with either side.
• Accommodating: Preserve relationships at all cost.
• Collaborating: Get everyone involved in defining the conflict and carrying out mutually agreeable steps for managing the conflict.
• Compromising: Provide each side with a little bit of winning in order to persuade them to accept a little bit of losing.
• Competing: Assumes there are basically two types of outcomes in conflict, and winning is better than losing.

My natural style is competing, and my fall back is accommodating. In other words, my personality leads me to pursue a decision that I think is right, but then I tend to pull back if I sense that relationships are being affected negatively. I know, it's a little schizophrenic:)

None of the styles are appropriate in every situation. That means it's helpful to learn how to function in each of them when necessary.

What's your style?

Home Sick

Sitting in terminal 3 at the Phoenix airport.  I got out of class early today and booked it over to the airport to try and fly standby on a flight that's gettig ready to leave.  Unless three people who have already checked in decide they want to stay in Airzona, I'm going to be here for awhile.  Eight hours to be exact.  The next flight is a red eye that gets me back to Detroit at 5.30 tomorrow morning:(

I guess I can use the time to find a Starbucks, plug my computer in, and write that paper that was due today.  But I'm not going to lie.

I miss my bride!

So, if you're in Phoenix and want to by dinner for a stranded preacher, now's your chance!

Preaching and Passion

I'm in grad classes this week studying the art and craft of preaching. 

This morning we talked about the role of passion in preaching.  Here are some thoughts from both Ron Wood's lecture as well as class discussion.

• I can teach you some things about how to preach.  But I can't teach you how to love it.
• Passionate preaching doesn't refer to vocal volume or demonstrative hand gestures.  It is more about conviction.  Conviction that you have a Word from God and that it contains the power to change someone's life.
• When I preach, I need to become the exploding man.

Some challenges to preaching with passion:

• Momentum cycles: seasons of high leadership demands have the potential to diminish passion for preaching.
• Discouragement and adversity: sometimes we have to preach hurt (like Kobe is playing hurt):

Some strategies to develop and maintain passion:

• Talk about your message throughout the week with your staff, spouse, colleagues, and friends in the community.  Let it simmer and expand to a crescendo so that by the time you step up to preach it you've become the exploding man.
• Pray through your notes in the marketplace (Starbucks, Borders, Sidewalks, etc).  Marinate your message in the presence of real people with real needs.
• Spend time with passionate people.  Catch what they've got.
• Preach for the next level of ministry in your church.
• Pray and fast regularly.  The spiritual disciplines prepare the soul so that your message comes from a deep place of conviction.

What else do you do to develop and maintain passion for preaching?

Becoming Helpful

I'm at class this week studying interpersonal techniques for helping relationships (which is a fancy marketing term for pastoral counseling).  Here are a few random thoughts that have stood out:

• Preaching can reduce a pastor's counseling load if it is therapeutic.  Helpful preaching is Bible-based and relevant to life.  It also invites an intentional response through which people can be healed.  If we allow for and expect healing to take place through our preaching, it can become a type of group therapy session.
• I do more counseling than I think.  I've never considered myself a counselor, but I'm realizing how much counseling I really do during the course of a ministry week.  Most of it happens informally outside of my office.
• You don't have to be a professional therapist to become a great counselor.  Becoming naturally therapeutic is the process of developing the interpersonal skills that will make you helpful in your relationships (stuff like empathy, authenticity, transparency, and compassion).
• Listening may be the most underrated relationship skill.  It's powerful, and challenging, especially for fix-it types like me:)

Dr. Gary Collins is with us today and tomorrow.  He's the godfather of Christian counseling and has written about 60 books.  Pretty cool to get two days with a guy who's had so much infuence.

Fall Read List

I'm in a bit of a reading daze these days:)  I'm averaging about three books a week.  Most of them have been required texts for class.  And fortunately most of them have been helpful.

I've always been a reader, but I've never pushed myself this hard to read and grow.  And without something as structured as my Master's Program, I don't think I would.  Even though each syllabus feels like an uphill treadmill climb, I'm thankful for the push to become a better leader.

Thankfully my time spent on school hasn't diminished my passion to lead our church.  The opposite has actually happened.  My love for local church ministry is intensifying.  And my understanding of who God has called me to be as a pastor/church planter/leader is growing. 

For what it's worth, here are the four books I've enjoyed the most so far this fall:

• The Celtic Way of Evangelism: This book combines two things I love, theology and history.  It's the story of how Patrick's communal church planting movement reached the barbarians, a group the book compares to postmoderns.
• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: I can't believe I never got around to reading this classic before.  Such a solid book.  I can't stop drawing the diagrams:)
• Leadership Coaching: There's alot I like about the coaching model of developing leaders.  It's a skill I'm starting to practice.
• The Shape of Practical Theology: Long and heady.  A few of the chapters went totally over my head:)  But the big idea of the book really resonated.  Practical theologians climb down from the ivory tower to interpret the Word of God through the Work of God.

I'm just glad Leah is also in a graduate program.  I don't feel as bad about doing homework on our dates!

Back in Class

Yesterday I started the second class in my new Master's Program.  So far so good!  The focus of this class is Pastoral Ministry.  We're zooming out and taking a bird's eye view at the local church.  It's comprehensive (and just a bit overwhelming!)

The program is built around a systematic, principle based model for local church ministry.  In other words, it isn't method specific.  That was one of the selling points to me regarding this specific program.  In fact, the makeup of our cohort is an extremely diverse collection of lead pastors from a large variety of communities.  I'm one of the younger guys.  The age range in our group ranges from 25 to just over 60.

The diversity has really energized class discussions and enabled me to soak up a tremendous amount of experience.  Yesterday I listened for a few hours as seasoned pastors shared lessons they've learned in ministry.

It's priceless.  Expensive:)  But priceless!