UPDATE: Mack Harris, Emily’s dad, passed away this morning. Here’s the post from earlier today.

My father-in-law was diagnosed with leukemia in November 2010. After a couple of rounds of chemotherapy, he enjoyed about nine months of remission. Unfortunately, that ended last fall. Now he’s living his final days here on Earth.

Mack Harris on the right. Emily Morgan second from the left.

Emily, my wife, has been back to Ohio every month for the last several months. She was there again last week. She has spent some cherished time with her dad and mom. Last night, she wrote this on Facebook:

With four kids in three different schools, a teenage driver, and a husband who travels, I typically have my cell phone pretty close by. These days, however, with the news of my dad’s death potentially days away, it’s never more than an arm’s length away. I keep the volume on at night and my heart drops each time it rings. I dread the call. I don’t want it to come. But it’s coming.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about bad news. Nobody ever signs up for bad news or puts the welcome mat out for it, yet we all get it. It’s a part of life. The potential for illness, death, unemployment, or financial hardship is there. But how do we prepare for it?

To say that we’re ready for any hardship would be pompous and assuming. But to be prepared is quite different. To know that hard times are part of our human existence and to take steps, in advance, to lessen the pain is the only way to be prepared for the news. The death of a beloved father is less difficult, for example, when there is open love and communication, with nothing left unsaid. The news of unemployment is less difficult when there’s money in the bank. And, when the economy tanks, it’s less difficult to believe you’re going to make it when you’ve learned to work hard and live well within your means. It takes little steps, really, to be prepared. Those little steps, over time, get you to a place where you can grieve without guilt, search for a new job without panic, and live your life without regret.

So, what are you doing to prepare? Do you need to ask for forgiveness? Do you need to say “I love you”? Should you cut up the credit card, sell the car, or cancel the membership? Little steps, over time, produce results that will help you live a life that is not without hardships, but that is more likely to help you through them.

We are going to miss Mack. He’s been an incredible husband, father and grandfather. Now, though, we’re praying for the opportunity in front of him. He’s professed faith in Jesus Christ. Though he’s never been paid in ministry, he’s been in full-time ministry. His path is clear. Heaven awaits.

Please continue to pray for Mack and Priscilla Harris and their family.

Abby, my 11-year-old, gave me this picture for Christmas. It’s now hanging in the home office.

The picture was her idea. She drew it. I think she’s a pretty perceptive young lady. It captures my personality very well. I’m all about business. I want to develop the strategy and work the strategy. But, I have a creative bent. I like life when it’s filled with new ideas and new opportunities.

What does the picture on your office wall say about you?

Ben Stroup

As part of the current series addressing the shifts leaders should consider making in the new year, I connected with Ben Stroup. Ben is a writer, blogger and consultant and he helped me produce the eBooks that I’ve released in the last twelve months. Here’s our interview:

TONY: What’s one thing that leaders and/or organizations (businesses, churches, non-profits, etc.) should consider stopping in 2012?

BEN: Stop being efficient. The larger the organization or church, the more likely they are to move toward efficiencies. Manufacturing is built around the goal of creating consistencies that can be scaled based on needs or demand. The goal is to adjust the quantity rather than the substance of each unit. The more units, the more profitable the product line becomes because you can spread the cost over more units.

This is fine when you are working with widgets, but people are not widgets. People are emotional, inconsistent, and unique. Organizations and churches should be engaging with people (inherently inefficient) rather than simple reproducing previously agreed upon standards. One path feeds the organizational process while the other path becomes a catalyst for change and impact.

We still have to focus on growth. If an organization or church is not multiplying, it is not fully alive and growing. There is always an element of efficiency that is part of growth, but it shouldn’t limit our strategy and tactics as it relates to connecting to and engaging with our core audience. Organizations and churches that will thrive in 2012 will exchange efficiency for effectiveness and reintroduce a level of humanity in the midst of their process development planning.

Continue Reading…

Jeff Henderson

As part of my series on things leaders should stop and start doing, I connected with Jeff Henderson,  the Lead Pastor of Gwinnett Church which is a campus of North Point Ministries. What are some of the shifts leaders need to make going forward? Here are Jeff’s thoughts:

Stop comparing.

There’s far too much time and energy wasted on studying the competition. We will never find our true potential by comparing ourselves to others. Only by comparing ourselves and our organizations to our own potential will we find unchartered territories and possibilities.

The people and organizations you respect the most do just that. You can too. Stop comparing yourself to others. Start comparing yourself to your own God-given potential. This is where true uniqueness and creativity is found.

Start thinking more.

Leaders do. That’s what we do. But the pace of doing can prevent the necessity of thinking. This year, carve out more “think time” in advance. Examples: 10 minutes a day. One hour a week. One day per quarter.

If you commit to this, you’ll discover a powerful principle: Great thinking leads to better doing.

You can follow more of Jeff’s thoughts on the Gwinnett Church blog.

Eric Geiger

As part of the series on leadership to start this year, I connected with Eric Geiger, Vice President of the Church Resource Division at LifeWay Christian Resources. We talked about the shifts leaders need to make going forward. Here’s our brief interview:

TONY: One thing leaders should consider stopping?

ERIC: Something good that is stealing energy and resources from the best…

For church leaders, this may be a program that yields little fruit or a meeting that is always on the calendar but never results in any life-giving ministry decisions. A lot of leaders stress better time management to their teams, but if teams are devoting energy to ineffective ministries or programs, then time management only makes the waste more efficient. And who wants more efficient waste? More efficient waste never changed the world.

For this reason, a “stop doing” list is actually more important than a “start” list because only when you stop doing something will you have liberated energy and resources for what matters more. As Von Goethe said, “Things that matter the most must never be at the mercy of things that matter the least.”

Some may argue that all the waste has already been eliminated, that everyone is operating at full capacity on what matters most. But such an argument is actually a confession that additional capacity has not been developed. The person has just admitted he or she has stopped growing as a leader or stopped growing the people he or she serves. The truth is that when we grow our teams and ourselves, there is new margin because organizational capacity has been raised. In the same way, business process consultants articulate that whenever a process is improved, new waste is created through greater productivity. The art of leadership is focusing the newly created energy on what produces the most value, which leads to Tony’s second question:

Continue Reading…

I wrote an article on the “Culture of Honor” back in March of last year. At that time, there was a lot of conversation happening around the article through Twitter, comments and email.

What has surprised me, though, is the traction that the article has maintained through the last several months. It became one of the top ten posts from all of 2011. A number of other people have referenced the article including this post from Geoff Surratt from his series on “Five Scary Trends” in the Church. And, I still continue to get email messages from people who have been impacted by the churches who have a one-way view of honor. Here’s an excerpt from a recent message:

“I greatly appreciate your blog post on ‘The Culture of Honor.’ I was on staff at a church that embraces this one-way philosophy and I can tell you it has damaged me spiritually and emotionally. Thankfully, only by God’s grace, I am trusting to be healed from this spiritually abusive situation. It seems there is a wave of churches embracing this culture, and I’m concerned about how it’s hurting people. To give you an example of the severity, my coworker not only left the job and the church, she has not returned to any church in two years.  I don’t think injuring people in an effort to win souls was God’s plan.”

As I mentioned in the original article, I believe honor is a good thing. It’s biblical. But it’s supposed to go both directions. It begins with pastors who embrace humility and aspire to be servant leaders — every leader in the church should be a servant leader.

We need to continue to have people in our lives that have the freedom to encourage and challenge us in this area. Look at your leadership. What type of culture are you creating?

Thom Rainer

A couple of weeks ago, Thom Rainer, the President and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources, shared twelve trends for 2012. These trends were developed based on research and observations of America’s healthiest churches. The list includes:

1. Churches have a high view of Scripture.
2. A large number of church members read the Bible daily.
3. The churches have a priority and focus on the nations.
4. The churches have a missional community presence.
5. The congregations have membership that matters.
6. The members are evangelistically intentional.

For Thom’s commentary on each of these trends, see the first article in this series. For the remainder of the list, check out this second article.

Based on your experience in healthy (or unhealthy) churches, do you concur with these trends? What else would you add?

Join the conversation by sharing your comment.

Jenni Catron

As part of the current series addressing the shifts leaders should consider making in the new year, I connected with Jenni Catron, the Executive Director of Cross Point Church in Nashville. Here’s what Jenni had to share:

Stop making excuses.

Giving in to excuses – oftentimes really fair and somewhat believable excuses can easily derail great leaders and great organizations. We can’t grow because we don’t have space. We can’t make that change because we would lose people or customers. But when we give into excuses (and the fears that go with them) we stop growing, we quit accomplishing the vision, we stagnate and eventually start to decline. We don’t realize this with the first couple of excuses that trip us up but eventually “we can’t” becomes normal vocabulary. Don’t let excuses hold you back this year.

Start asking “how?”

If you are going to stop making excuses, then you have to start asking “how?” The perspective shift for you and your organization goes from “can we?” to “how do we?” If you are wired to be a leader, you naturally long to be a part of something that is healthy and growing. The tension of growing things is that… well, they’re growing, and growing things are always outgrowing whatever is confining them… money, buildings, staff, etc. When the challenges come that feel insurmountable with your current resources, that’s probably a good thing. You have a choice to either give in to the excuses or to start asking, “how can we do this?  Is there a way? What could we tweak, change, adjust to do this?” Asking “how?” moves the seemingly impossible to possible.

You can follow more of Jenni’s thoughts and writing at JenniCatron.tv.

Jon Acuff

I recently connected with Jon Acuff, a speaker and author who is connected with the Dave Ramsey team. We talked about the shifts leaders need to make going forward. Here’s our brief interview:

TONY: What’s one thing that leaders and/or organizations (businesses, churches, non-profits, etc.) should consider stopping in 2012?

JON: Stop pretending you can use social media without a cost. Social media offers tremendous benefits but if we’re not careful in the ways we use it, the areas of our lives we use it in and how often we use it, there can be tremendous consequences as well.

TONY: What’s one thing that leaders and/or organizations should consider starting in 2012?

JON: Start being honest as a team about the fears you have about the work you’re doing in 2012. One of the things fear always tries to do is isolate you and put you on an island so that you think you’re the only one that feels a certain way. This can kill collaboration and culture within a team. Start voicing those fears out loud so that together you can see them for what they really are and kill them as a team.

You can read more from Jon on his blog Stuff Christians Like. Or check out his most recent book, Quitter, using my Amazon link.

This made me chuckle. But thanks to everyone who has purchased the new Kindle version of Developing a Theology of Leadership.