Ten "D's" for Effective Leadership

By Lettie Kirkpatrick Burress

1. Delegating is key. An effective leader does the tough thing by releasing control of many aspects of ministry to other gifted partners. While guiding by example and by position, one must also learn to share responsibility with those they serve.

2. Discerning the giftedness of those we minister to is a priceless part of the process of plugging others in and allowing them to experience the joy (and benefits) of service. As we observe the Body of Christ, we must ask God to show us where others fit and what they do well. Then we help them nurture those gifts.

3. Don’t rush. Very often, leadership comes on board with visions, goals, and plans they are anxious to see in place. Remember, though, it takes time to build relationships, and draw others into our plans while earning trust and respect as a leader. Be willing to move at the pace required for that to happen.

4. The Destination is unity. When ministry partners move toward a goal in a united way, the success of a project is assured. While there may always be some naysayers, a general consensus is necessary to work together, enjoying the fellowship and growth of a common pursuit.

5. Disciple, don’t parent. When focused on a ministry goal, it can be frustrating when others don’t see its importance or don’t follow through on their commitments. But, grown-ups don’t need pressure, guilt trips, or someone doing their job. One ministry had a fun newsletter that everyone enjoyed. But it required a group effort of contributions, computer skills, and meeting deadlines. When it became obvious those things were not going to happen, the choice was made to discontinue the newsletter.

6. Do what works. When setting goals and planning programs, recognize the differences in people, programs, and even spiritual maturity. For instance, one women’s ministry offered intensive 12 week studies that were attended by only a small number of women. When they tried a different type of six week study, they were able to reach a much larger group of women.

7. Define events. People enjoy being able to call something by name. Try to give an upcoming event a title that describes it and conveys a sense of glad expectation. The topic of lifestyle evangelism becomes “Telling your Story”, and a trip to an unnamed location is a “Mystery Morning”. The naming of events also helps tremendously with verbal and visual announcements.

8. Distribute accolades. Be generous with appreciation, acknowledgement, and encouragement. Expressing thanks, both privately and publicly, to those who have contributed to ministry (or who just need to be recognized) should be considered a regular part of a leader’s responsibilities.

9. Deflect both praise and criticism. Just as many complaints and much murmuring can be unfounded and unworthy of response, so praise is pleasant, but only to be acknowledged and released. With an open heart and willing spirit, ask God if the criticism has any merit at all and respond accordingly. When praise comes, remember where glory goes and Who is the source of all we are and accomplish.

10. Determine to let God lead the leader. It is easy to get caught up in the pace of activity and leadership and forget Who is in charge. Nothing of any worth is accomplished without the power, direction, and wisdom of the One who we serve. his grace, his mercy, and his love will accomplish his purposes in us, in the hearts of those we serve, and in the church and lives we hope to impact.

Lettie Kirkpatrick Burress is a freelance writer and conference speaker. Her newest book release is Taking Back Christmas and Other Family Celebrations, available at www.writingforhim.com . Lettie loves clip-on earrings, outside cafes, and hiking the trails in her TN mountains.

Digging Deeper

By Melinda Schmidt

Digging deeper is always worthwhile: looking in the sofa one more time for the missing car keys, going through the recipe box again to find that holiday favorite, planting the flower bulbs deep enough so the chippies don’t snag them. Well, I guess that last one isn’t guaranteed!

As American women, however, living at the surface, rather than digging deeper, is often more accepted. The dissatisfying ritual of superficiality is lived out too often in our conversations at coffee shops, playgroups, book clubs, church small groups. After enough time, superficiality and its good friend, inauthenticity, become the way of the tribe.

What we miss when that happens is the excitement of knowing that God’s Spirit has used us to introduce deeper, engaging thoughts into our friendships - thoughts that open up the mind and the soul of a woman.

I’ve seen this most recently in my workplace. On the radio show I host, a new segment models what Christian conversations can look like as they go deeper. Four of us discuss a variety of light-hearted as well as spiritually or topically deeper issues. Listening to us debate, laugh and share openly, other women see the possibility of deeper connections around them.

Three authors I know are using the internet to engage women more deeply. Either through a Bible study blog, through intentional spiritual friendships, or through connecting critical thinkers who are kindred spirits both via email. I’m working to engage the internet more intentionally, yet simply, as well. Recently I forwarded a “codependency fable” in an email blast. One friend responded, “I am in this exact position with someone. I am paying a very heavy price… and I need to let it go.” How can I enliven others spiritually through the internet? Jane said over dinner, “Thanks for those emails you send. I pass them along.”

Our influence fingers its way to places we may never know.

Sadly, many of us greatly underestimate our ability to be a thought leader among those in our circle of influence. Feeling inadequate, silenced or imperfect, we engage at the surface, yet long for the succulent fruits borne of deeper soil. We hang between what we desire and what we feel we can do. Yet, as we begin to refuse superficiality, we notice new opportunities to engage in meaningful thought and spirituality into others. An empty nester friend surprised me last week by declaring, “Why are we still talking about our kids? I’m so much more than my kids!” I was shocked when two other “together” friends, told me independently that they feel they have lost their way, themselves, while raising “successful” kids. These new vulnerabilities are spiritually renewing our journeys together.

During this season of “the harvest,” may we seek God’s Spirit to lead us, and find ourselves blessed to see what he will bring forth both into ourselves and others, as we courageously dig deeper into our relationships. Vaya con Dios! – go with God!

Bio: Melinda Schmidt is the co-host of Midday Connection, www.middayconnection.org, a daily, one-hour talk show that encourages women toward spiritual and personal transformation, living fully into who God created them to be. She has co-authored the program’s two devotionals for women, Daily Seeds and Tending the Soul. Married to Dave and the mom of two young adults, she enjoys soul crafting, speaking on creative faith, conversations with friends and the community of the Redbud Writers Guild. www.melindaschmidt.com.

Influence Through Prayer

By Cheryl Lee Davis

She prayed for me for nine months. I didn't ask her to do this. I’m not even sure I wanted it. But God heard and he answered. My life was dramatically changed that summer —why? Because that summer – the one before my junior year in high school -- my sister prayed for me over and over and over again. She took my name and my attitudes and actions before the Lord and asked him to move on my behalf. And he answered.

At sixteen my life was transformed. A foundational benchmark was established as I committed to serve God fully.

Prayer is one monumental way that a woman influences.

Do you ever go to prayer as a last resort? Have you ever said, “All we can do is pray”? As leaders, if we are not careful, we might limit our influence to the gifts and abilities granted us. There’s no doubt that God created each one of us uniquely, with strengths and personalities and abilities to lead and influence well for his kingdom. But what if we viewed our influence differently? What if we built up our prayer muscles and relied on the strength of God before we applied our own strengths? What if we decided to pray first? What would that look like? What if our day started with prayer—even before brushing our teeth or turning on the coffee? What if we prayed about even the little things?

We might pray about the outfit we are going to wear, we might pray over every meeting, every decision, and even for the guy at Starbucks—or better yet—decide to take our coffee money and give it to a worthy cause. This could get exhausting, scary even, but would it make a difference? Could it make a world of difference?

Our lives are filled with multiple opportunities to influence others. Those opportunities often help us to discover, learn and grow into our calling, our assignment—and that is good. But prayer moves our influence to unimaginable levels. When we submit ourselves and others to God, something more significant happens. His influence in our lives is multiplied. Our influence is multiplied as well.

So . . . pray. Try it for thirty days. For one month completely change your leadership habits and pray about everything. Pray first. Pray before you do anything. Watch God move. Watch his influence change things around you.

Cheryl Lee Davis lives in Kansas City with her husband and two children. She serves as Vice President of Ministry Development at Stonecroft Ministries. You can read more from Cheryl on her blog at www.womenpursuinggod.com.

Stories: Lost and Found

By Carol Kuykendall

A woman came up to me following my “Story Telling” workshop at a recent conference.

“I lost my story when my husband died a few years ago,” she told me, her voice wavering with emotion. “I struggled to find a new story…”

She reinforced my point about the times in our lives when we lose the story we are living. The unexpected happens. We take a risk and give up the old to try something new. We’re forced to move or find a new job. We find ourselves heading in a whole new direction and we’re faced with finding a new story.

Tucked into the bridge between lost” and found is often a faith-stretching experience where God is guiding us into a new story with new purpose. And I’m convinced that God wants us to recognize him in that place and share our experience with others, because our story makes him real.

“If you are going to be used by God,” writes Oswald Chambers, “he will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all; they are meant to make you useful in his hands.”

I told my own “new” story in that workshop. I was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer and given a grim life expectancy. Instead of fighting that prediction, I let it shape a new story for me: to do what mattered most in the days I had and trust God to equip me every step of my journey even if that meant dying sooner than I expected.

But guess what? I didn’t die. I recently passed the five-year anniversary of my diagnosis which is a milestone in a cancer journey. And suddenly I realized that I’d lost my story about dying and needed to find a new story and purpose about living as a survivor.

My phone started ringing. People who had recently been diagnosed with cancer wanted to know, how I had survived so well.

At first I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t have a nice neat list of do’s and don’ts or unique advice about diet and medications. My story was more about what God had done than what I had done. And I found myself telling the story about the many ways God prepared and equipped me in my cancer journey.

In seeking to encourage others, I discovered how life-giving and hope-bringing our stories are. Eventually, I found my new purpose in helping others find and tell their stories about the life-defining experiences in their own lives.

Discovering our stories usually begins with mining the “multitude of experiences” that have shaped us into who we are and that have revealed God’s new purposes for our lives. Here are some questions to trigger that digging:

When have you “lost” and “found” a new story in your life?

What helped you go from “lost” to “found” in that experience?

What did you learn about God and yourself in that time?

How might that experience make you “useful in God’s hands”?

When we shape our answers into a story and share it with others, especially those walking a path we’ve already travelled, we become useful in God’s hands.

Carol Kuykendall helped launch a Stories ministry in her community and is passionate about helping others find and tell their stories. She is a consulting editor for MOPS International, an author and co-author of nine books and writes devotionals for Daily Guideposts. With her husband, Lynn, she lives in Boulder, CO which (thankfully!) is within driving distance of her three adult children and their families.

Living Well

By JoHannah Reardon

I am a professional woman who loves my work and who feels fiercely competitive about the tasks set before me. More than anything, I want to make a difference, and I almost always consider that will happen through the work I do. But a few weeks ago, I attended a memorial that forced me to reflect on what it means to live our lives well.

My brother is much older than I am, and he married my sister-in-law, Donna, when I was still in the womb. So I knew her as long as I knew anyone in my family and felt her love from my earliest days. They lived nearby and included me in many family activities, even taking me on vacation.

Donna never held a job outside of her home. She raised her family and was now looking forward to having an empty nest. Tragically, her oldest child died. Donna wholeheartedly accepted the responsibility of raising her granddaughter, Kara. Fortunately Donna’s own health didn’t fail until Kara grew to adulthood with a family of her own, which brings me to her memorial.

Numerous people shared the impact that Donna had in their lives. My sisters and I composed a poem to commemorate her. One young man talked about how he’d been a hyperactive boy, but that Donna had loved and defended him when others wouldn’t tolerate him. Another woman said that Donna always began their prayer times by saying, “Good morning, Lord!” Others talked about how Donna modeled what it meant to be a faithful Christian.

But the one who tugged my heart most was Kara. Kara said that when Donna was dying, she left work and rushed to her grandma’s bedside. Donna had been extremely restless, but when Kara arrived, my brother said, “It’s okay Donna. Kara is here.” She calmed down immediately and began to breathe peacefully. Kara wondered what to do to help her grandmother, who was like a mom, face this journey into heaven, and could only think of doing what Donna had done for her when she was a small child.

So she climbed into bed with her, tickled her arm, and sang her the childhood songs Donna had sung to her when she was a lone, frightened child. With Kara’s arms tucked around her and her comforting voice in her ear, Donna was able to let go of this life and enter the next one.

I love my work and still hope to make an impact through it, but Donna’s memorial rearranged my priorities. So as I write the last line of this blog post, I’m going to push away from my computer and go see my grandkids.

JoHannah is the managing editor of ChristianBibleStudies.com and a contributing editor to Kyria.com, both divisions of Christianity Today International. She blogs at www.johannahreardon.com and has eight e-books on Amazon.com.

Lead, Follow, Serve

By Judy Douglas

Patches, our Australian Shepherd, took her breeding

seriously. She was a shepherd dog, with no sheep or cattle to herd, so she sought to shepherd people.

Ever so gently she would grab wrists with her mouth and seek to lead-almost anyone she encountered. Unfortunately we lived at a conference grounds, and the conferees she took hold of were first, terrified, and second, totally unwilling to go where she was leading them.

That’s a problem a lot of leaders have: getting people to follow them. What’s a leader without followers?

In the Kingdom of God, leaders must also be followers.

When Jesus called Peter and Andrew, James and John, Matthew as his disciples, he said simply, “Follow me.”

What does it mean to follow? Here are some concepts and synonyms: to go or come after; move behind in the same direction; to accept as a guide or leader; accept the authority of or give allegiance to; to conform to, comply with; to obey; to act like; to imitate or copy.

Surely all Jesus’ disciples-then and now--are called to be leaders in the Kingdom in some way. Some are called to more prominent leadership, and there is much conversation about that today. It is good to desire to be good stewards of our giftings, but I fear too many are over focused on being leaders. Over and over I hear, “God has called me to be a leader.”

Jesus has some pretty definitive things to say about leading in His Kingdom:

When he had finished washing their feet,... he returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master,... Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. (John 13:12-17)

Leaders wash feet? Perhaps. But for certain leaders are to serve.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant...”(Mark 10:42-43)

I love that: Not so with you. You are called to be a servant.

Has Jesus called you to lead? Then your higher callings are to follow and to serve.

Most have understood this. So we talk about servant leadership. In our church we are talking about shepherd leadership-Patches fits right in.

A writer I read recently suggested a great concept for how we follow Jesus in this: Lead Servant.

I think Jesus would like that.

Judy Douglass assists her husband, Steve, in giving leadership to global Campus Crusade for Christ. Her primary focus is Women's Resources. She is an author, an editor and a frequent speaker around the world, a mom and a grandmother. You can read her real and encouraging blog, Kindling, at www.inkindle.wordpress.com.

Two Bites

By Elisa Morgan, Publisher, FullFill™

*Consider sharing the video version of this blog as a devotional at your next staff/volunteer meeting? Click here!

As a child, I had a love/hate relationship with spaghetti.

While my mother was rather unpredictable in much of her mothering, she strictly enforced the two-bite rule in our house. The two-bite rule means you have to take two bites of everything on your plate, no matter if you like it or not.

Cept I think the last part of the rule was a true "Paige" (that was my mother's name) add-on. Her version of the two-bite rule was "You have to eat two bites of everything on your plate and then one day maybe you'll be big enough to like it." This "Paige-ism" offered a kind of magic to an otherwise boring rule. After all, you never knew, did you, if you might be "big enough" this time to like the unlikeable?

When I was a child, I didn't like spaghetti. I know, kinda weird. It might have been the tomato taste. Every "spaghetti night" I approached my dinner with a kind of wonder - Maybe this time? I'd watch my older sister wolf down her plate. I'd look at her long limbs and budding womanhood and then at my own skinny legs and flat chest and yearn for "initiation". She was so mature!

I'd fork into the pile of red stuff and slurp it into my mouth - always following it in disgust with a giant gulp of milk as I discovered once again - I did NOT like spaghetti. Still.

Two bites after two bites after two bites, the years passed. Finally one day, after dutifully shoveling in a bite, I stopped, chewed and swallowed. Eureka! I liked spaghetti! I quickly looked down at my flat chest with crestfallen hope. I was still far from mature.

Silly? Maybe to some. But to me, the two-bite rule has come to apply to many things in life with its underlying principle: keep trying something you don't like so much and one day you just may be "big enough" to like it.

I discovered the two-bite rule applied beautifully to reading the Bible. Two bites. And one day you might be big enough to like it.

What are the two bites? Two questions: "What?" And "So what?"

First: "What?" Take a section of scripture and ask "What is it saying?" Literally. For example, let's look at Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God." What is this saying?

Literally the sentence says that those who are poor in spirit - literally the word is "bankrupt" are blessed - chosen, happy, in a good state - because they have the kingdom - or presence - of God and his purposes.

Okay. Hmmm. The first bite is "What?"

Second, fork in the second bite: "So what?" What difference does the "what" make? Apply it to your life.

Well, if I'm spiritually poor - or bankrupt - rather than being disqualified or cut off from God and his world - I'm actually closer to possessing it. Wow! That's pretty huge! The "what" becomes an amazing "so what?" in the second bite.

Obviously, no one can live and thrive off of two bites a day. We need more than that - a full balanced meal - to grow fully in our relationship with God. But two bites are a good way to begin.

"What?" And "So what?" Two bites that can help us all grow up to be big enough to like studying the Bible.

*The plan for Fall 2011 is to continue to bring you excellent leadership and spiritual formation resources through your Weekly ReFill and linking readers to FullFill's rich library of themes. Click here to explore the FullFill digizine library. Click here to access FullFill™'s video library. Click here to forward to a friend and spread the wealth of this FREE resource!