Barnabas File

“What does it mean to be a flourishing human?”     This was the question that theologian Miroslav Volf used to introduce his lecture at First Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, yesterday afternoon.     He continued this theme with a number of other questions and some challenging observations.    Although he gave us much to think about, Volf’s key questions for me were, “What does it mean to succeed as a human?” and “Can one fail as a human being?”  He gave the example of Albert Speer, an architect who invested his skills in Nazi Germany and became part of Hitler’s inner circle.  After the war, Speer attempted to paint himself as apolitical. As Volf observed, he wanted to be a good architect and to do so, he could be the best in his vocation only if he worked with the Nazis.  There were no moral implications, only a desire to succeed.  Did he fail as a human being in doing so? My take-away from...

Usually when the topic of faith-based coaching comes up, the immediate response is, “Oh, you mean Christian coaching.”     In recent days, I have started to ask myself, “Is this what it really means for me?”     To put this in perspective, let me first share three observations. First, I am a person of faith.  I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  Even though I am probably better at it on some days that others, the relationship is there and the strength of it is more dependent on God’s grace than my faithfulness.  Second, I am a Christian who is also a coach (life coach or leadership coach) and that means I want to be a good coach.  Martin Luther said,  “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”  If we do our work well, that in itself is a witness to what is of value to us. Whether I am coac...

This is the birthday of American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr, author of   Christ and Culture , one of my favorite books.     I came across this quote from Niebuhr that is particularly helpful for 21 st  century believers: “The great Christian revolutions came not by the discovery of something that was not known before.  They happened when someone takes radically something that was always there.” Our Christian tradition is so much richer than most of us realize.  Faithful men and women through the centuries have found innovative ways to communicate the Gospel by discovering and acting upon truths that were already present. Some of this creativity is certainly the result of the work of the Holy Spirit but it also comes when faithful believers come together to address a common task. Receptive activists have rediscovered the truths that were always there.  Walter  Rauschenbusch didn’t discover social justice at t...

What does it mean to be a leader of leaders?  There is no lack of books about leading those who are responsible to you due to your designated position in the church or organization.  A leadership subject that is not often addressed is how to be a leader among those who are your peers.  I was recently introduced to the term “lateral leadership” to describe this competency.  We may know how to work with our supervisors or how to supervise others, but how do we work with others who are at the same level as we are?  Here are some things to consider in exercising lateral leadership. 1.  Be a person of integrity.  Of course, this should be true of any leader, but when you work with your peers, trust and respect are essential.  Peers must know that you will follow through on your commitments and share not only responsibilities but recognition as well.  Competency in your work is important, but ...

Everyone has a story to tell.  In our fast and busy world, we rarely take the time to listen to each other’s stories or simply to reflect on our own.  When I taught Formation for Ministry classes for Central Seminary, I took the time to share a bit of my own story and ask students to share theirs as well, but there was always more there than we were able to process. Being aware of the power of story, I was pleased to discover  Living a Narrative Life:  Essays on the Power of Stories  by Keith Herron.  Herron draws not only on his own extensive experience as a pastor and a counselor but shares his own life story to help the reader understand the value of understanding her or his own life story. Herron writes, “All of life is a story.  This is the richness of life:  to know your own stories, to value and understand them with others.  In doing so, we are all enriched.”  He enc...

We often take our grandchildren to a local trampoline/indoor activity center.     They charge by the hour, but we recently discovered that the all-day charge might be more economical.     My wife took two of the boys one day, planning to use the all-day charge.     She asked, “If we do the all-day charge, can we leave and come back? I thought we would stay for a while, go eat lunch, then return.”   The response: “No.”     The reason: “We can’t keep up with that.”     She chose not to go the all-day route. This raises a question for me.  First, children are issued an arm band when they enter. If they are going to be there an hour, they get one color.  There is a different color for two hours.  This rotates throughout the day.  I assume that there is a different color for all day admission.  If the children are color coded, why can’t the ones with the all-day color come and...

“What we talk about here on Sunday morning has very little to do with what I do on Monday.”     The Sunday school class member who said this during a class session was not mean or angry; he was just stating the truth as he saw.  Although he caught me off guard, I tried not to take offense and understand what was going on in his life. Since then, his comment has stuck with me as a Bible study leader.  Does what we talk about on Sunday really make a difference on Monday morning?  The question challenges me as a teacher to consider several things. First, do I take seriously the types of challenges class members face each day?  Not everyone is in their dream job and may have to struggle to get up and do to work on Monday morning just to pay their bills and care for their families. Some find themselves in stressful situations that may be not only physically but morally challenging.  A reality for many is the possibility t...

A rule of life provides a framework or pattern for a group of believers to walk alongside and encourage each other to pursue those practices that lead to spiritual health and faithful service.    Here are few things to consider as your faith community works together to articulate a rule of life. First, the process requires spiritual preparation and discernment.  Believers become more focused and aligned as they spend time in prayer individually and corporately.  One approach would be to ask those who are developing a rule of life to set aside a specific time every day to pray using Romans 12:1-2 as a guide: I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual   worship.     Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good...

Although I never heard it mentioned from the platform this year, the Global Leadership Summit continues to rebuild its credibility after the sexual harassment charges against Bill Hybels, former pastor of Willow Creek Community Church and former leader of the Willow Creek Association (now Global Leadership Network).     Allegations about Hybels’ inappropriate relationships with female staff members, church members, and business associates have negatively impacted the church, the association, and this event. Even though this history was not on the printed agenda at the Summit, planners chose several speakers who addressed the issue of harassment and power in very clear ways. In an interview with Paula Faris, guest Bozoma Saint John talked about her work as Chief Brand Officer at Uber, a corporation whose culture of discrimination and misogyny is well known. She discussed the challenges of working in that situation and seemed relieved that she no longer has a con...

As is my annual custom, I attended a satellite presentation of the Global Leadership Summit last week.   My primary reason to attend is to be introduced to new speakers in the field of leadership development and be exposed to some cutting-edge ideas in the field.    About a third of the participants are church leaders, one-third business leaders, and the rest are not-for-profit leaders, educators, and others.  The mix is ministry meets marketplace, and it is done well. The Summit still originates in South Barrington, Illinois, from the facilities of Willow Creek Church, but there is a bit of distance between the church and the Network since accusations arose about former church pastor Bill Hybels who was also a key player in the Willow Creek Association, now rebranded as the Global Leadership Network. Although the Summit was broadcast to hundreds of sites across the United States with about 135,000 participants (and will be re-packaged and translate...

As usual, I attended a satellite location of the Global Leadership Summit this year.   I heard some great speakers and will share more about them and the Summit in a subsequent post.     In this session, I want to share the books that I bought as a result of hearing several speakers and why I purchased them. The first is Never Split the Difference:  Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator and CEO of the Black Swan Group.   After serving with the Kansas City, Missouri, police department, Chris Voss joined the FBI where he moved from SWAT team member to hostage. Negotiator.  He eventually became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator.  What caught my attention in Voss’s interview was the intersection of negotiating and coaching.  He talked about actions such as being genuinely curious, asking “how” not “why” questions, using open-ended questions, and “mirrori...

One of the processes we provide through Pinnacle Leadership Associates is called  Making the Shift.   As we talk about the shift from being a church member to being a disciple, we encourage congregations to consider developing a rule of life to challenge participants in their discipleship. A key theme in Jesus’ teaching was the Kingdom or Reign of God.  His hearers often asked him, “When will this come to be?”  N. T. Wright observes, “The crucial question is not so much that of the kingdom’s  timing  as of its  content .” One point where Jesus addressed the content of the Kingdom as well as the conduct of the life of the believer is found in that portion of the Sermon on the Mount that we call the Beatitudes.  This might well be seen as a prototypical rule of life for believers.  Speaking of the Beatitudes in his book  Living the Sermon on the Mount , Glen H. Stassen writes, “All of these are rewards...

The 20 th century industrial model thrived on a tight command and control model.   It increased production, but it often fostered an “us” versus “them” approach--industry versus labor union, employer versus employee, “boss” versus workers.     In his New Leadership Paradigm , Steve Piersanti picks up on this in calling for a shift from the old paradigm of control to one of collaboration.  The control approach depended on coercion, dominance, and secrecy to “keep people in line.”  The new paradigm calls for collaboration.  Piersanti describes collaboration in this way: “Leadership is exercised through invitation, request, dialogue, persuasion, respect, openness, kindness, integrity, and partnership, without compulsion.” This is the way that the church was intended to function.  In Romans 12:4-8, the apostle Paul writes, For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same fu...

I n his New Leadership Paradigm model ,   Steve Piersanti challenges organizations to move from the traditional hierarchical structure to an interconnected network.  The former is the pyramid approach that posits ultimate power to a limited number of people at the top who command and control large numbers of people at the bottom of the pyramid.  The alternative is to the network approach that views the organization as a network with leadership and decision-making power disbursed “throughout the many nodes and links of the network.” Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom addressed this idea in their book,  The Starfish and the Spider .   They note, “ If you cut off a spider’s leg, it’s crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish’s leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish.” The Starfish and the Spider  argues that organizations fall into two categories: traditional “spiders,”...