What's Wrong with Me?

1. Strengths. Your God-given capabilities which allow you to make a unique contributions in serving others. Our strengths may be spiritual gifts, acquired skills, or natural abilities.

2. Weaknesses. Our weaknesses are capabilities we may possess but for some reason are dormant. They may be unrealized spiritual gifts or undeveloped talents. Given the proper development and nourishment, weaknesses can be turned into strengths.

3. Limitations (or non-Strengths). Limitations are those capabilities which we lack. They are spiritual gifts or natural abilities which we do not possess. No matter how hard we try, there are some things we will never do well.

4. Flaws. Our flaws are cracks in our character. They are more serious than limitations. Limitations will simply prevent us from being outstanding in an area but flaws, if not properly dealt with, may derail one’s entire life or ministry no matter how gifted or successful it may be. Some examples of characters flaws are: inability to control anger; deep insecurity; latent racism / sense of cultural or national superiority; grudge-bearing; impatience or irritability; tendency to procrastinate; inability to forgive.

1. Character flaws generally work secretly at the core of our being, creating weak spots. They can be covered up until stresses of life or ministry touch that spot so strongly that it collapses into some kind of moral failure. The failure may be large and public or small and easily overlooked, like a reluctance to take a risk for fear of failure. All of us have flaws – it is part of our fallen human nature.
2. Dealing with our flaws is also part of God’s agenda for our character development and growth in maturity and ministry.

NOTE: Parts of this blog were developed from interaction with Dan Bacon and Shelley Trebesch

On Training and Coaching

For the past 15 years, I've been part of the leader training and development community for OMF International and for the IFMA/EFMA LeaderLink Program of Leadership Enhancement. For both OMF and LeaderLink we've designed training programs that best fit into the lifestyle of our ministry organizations, with several chief values:

1. Deliver quality training, geared for adult learners
2. Focus training on Missions leaders
3. Keep costs as low as possible

In this context I've been largely self-taught, since we had limited budget for equipping ourselves for the task. Early on in this process, I discovered the Books by Dr. Jane Vella, former Maryknoll sister, and more recently adult learning guru writing for Jossey-Bass publishers. I've devoured each of her seven books and have taught courses using her training designs in North and South America, Africa, Europe, Central Asia, and East Asia.

However, now that I'm slowing down my travel, due to advancing age, I'm trying to use my knowledge and skills in a new venue, coaching and mentoring via phone and Skype. It's been interesting to see how excited I can be after a 30 minute phone visit with a key colleague.

I think these tools may expand the lifespan of my ministry and I look forward to gaining new competencies. WorldTeam is sponsoring my attendance at Keith Webb's coaching workshop which will be held in Annapolis, MD in September.

On Falling off the Wagon

My "best laid plans" only lasted three days, but I'm getting back on the wagon and will shoot for four or five days this week.

I've been thinking about attending Dr. Ralph Winter's memorial service this coming Sunday. Dr. Winter has had such a tremendous impact on my life it's hard to know how to focus on it.

Some of the things I remember most were the "points of wisdom" he would share, often only one time, but they made an impact because of how apt they were in the context.

One day when we were discussing a new program for funding the USCWM he said, "It's not the organization with the best plans that succeeds, it's the organization that best implements their plans!"

This made a particular impact on me because at that time, the US Center was best known for the multitude of plans that we developed and shared. We were not known for implementing. Yet, Dr. Winter understood the importance of implementation, even though his creative mind was far better at planning than implementing.

I guess the second lesson that I took from that experience was, "It's important to know what's most important, even if you are better at something different."

It's Not About What You Do...

Today a friend challenged me to think about how I might help his agency.
I responded by saying that I felt that if I were to accept the challenge, it would be more about what they would stop doing, than about what they would do.

Most of our organizations try to do far too many things, given the level of resources the Lord has entrusted to us.

There are good reasons for this. Here are just a few:

• We don't know exactly what will work, so the more things we try, the more likely it is that "something" may succeed
• This is the Lord's work, and the needs are tremendous. The more we do, the more gets done. And that is a good thing!
• We work in voluntary organizations, and we want to encourage those who work with us by doing things that will advance their interests.
• For the above reasons, it's much easier, and it seems better to start something new than to stop anything we are currently attempting to do.

Another area that figures into our computation is that of resources. We understand that while our spiritual resources are infinite, the actual day-to-day human resources we deal with are finite, though somewhat flexible. Here, I'm thinking about mainly time and effort. We could work longer and harder, or even smarter, but only to a certain extent.

In the end, my observation is that most of us try to outrun our resources, and that results in work that does not result in moving us toward the ends the Lord has called us to achieve, resulting in wasted Kingdom resources.

What could we do to move in a more productive direction:

1. Take a serious, and specific inventory of what our current resources are, particularly in terms of the flexible categories of time and effort. (Just how many hours should your people work, at a sustainable pace?)
2. What activities are being effectively persued with excellence, using those resources?
3. If we were to limit our efforts to those God has currently provided resources for, what tasks and projects would we have to eliminate, delegate, postpone or abandon?
4. What could be the positive effects of our re-ordering our priorities in terms of forcing us to spend time equipping others, delegating tasks we do because we enjoy doing them, delaying things until resources were more abundant, etc.?

The founder of my agency, Hudson Taylor has famously said, "God's work, done in God's way, never lacks God's supply."

If resources are seemingly not available I'm forced to ask:

• Is this God's work? Is this really something God has assigned to me, or is it a bright idea I've assigned to myself without seriously seeking His direction?
• Am I pursuing this God's way? Have I run ahead of God's provision? How has God demonstrated His timing? Am I using the resources in the most effective and efficient way? Am I open to God's supernatural provision?

The writer of Hebrews exhorts us to "labor to enter into His rest." That might involve what we stop doing!

Leaarning to be Present

I tend to spend most of "no external demand" time thinking about things that I've seen and heard, or things that I've just dreamed up. My good friend, Dr. Tom Horn who works with The Navigators, just sent me a book summary he wrote on the book, Leadership Agility by B. Joiner, and S. Josephs. ( 2007). Tucked in near the end of his summary was this quotation which caught my eye:

Two modes of awareness help develop the personal capacities needed for leadership agility: reflection and attention. As we use these terms, reflection is a mental process that occurs after an experience has occurred, allowing you to recall and think about previous thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Attention refers to direct, nonconceptual awareness of physical, mental, and emotional experience in the present moment. Attention, which develops progressively as you move through the post-conventional stages, brings you into an intimate relationship with your present experience, which paradoxically gives you more perspective. (p. 261)

What this reminded me of was the emphasis of two books I'm reading to enhance my ability to coach others. Both books, Coaching for Excellence, Jane Creswell and Coaching for Christian Leaders, Linda Miller and Chad Hall, emphasize the importance of really, REALLY, REALLY, making a conscious effort not just to begin to listen to another, but to use a number of deliberate mental processes to help you stay engaged.

Of course at it's core, this is just a simple serving skill, rooted in the Pauline admonition to "consider others better than yourself." no matter how well I feel that I think, loving others, serving others, means using whatever skills I can learn and gain to pay attention to what others are saying.

I really want this to be true of my life and ministry.

Learning to Design Online Classes

I'm starting a class created by the mission agency associated with the Evangelical Free Church of America. This class is for those who wish to design online learning classes.

Since I'm serving as a leadership coach for WorldTeam, I'm working on a course that will introduce their workers to the leader profile that organization has recently adopted.

I've been a user of the web for about 15 years, and I've been designing training for adult learners for the past 13 years. However this is my first serious forray into web course design.

It should be fun to see how things progress.