vision

A Leader is a Self-Starter

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A leader must be a self-starter who is ahead of the people he leads.

A Christian leader must know their role and how to do it without requiring external instruction. Leaders do not wait to receive direction.

If you have a job description, make sure you understand it and know it so well that you continually look for ways to fulfill it. If you did not receive a job description or are running your own organization, develop a description of your role so you have guidance in how you will spend your time.

This often requires an understanding of the mission and vision of the church or organization you lead. You need to know where you are to be leading others toward, and how you will measure success as you work toward it.

With the job description and vision in mind, prayerfully set the course for how you will spend your time. Identify your responsibilities and areas to delegate. I constantly check in with God for wisdom and discernment on what is important for each day and what needs to be left for another day.

A self-starter knows what is needed and how to determine what activities they should pursue for the day. This means knowing the daily and weekly requirements that can not be missed.

A self-starting leader schedules their efforts. I have found it helpful to occasionally set time aside to determine what needs to be done in the next year, next six months, next 30 days, and the next week. A self-starter knows that you cannot stumble into each day with no idea what needs to be done in the near future. Planning is a key characteristic of a self-starter.

For example, in my role, I preach a sermon each Sunday. At the beginning of each week, I know that this is something I need to prepare without putting it off for later. There are also some recurring meetings that I can anticipate and prepare for in advance according to my role in these meetings and my expected contributions. A self-starting leader knows how to schedule and then do what is required.

Being a self-starter means you do what needs to be done. Be clear what is required, and then you do it. Don’t wait for others to direct your activities. If you do, then you are definitely not a leader but are following the leading of someone else.

Planning and preparation is arriving to commitments on time, if not early. A self-starter is an achiever because they do the work required to get the job done.

The self-starting leader is courageous, pushing beyond comfort zones. This includes trying new things, not taking unnecessary risks, but open to taking risks to move beyond what is to what could be. This leader is the visionary who is willing to look out and pursue a new future or new direction because he sees what others don’t. While he tries to get others on board, he does not wait for everyone to agree with him before he takes necessary steps to what could be.

A driven leader is a self-starter. This leader is ambitious and passionate about moving the people and organization forward. This leader is not content to only do what has been done, or just doing enough to make people happy, but eagerly seeks opportunities for positive change.

A Christian leader asks God to continually guide as they move ahead to get things done and move people to the future God has for them.

Keep looking up,

Andy Wiebe

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2023 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

THE PASSIONATE CHURCH – by Mike Slaughter

Mike Slaughter draws on his United Methodist heritage and denominational connections to describe what a passionate church looks like. He addresses Four Areas of Focus as highlighted by the United Methodist Church: Developing Principled Christian Leaders, Engaging in Ministry for the Poor, Creating New and Renewed Congregations, and Improving Health. He does a great job of giving good examples for how each of these areas can become a real part of how a church does ministry. He uses examples from his own church in Ginghamsburg as well as from many others. What I love most about this book is the practicality of it. Passionate Church is a few years old now (2008), but the same questions can still be asked of our church and how we are living out our calling in our own communities.

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2023 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

SO BEAUTIFUL: Divine Design for Life and the Church – by Leonard Sweet

Leonard Sweet writes about what the church may be like if she was living up to their divine design. He suggests that there are three key aspects to consider. He calls it the MRI of the church: Missional, Relational, and Incarnational. He contrasts this with what he calls the APC church: Attractional, Propositional, and Colonial. I especially appreciated his discussion of the incarnational church where he highlighted the importance of a church understanding it’s local context and being truly the church for that context. Don’t copy other churches, be the church your own community needs to best hear the gospel of Jesus.

The Protecting Role of the Leader

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Few leadership books address the protecting role of a leader. Yet, if you are a leader, you a responsibility to protect those who are following you from distractions that will stop them from following you or moving toward your vision. Business leaders, too, must ensure that they are aware of outside forces that might derail those under their leadership from pursuing their purpose and vision. This might happen in various ways, such as someone speaking negatively about you and the goal you are pursuing or the distractions of life that keep your team from being fully focused on the task at hand.

Church leaders – pastors and elders – need to understand their protective role too. Even as they are looking to help people grow in their knowledge of and love for God, they need to be aware of the influences that can undermine their leadership. Let’s consider a few influences that a church leader may need to protect their congregation from.

False teaching

Much of the church leader’s role teaching. The church needs to be taught about who God is, how to love and obey Him, and how to communicate with Him in prayer. Leaders use the Bible as their main teaching tool and the basis for all they believe.

False teaching is ideas and teachings that conflict with scripture. If a church is begins to follow false teachings, church leadership should steer them back to the truth of scripture. Church leaders need to recognize when someone within the church is misleading people and needs to be corrected or even removed.

False teaching can also creep in from the world. Our culture influences us all as we live in it. In the same way the early church lived within a culture that often opposed Jesus’ teachings, there are some things being taught and accepted in our culture that are in direct opposition to God and His Word. For example, it is not okay to end a pregnancy just because it is seen as an inconvenience. God is clear that all life is precious and He is the only one who can determine the end of someone’s life. Similarly, euthanasia is becoming common in Canada, where you can choose to end your life medically, for a number of reasons. Again, life is precious and only God can determine the end of someone’s life. Church leaders need to remind their church of what God teaches in the Bible so they can recognize when what they hear or see does not match up to God’s Word.

Attempts to derail the vision

The church exists to help people love God and love others. To do this, many churches have an agreed-upon vision that guides them. They have spent time praying and talking together and gaining an understanding of the needs of their community. As a result, they have come up with a vision that is their response to the needs around them. It is important for churches to adhere to this vision. For example, if you are a church that believes your main role is to reach out to the poor in your community, then protect your church from those who are pushing for you to do more to reach the professionals in your town. No matter what your vision is, there will be some who do not agree or fully buy in. There may also be some who deliberately try to derail that vision and cause confusion in your midst. You need to protect your congregation from that confusing voice. Questions and debate have their place, but you want to make sure that people have a clear understanding where you are going and why.

Busy people

Churches often fall into the habit of making people busy in the church with all kinds of activities. Church leadership needs to recognize when some of the good things going on need to be removed. Leadership needs to protect people from busyness that prevents them from being able to participate in pursuing the church’s vision.

There are times church leaders need to make some very difficult decisions about what ministries need to be cut so people have time to do what is more important.

Satan

Of course, the one who truly wants to mess with the church, with the followers of Jesus who make up that church, is the evil one – Satan. He has messed with people right from the time of Adam and Eve until now, trying to confuse us and doing all he can to make us wander away and deny God. Church leaders need to protect their people from Satan’s attacks. They need to regularly pray a covering over their church. They need to remind people that we do not fight against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers of the unsee world. Even when people are doing wrong and causing disruption in the church, it is Satan who is behind their actions.

Church leaders, you have a role of protecting your people, even as you lead them. Be aware of what is going on and when you need to confront or speak up about where people are being misled. Ask God for wisdom and discernment in the process so you can recognize when danger arises and how to combat it.

Keep looking up,

Andy Wiebe

The Privilege of Dreaming

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I like to help people to discover what God is asking of them and how they can do it. We have the privilege of dreaming today, maybe much more so than the average person a few centuries ago. Life has become so much easier for many of us and we don’t often consider how people used to work hard from dawn to dusk just to put food on the table and keep a roof over their family. Today, many of us have the privilege of time for entertainment, and time to get bored, but we also have time to dream. We have time and energy to dream about what we could do with our lives.

As someone who has put my faith in God, my starting point for dreaming is God and His desires for me.  While a bucket list of things we might like to do or see or experience is fun, I find it gives me greater purpose in my life to know that I am responsible to God and He knows best for my life. As a child of God, I can trust that my Father knows best.

What a privilege –  to dream about what could be.

When students graduate from high school, well-meaning parents and teachers tell them a lie. “You can be anything you want to be.” That is absolutely not true. Yes, you can dream big and pursue many different options, but we all have certain limitations. If you can’t carry a tune you will not be a backup singer for Taylor Swift. If you have poor eyesight, you will not be flying fighter jets. There are many things that limit our ability to choose to do anything we want. But if you are listening to God, you can do anything that God wants you to do. When we reorient ourselves to the will of God, He opens the doors to possibilities that we may not have imagined.

I have seen God give me opportunities that I never expected. He has opened doors I would never have tried to open. As Ephesians 3:20 says, I have experienced God doing more than I can ask or imagine. For example, I have gone on trips that I would never have thought possible, and serve rural churches and pastors beyond my local church.

We have the privilege of asking God for His dreams, so when we dream, our imagination is guided and informed by God Himself. Now our dreams flow from a heart surrendered to Him rather than focused on us and what we can do or experience.

In the Bible, the letter from James warns about dreaming and planning for tomorrow. In James 4:15 we are cautioned, “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live or do this or that.’” Our dreams should be God-given dreams where we listen for the Lord’s will and then work toward fulfilling it.

I believe that we need to look forward with hope and excitement. We need to see that God has put opportunities in our path. He has called us to certain responsibilities and wants to help us do our best with them.

Right now, God has called me to serve as a Transition Pastor, serving different churches for about a year or so, helping them to be as healthy as possible as they prepare to welcome their next full-time lead pastor. I believe God gave me this dream even before I knew exactly what it looked like. I believed I was to help churches, so I started taking some courses and reading books on coaching and consulting with churches. As I was doing that, God opened doors for my first Transitional Pastor position. As God gave me a dream, He opened doors to fulfill that dream.

Rather than focusing on our own hopes and desires, I believe that we need to ask God to direct our dreams and give each of us a vision for the future. We need to pray and ask God to speak to us and help us to hear clearly as we choose what to focus our life on.

In my experience, dreaming God-given dreams is not static, but ongoing as I continually come back to what God wants. Over the years He has adjusted the dreams for me and redirected me to other opportunities that I had not anticipated.

Keep on dreaming. Keep on listening to the voice of God. Keep on obeying and pursuing His dreams for you.

Keep looking up,

Andy Wiebe

Book Reviews: Andy’s 2023 Reading Experience

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I will be sharing a brief review of every book I read this year. Hope you enjoy and hope it encourages you to keep reading.

7 FRIENDSHIPS EVERY MAN NEEDS – by Justin Erickson

Erickson suggests that every man needs these 7 friends in their life to live a full life. Here are his seven friends: a mentor to disciple you, a Peter to encourage you, a best friend to uphold you, a courageous brother to confront you, a faithful disciple to follow you, a lost seeker to hear you, and a gracious Savior to befriend you. He presents some well though out chapters on the value of each one, comparing them to the value of a pit crew to a Nascar driver. While I do agree that most of us men could use more friends, I think it is highly unlikely that any man will have seven solid friendships in their life at the same time. Some of those roles may be played by the same person, or at times we may have a friend in a certain role for a season, yet his premise holds true: Men need to find more good friends to walk through life with.

Finish Well

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The start of a new job if often full of excitement and energy and ideas.

However, near the end of the job, it can be quite different. Whether you decided to hand in your resignation letter or you come to the end of a contract like me, it can be hard to finish with the same excitement.

I am coming to the end of a contract with a church right now. And I am trying to figure out what has to be done in the last two months here. I want to finish well, and not just coast across the finish line. I have been asking myself, “What can I do in these last two months that will help set the church up for a great future?” With that question in mind, I have determined what needs to be in my plans for the next few weeks.

Regular Duties

While I know that I will be leaving this position soon, that is not an excuse to quit doing the regular duties that I have been assigned. For me, I have to continue to preach and be available for caring for people right to the end of my time in this position. It doesn’t matter how close to the end I am, I need to serve them with the same commitment I did earlier.

People

I want to make sure that any people responsibilities I have are fulfilled. This includes letting people know or reminding them that I will be leaving soon. This is especially important when it comes to people who will be taking on tasks that I have maintained. Working with them before I leave and giving them a few pointers of what worked well will set them up for success.

Projects

One of my projects right now is to help the church set up their Search Committee and create and share a job posting for a full time Lead Pastor. As I finish up my contract as a transition pastor, I am helping the Search Committee with the process of posting the position and starting the hiring process.

My situation is quite specific, but for those who are resigning or retiring you may similarly want to help your organization as they find someone to fill your role.

Team Duties

Often, we are part of a team or a group of people who share responsibilities. For example, I work with the Elders Board at my church. As I near the end of my contract, I will continue to lead the team well, helping them to flesh out the vision we worked on together. I will help them prepare for the arrival of a new pastor so that his start will be planned out and he will have the best chance of success going forward.

Take time to finish your job well. Leave in such a way so that people think of you fondly as they remember you later. Don’t burn bridges – you may end up working with these people again some day. I served one church as a Transition pastor that I had served over 20 years ago as their lead pastor. Finish well to keep doors open down the road.

And finish well as a person of good character. Continue to do what needs to be done even though you know you are leaving soon. Don’t just mail it in. Do what you are expected to do to fulfill your job right to the end.

It’s fun to start new positions, but make sure you leave well at the end too.

Keep looking up.

Andy Wiebe

3 Ideas to Renew Your Passion

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A while back I realized that my passion for my job was fading. When I started the job, I was excited and could see new opportunities. I loved the vision and purpose of the group I was leading. I loved working with these people because of their heart for the church and their desire to grow in their relationship with Jesus.

There are times in my life as a pastor that I have had to renew and restore my passion for my role. I always want to give my best and be excited about what I am working on, but I realized that initial excitement had faded. So I decided I needed to work on renewing my passion for that role, and here is what I did.

Add Variety

One reason I tend to lose passion is because I get bored with routine. I long for some creativity and variety.

I add variety in my preaching. This is an area that I have control over, so may be one of the first places I can work at renewing my passion. For example, I might use a video or story to help people connect with the sermon. I might use an object lesson and provide those items to each person when they arrive at church. Beyond Sunday sermons, I might identify a project that I could initiate with others to help us work toward our vision.

Celebrate something.

Sometimes the boring monotony can be awakened to new passion when I take a moment to reflect on the exciting things happening. Good things are happening. God is at work. People are being changed. Programs are reaching people. People are responding to sermons and applying what they learn. When I get stuck in feelings of boredom, I can identify reasons to celebrate. I might celebrate by myself, or with my family, or my coworkers or church. It’s amazing what praising and thanking God can do in lift my spirits and reawakening that passion for my role.

Talk to God about it.

There are times I have taken a mini-retreat – maybe even just an afternoon away from my office – where I can stop everything and talk with God. I talk with Him about what is going on and how my passion is fading. I ask him to show me where I need to focus. I ask Him to give direction. Often this time with God reaffirms my calling, renews excitement in me about what God is doing and inviting me into. Sometimes I come away with new ideas, other times it is a re-enforcing of what I already knew I was to do. But the time with God reminds me of my role and what I need to be doing.

There is often an ebb and flow in the intensity of our passion for the work we are doing. Don’t let it fade too long. Choose to renew your passion again and again so that you will enjoy your role and will continue to contribute well to the vision you and your team or church are pursuing.

What are some ways you have renewed your passion? Let me know.

Keep looking up,

Andy

Is Living Longer Really the Goal?

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At a recent family gathering I was joking with my family that I expected to live longer than 100 years old. Why not? From organizations to businesses to human life, mankind always looks for ways to prolong what is good. We celebrate 100 years of farms owned by the same family. We celebrate people who live to 100 years of age, and often ask these individuals what their answer is to long life.

The life expectancy for Canada in 2023 is 82.96 years. If you break it down between males and females, life expectancy for men I around 80 years while female life expectancy is around 84 years. Most people love to point out that this number is slowly climbing. We are making progress, we think, by keeping people healthier longer. Scientific studies have been done to determine how to help people live longer.

People have attempted all kinds of things to prolong their life. Some have used magic potions, others have chosen to drink mercury, or played around with DNA manipulation. One pope from the 1400’s asked three young boys to give him their blood. According to the story, all four of them died as a result of this blood transfusion and attempt to lengthen one man’s life.

Is living longer the goal? Is long life the best thing we can hope for or dream of?

What all these people who have dedicated their lives to living longer don’t understand is that longer life is not the goal. Living again is the goal!

We just celebrated Easter. Easter is the celebration of resurrection – life again – specifically the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We celebrate this resurrection because the Bible clearly states that all who put their faith in Him for eternal life will live again. While human death will still happen, we will live forever in a new body with God Himself in a renewed version of the original Garden of Eden. Living longer is not the answer – living again is!

The Bible tells us that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on a cross, and then buried in a tomb. On Easter morning, first some women and then others, saw Jesus alive. We are told that many people saw Him alive after that. He defeated death. It looked like the grave had claimed him until he rose again, alive, as attested by many people.

That, in itself, is amazing! For someone to die and then rise from the dead is amazing. Some of us may think this was only possible for Jesus because he was the Son of God. He was God. He could do what humans can’t, except that is not the full story.

Jesus said that resurrection was possible if only we believe in him. In John 11: 25, 26, just before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said this to Lazarus’ sister:

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

Later in the Bible, after Jesus went back to heaven, the Apostle Paul writes that resurrection is possible for us if we believe in Christ.

So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. (1 Corinthians 15: 25, 26)

I like to write about the church and about leadership and how to do things well, but all of that is in service of this message that by faith in Jesus Christ, we can have new life. New life that begins now, and continues after we die. Resurrection comes after death. So living longer is not the answer. Living again is. When we live again, we will live forever and do not need to fear death ever again.

Living longer is not the goal – living again is!

Keep looking up,

Andy Wiebe

Good Vision Work Requires Time and Patience

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Every organization and every church benefits from having a clear vision describing their purpose and how they will focus their efforts. A vision helps determine if certain programs in the church will be helpful or not. If something does not help move the vision forward, then it is wasted effort or worse – detrimental to your organization or church. Develop a clear vision to give direction to all you do.

Realistically, the vision creating process takes time. Those involved need to be able to mull over different ideas in order to come up with the best ones. Most people in volunteer board/committee roles do not have the same time to commit to this process as those leading it, so we have to go slower than we think we should. It is no use pushing ahead if that means we lose people along the way. Consider those on your team and provide appropriate time and space they need to work alongside you as you lead the process.

Time and patience also are needed as we pray about the vision. Our church is currently doing 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting, with part of that time specifically focused on asking God for vision and direction for the church. This is best done over time too. Don’t think one short prayer will be enough. The more time we spend in conversation with God, the more likely we will hear clearly from Him. As we patiently take our time, we will be better off in the end.

As I work with my church to create our vision, we started with identifying three core values. This took time, too. We gathered for one six-hour session with this outcome. While there was a lot of conversation around the whole process that will continue to contribute to the vision, our end result was three core values. Since then, we had a second five-hour session where we now came up with a possible two-word mission statement. Again, there was a lot of conversation that will continue to speak into the ongoing vision discussion, but didn’t result in a finished vision.

All of that to say, it takes time, patience, and a lot of conversation to come up with a meaningful vision to give direction to the leadership team and the church as a whole.

Our next step is to share with the congregation what we have come up with so far, inviting them to speak into the process and tell us how what we have so far connects or doesn’t connect with them.

Some leaders say that good vision creating can take months if not years. My contract with them will be ending in a few months, so we are trying to get to a point where they can easily continue to build on the work being done now with the next pastor. So we are working on this with purpose, but patience. We want to keep the vision work moving along, but not rush it and miss out on important conversations along the way. Hopefully we will determine a vision with enough clarity to guide us in creating a practical strategy for how to work toward accomplishing this vision.

Take time for the important work of vision defining so that everyone knows exactly what you are committed to doing and how you will do it. Ask God to walk with you in the whole process so your end product is a vision that reveals God’s heart and resonates with the church. And then, as you begin to work out the vision, you will all be on the same page and moving ahead together.

Keep looking up,

Andy Wiebe