Leadership

In 1943 Winston Churchill said: “First we shape our buildings, then they shape us.” Churchill could just as well have said, first we shape our organisations, then they shape us.It’s all very well to talk about empowerment one –on – one, but most of us find ourselves within some sort of organisational framework. What does [...]

We have had a great week! We have missed Maddi who has been at the Uluru basecamp, but we have enjoyed staying in Sandy Bay and taking the kids to some of the places that were important to both Leeanne and I. Yesterday we made the trek up to the top of Mount Wellington. It [...]

I’m really enjoying this oasis of time in my life. It really feels like a moment to be able to step back, process the last 20 years and prepare for the next 20. One of the things I have been thinking about is just how normal it is to think your assumptions about life are [...]

This is a longer post than I would normally post, but I wanted you to have the chance to read an article I have written about Kingdom Cells. Sit back with a cuppa and enjoy the read! Kingdom Cells: The other structure of the body of Christ Mark Greene, the executive director of the London [...]

One of the things that I have enjoyed about doing the Arrow Leadership program are the number of ideas that bubble around in the back of my head in the weeks and months following one of the week long residential conferences. Last week Senior Pastor from Barrabool Hills Baptist church, Graham Clarke, made the assertion, [...]

I was thinking this morning just how important Arrow has been for me. That doesn’t mean it has been comfortable. I find my paradigm regularly challenged and somehow at the same time I find myself encouraged. You might remember I wrote a short reflection a couple of weeks ago on strategic planning and quoted Will [...]

We have the afternoon off at the Arrow residential conference so I thought I would take the chance to catch up on a bit of email and record a couple of reflections about what I have been learning so far. Arrow (http://www.arrowaustralia.com.au/) is a program for mentoring and encouraging emerging leaders in the Australian Christian [...]

I am sitting at Sydney airport after a flying visit to catch up with a friend. I have a lot on my mind at the moment, finding myself in a real wrestle to understand what God is up to. I am finding that God seems to bring me books I need when I need them  [...]

I have a dilemma. For 20 years I have been working with Fusion trying to do Christianity differently, but the more I live with it the more I see the problem is not what we do, its  the way we see things. I am wading through N.T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God” and [...]

Our week away came to an end yesterday and as we tidied the holiday house the kids sat down to watch the Super Bowl. I was fascinated as I came in and out of the room to see what a remarkable production it all was. One one of the things that stood out to me [...]

I’ve been thinking a bit about legacy. I’m at a point where I am looking back at 20 years in ministry and looking forward at maybe another 25 years and I am asking myself where do I want to be in 2037? Even writing that date seems ridiculous, as thinking about 2012 must have to [...]

I find myself in a most frustrating place. For the first time in 20 years I don’t have direct leadership responsibility. Part of me loves it and another part is going crazy as I see so many things that I think are not being led and for the first time I can’t do anything about [...]

We used to think of Missionaries as the spiritual people who went to Africa.  We may not have realised it at the time, but that was a cop out. We are all missionaries in our own particular mission fields. In 1975, the founder of Youth With A Mission, Loren Cunningham, believed God showed him a [...]

Empowerment  is giving power away, but in a way that results in freedom. Humanity was created in the image of God, and the result of that is that each and every one of us has a spirit. In the first couple of chapters of Genesis we see humanity before the fall. We see people who [...]

An apparent contradiction exists between the clear call to fellowship in the bible and the role of a leader. It is normal that most change begins with one person having a realization, picturing a different future and then telling people about it. The truth is that leadership is a lonely job. A.W. Tozer said “Most [...]

Ephesians 4:11 makes it clear that some people are called to a particular kind of ministry. The Apostle was to live on the frontiers, bringing the Kingdom to new places in new and unexpected ways. In their wake they left fledgling groups of Christians who were bringing the Kingdom of God into their particular context. [...]

As a 21 year old I remember the dawning realization that I could be a leader and how excited I was at the prospect. I wanted to be a leader. I have met a number of people like me, people who wanted to be leaders. I’ve also met people who wanted to be writers; people [...]

I wonder if you added up all the hours that were spent in ministry or mission in the last week around the world, what the number would be? If all those hours are spent serving God, and seeking first His Kingdom, why doesn’t the world look much different? In the United Kingdom, many churches are [...]

I was reminded today of a lesson I first learned in my first six months of ministry with Fusion. Have you ever met someone fresh out of bible college? They are usually full of right ideas and full of themselves. As I look back, thats certainly what I was like in 1992. A fellow graduate [...]

Leeanne has just finished reading “The Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne. I read it last Christmas and it had a significant impact on me but I have a terrible memory so can only remember fragments and the general theme. I think I need to read it again. It has interested me to watch Leeanne engage [...]

I will depart from my series of posts reflecting on Bonhoeffer’s book today as I departed Poatina for the day over to be with our team in Victoria for the day. It was great to be back with the team that I led between 2005 and 2009 and hear a little bit of what has [...]

Well I’m now at the end of my time in South Africa. It has been a great week and I think has helped me personally get some perspective on what is important. Tonight I had two special interactions. One was with Jayne. I was sad that Jayne was unable to be with us this week [...]

I am coming to the end of my time in South Africa. In many ways the time here has been a gift.. The course I came to teach has turned out to be smaller than was expected which has meant I have had some time to think, read and write. It has been good to [...]

I’m sitting in the departures lounge of Perth airport preparing to board the ‘red eye’ flight that leaves at midnight and arrives in Melbourne at 5:30 a.m. Its been a great weekend. I arrived in Perth on Thursday afternoon and then drove up to Geraldton with my friend Andy, who is the state director for [...]

I’m feeling a little weary.. As I write I am sitting in the dining room of a campsite in Geraldton. It is a privilege to be here, I have heard so much about this place since Fusion first started work here in the early 80′s. I am here for Fusion Western Australia’s State Conference. It [...]

We have just come back from a wonderful holiday. Each year we try to get a couple of weeks away in the middle of the year which makes a big difference in how we manage the second half. This holiday featured a lot of fishing, watching season two of ‘the Mentalist’ and lots of reading. [...]

I am sitting at Melbourne airport. I have been here since about 3pm. It’s now quarter to 8 and I’m here until 9pm. I actually don’t mind the wait… its giving me a bit of space to process what has been quite a significant week. I have spent this week rubbing shoulders with other leaders [...]

I am enjoying the reading for my Arrow Leadership course. I wrote earlier about my reflections on Bill Hybels’ book “Just walk across the room”, and how I agreed with much of what he was saying but was concerned about the motivation behind evangelism that seems to come through the book. Another book I have [...]

I had a great day today. We took the day off and went for a family day. We went for a walk on a boardwalk to a pretty Island and then visited a place called Grindewald where I gave the boys a game of mini golf while Leeanne took Sophie and our visitor to the [...]

I am sitting in a lounge room in CapeTown, South Africa. I am sitting at the back of the room while a class of black and colored South Africans watch “Invictus”. It is fascinating to watch the impact of the movie on people who are living in the reality of post-apartheid South Africa. In our [...]

Nice for a change Today is a different day. Its been raining for most of the day and the weather has been coming from the east – which is very unusual. It’s also different because there are no meetings, training sessions or phone calls I need to manage. It is a day without much of [...]

How to make this year different I am coming to the end of my week of reflection on the year ahead and there is certainly a theme emerging. One of the things I will be doing differently this year is going back to school.. well kind of.. I have been selected to participate in the [...]

Happy New Year I love this time of year. It’s a time to stop and breathe, to reflect and to plan. It’s a time to try to make sense of all that has been and all that will be. New Year for me is a kind of structural grace. The promise that the past can [...]

Recognising, Reframing and Networking I love this time of year. Every year about this time I go to officeworks and buy two things: a new journal and a new 12 month planner. I love starting a process around now of looking back on the past 12 months and trying to understand what God is saying [...]

Making the choice to play I am sitting in my rather warm office/shed as the sun streams through the huge window that overlooks my backyard. Today I mowed our backyard. Now that’s really not that big a deal, in fact at the moment it seems to need to be mown every 7 days! It’s just [...]

Writing to lead I need to write. I have lots of different documents that I need to produce at the moment, and yet I find myself unable to get them out. When I do sit to write, the words that come out are hollow and lifeless. I wonder if the Apostle Paul ever felt that [...]

Purity matters Have you ever noticed how easy it is to write somebody off?  How easy it is to come to a conclusion about their motives and to feel justified in doing so. Motivation matters.. as I pointed out we are quick to judge other people’s motivations, and usually less quick to judge our own. [...]

The wrestle I am continuing my series of posts based on Timothy 4:12, where Paul lists the qualities by which Timothy should set an example. First comes speech, then life, love and now Faith. I feel a bit daunted that I should be setting myself up as an example of faith. Paul certainly didn’t mind [...]

Love hurts I am continuing my series of posts about Paul’s charge to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:12. After speech and life, Paul exhorts Timothy to set an example in love. Its been a while since I last wrote.  Since then I have been to Canberra and South Australia. All the while I have had [...]

The little things I am continuing my dialogue with Paul’s challenge to Timothy  in 1 Timothy 4:12. One of the things I notice about Paul’s list is that none of the things he mentions are issues which you could ever get to a point where you don’t need to work on them. The second thing [...]

Speech matters I am continuing reflections on 1 Timothy 4:12 where Paul lists a series of characteristics through which Timothy is to set an example The first one is speech. I have been very aware of  speech from an early age. I remember seeing my Dad on a stage and thinking “I want to do that”. As [...]

Setting an example I have been in leadership, of some sort or another, for most of the last 18 years, and for most of that time I have battled with feelings of being inadequate for the task. I think it is because of those feelings that I read the Epistles of Timothy over and over [...]

A new chapter Press release sent out yesterday Following its rapid growth overseas and the retirement of founder, Mal Garvin, 12 months ago, a new team has been appointed to lead the Fusion movement. Michael Cleary, Beverley Rankin and Matt Garvin will share the leadership duties for the growing work as part of Fusion’s new [...]

A do it yourself check up A friend send me a link to this article which I found helpful so I thought I would re-publish it here. You can find the original at: http://drbilldonahue.com/2010/10/signs-of-soul-erosion/ by BILL DONAHUE on OCTOBER 5, 2010 My friend Gordon MacDonald has great leadership insights. Some time ago, teaching our Willow staff, he warned of [...]

A friend sent me a link to this article and I thought I would share it with you.. I found it very helpful food for thought: Solitude and Leadership.

How big is your vision? It was great to spend time with our Advanced Diploma students wrestling with ‘the 8th Habit’. One of the things that struck me was a truth that Covey first communicated in his book, “7 Habits of highly effective people”. As we look at the world there are two boundaries that [...]

A charter for a paradoxical life I have noticed how so many of the deep truths in life are actually a paradox. In preparing for our Advanced Diploma students to arrive this week I came again across the following list of “paradoxical commandments”, which basically give a template for effective leadership. Each one spoke to [...]

Hope or rubble? Have you noticed that whether you have hope or not usually has very little to do with what is actually happening. I enjoyed teaching Nehemiah this week. Nehemiah helped a rag-tag bunch of misfits become one of the most remarkable building teams in the world.. constructing a massive wall around a whole [...]

Forget the power plays I recently was surprised to discover just how much political power plays are part of life. My favourite television show is the West Wing, so it probably shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. I also realised how easy it is to respond to politics with politics, with the [...]

Welcome to the spacious life We had an eventful day yesterday, that mainly was the result of a bad parenting decision I made. I woke yesterday morning, to my sons practising tackling. After telling them it wasn’t appropriate behaviour inside, they immediately asked the obvious question: “Can we get dressed and go outside then?” A [...]

Stop the world, its ok to step off As I said yesterday we are very much looking forward to tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we will pack the car, say goodbye to the dog and the rabbit and head to a shack on the East Coast of Tasmania. I love holidays! Sometimes I wish every day could [...]

Taking a break How do you go with taking a break? Sometimes it feels like the world is divided into two groups: those who don’t know how to rest and those who don’t know how to work. For many of us who find ourselves in the latter group we have become quite skilled at rationalising [...]

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.  ~Plato As you are probably picking up I am enjoying engaging with the book of Ecclesiastes. More and more I am gaining insights for almost every area of life. This year I have discovered that though [...]

Start living I am sitting in my new office.. My in-laws have been here for a week and put down brand new floorboards in my shed which has been transformed. For the first time since moving to Poatina most of my books are on shelves and I have a desk (I have been working on [...]

The search for identity Today is a big day for me. I get to teach the book of  Ecclesiastes for the first time in our Certificate IV class. I have two weeks with the students to take the journey of a book which asks the fundamental question of life: “What is the purpose of our existence”? What [...]

Putting it all together Over the last couple of weeks I have raised a number of the questions of strategic mission. Now its your turn. I am pleased to include with this post the following link to a booklet for you to download: strategic mission By clicking on the above  link you will find a [...]

Thinking Strategic Mission process not program As we come to the end of this series of posts on strategic mission, I hope you are starting to see possibilities for your neck of the woods. I hope you are starting to realise that there is no one thing that you can do, but by thinking strategically [...]

The church… one of the great mission fields I’m continuing my series of posts on strategic mission. Most people would see mission as getting people into churches.. The purpose of strategic mission is actually about releasing people out of the church and into their specific calling. Former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said: “Most people [...]

The point of leadership Yesterday I was sharing about the book “Reframing Organisations” and how the authors propose that an effective leader needs to be able to see the world through all four frames. Today I want to propose a fifth, and in my view, more important frame: Faith. Each time Jesus told the disciples [...]

Looking from different angles As I was saying yesterday, the organisation I work with, Fusion, is on a journey to name what is needed in leadership. About a week ago I mentioned the passage from 1 Peter that I have been challenged by since discovering it about 15 years ago: 1 Peter 5:2-3 Be shepherds of [...]

Which definition is true? The organisation I work with, Fusion, is in the middle of a healthy identity crisis. For 48 years, my father was the dominant personality as the founder and leader. Last year that changed and we are in the process of coming to terms with a different reality. Part of the challenge [...]

Not because you have to I’ve just been chatting with a friend about the difference between serving from a spirit of willingness and serving because you feel like to have to.. I have been challenged for quite a while by 1 Peter 5:2-3 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as [...]

Integration into a local worshipping community The moment of coming to faith in Jesus Christ is the most precious and important event of your life. Mission doesn’t end there though. Too many baby Christians are lost because they never really find a home. As Joel Osteen said: “You can be committed to Church but not committed [...]

Is anything more important? After a brief interlude I am continuing my series of posts on Strategic Mission. I hope you have had a chance to read my previous posts because those frameworks are an essential pre-requisite for what we are talking about in the next few days. Central to any mission is the fundamental [...]

Letting yourself care I found myself moved and challenged on Sunday when one of our diploma graduates shared his story. He spoke about travelling through a little country town near Poatina on his way here for training and wondering who on earth would ever care about a place like that. He then spoke about discovering [...]

Leadership that imagines the future. Our little village threw open the doors today for our 15th birthday celebration. As I stood up the back of the hall listening to the stories and performances my mind wandered back to the meeting where we decided to purchase the village. There were a number of people who were [...]

Time to stop giving answers to questions nobody is asking. I want to know why in previous times, people teaching the bible have caused revolutions, while today they mostly cause boredom? I wonder if too often we focus on the bits of the bible that reinforce our own world view, rather than allowing ourselves to [...]

Live it I am interested in how many Christian books there are. There seem to be a lot of people with lots of views about God. Now don’t get me wrong, I love books, and particularly books about the faith journey. I was just reflecting how much easier it is though, to read a book, [...]

Getting to where the people are So…… if you are committed to a people or a place, you are actively praying and have done the work to know the questions… its time to connect. There are two mistakes that Christians seem to make over and over again when it comes to connecting with people: 1) [...]

Working out what’s really going on After commitment and prayer, the next most important aspect of strategic mission is the realisation that you don’t know. Too often Christians think we do know.. we come in with answers before understanding the questions. The world is changing rapidly, and every person is unique, so the more you are confident [...]

Talking to God is the place to start While it seems obvious, its amazing how often I can be so busy serving God that I forget to take the time to talk to him. There is nothing magical about prayer. Billy Graham said “Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God.” The moment [...]

Think process and place Often when it comes to Christian mission, we are tempted to look for a quick fix.. a single event or program that will have a big impact. Real community transformation requires an understanding that there is no one thing you can do – it will take time, and more than one [...]

Stop going with the flow There are many churches, Christian groups and charities where people come, do  work and go home. The work they do is good , but it will not bring lasting transformation because the primary commitment of the workers is not what happens at work, but what happens after work. They are partial in [...]

The great commission As we begin the journey of exploring strategic mission, we need to be clear up front about what we are trying to do. Keith Green pointed out that in the army, you obey the last orders you received until they are superseded by new orders. We have been given our orders: “Then Jesus came to them [...]

What does it mean to be strategic about Mission? Too often we as Christians have operated in a reactive way, letting our situation determine the shape and nature of what we called “mission” or evangelism. Christianity didn’t change the world by accident. By the 3rd Chapter of Mark we see that word about Jesus had [...]

A man who changed the world It is easy to think that somehow people who didn’t live in the current times are somehow less developed than we are. One person from the very early days of the Christian church (about 300 A.D.) seems to be to be someone who we need to be learning from [...]

The founder’s dilemma Leading a community is no small task,  and no one has all that they need to do the job. My Dad was the founder of Fusion and of Poatina. Growing up as his son I saw how he carried the burden of both of these things. I also saw clearly that neither [...]

Making sense of a remarkable experience I am currently sitting in seat 54F on the South African Airlines flight to Melbourne. I am sitting next to Andrew Braun who helped coordinate the Pilgrimage and has been back and forth between Australia and South Africa seven times in 18 months. Yesterday we met with the team [...]

In conclusion Well this brings to an end my exploration of Kingdom D.N.A. I started the journey with this idea on a plane to Canada late last year as I was searching for what is the “heart” that must not go missing from Fusion as we manage the significant transition we are now in. The [...]

Turn and face the change Sometimes the Christian church can look stagnant and caught in the past. One of the  dynamics of Kingdom D.N.A. is that there is a constant movement and change. People on the outside are being drawn onto the team. People on the team are being drawn into the core. People in [...]

The resource is in the harvest When those with a Kingdom vision begin the journey, there is no way they can possibly have the resources they need to make the vision reality. However as they begin the journey in response to Christ’s love and the needs of the community in which they live, something happens: [...]

The Kingdom is attractive When a small group of people are committed to Christ, committed to each other and committed to their communities something happens. The normal approach to ministry or social work is to look for people with a problem that you can help them solve. Inherently you come from a point of view that says [...]

Relationships that give life I can confidently say that I wouldn’t still be in the ministry I am in if it wasn’t for my friends and fellow travelers. We have already talked a bit about the need for a committed core at the centre of the Kingdom D.N.A. Sustaining this committed core is not easy. The [...]

Together is the only way At the heart of the Kingdom D.N.A. is a small fellowship of people who have dedicated themselves firstly to Jesus, then to the mission God has called them to and then to each other. Whenever the church has been at its best, there have always been these small groups at [...]

You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything  (John Mellencamp) The next critical part of Kingdom D.N.A. is vision you are prepared to commit your life to. At the heart of every great movement of God in the Christian church has been a small group of people who are absolutely committed to [...]

Christ the cornerstone As we start the journey of exploring “Kingdom D.N.A.” we need to start with one person – Jesus Christ. There is no way around it. Its not possible to have a Kingdom without a King. In an earlier blog post I shared how John Wesley had a devout faith in God, yet [...]

In the shadow of greatness Today I met a great man. I couldn’t quite understand his name. I wish I could. Trying to make conversation I asked him whether he enjoyed doing the tour. His response was immediate “No – its depressing”. Yet he still shows up. His expensive footwear and clothing were an indication [...]

Everything is the same but different I am sitting on a coach. Actually its more like a metro bus with five seats across rather than the regular 4 and not a lot of leg room. I have been on the bus since 6:45 this morning and will be on it till 8:45 tomorrow morning. Already [...]

The missing piece of Christian Theology In my view the Glory of God is one of the central pieces of Christian theology, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. As we begin the journey of dialogue with Kingdom D.N.A., I believe that one of the reasons we have such an anemic church in the Western [...]

Kingdom first As we begin the exploration of Kingdom D.N.A. we need to have a clear understanding of what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 6:33 when he charges us  to “Seek first the Kingdom”. The notion of the “Kingdom of God” is both revolutionary and incredibly simple. The word “kingdom” comes from the words [...]

The building blocks of Kingdom life Over the next week or so I am hoping to explore what it really means to live faith in a way that changes the world. This series of posts will take a few days, and I would love your feedback as I have a go at unpacking what I [...]

Find yourself I am continuing the journey with Matthew chapter 10 and we heard yesterday that Jesus is calling us into conflict. I pointed out that often conflict can come because of the way I see myself rather than the issue at hand. In this passage Jesus builds on the whole notion of personal identity [...]

The Prince of Peace? Really? As I have been sharing, God had me in Matthew chapter 10 for much of the early part of last year and it really confronted the way I had been seeing the world and my place in it. I really identify with the disciples who thought the Messiah was going [...]

What would Jesus really do? A number of years ago a trend was for Christians to have the letters WWJD? emblazoned on jewellery, pencil cases and bumper stickers.. It’s a good question. Turns out what he would do is come and be a model of a completely different value system than our world values. Turns [...]

You call this a plan? I have been sharing a bit of my journey with Matthew chapter 10. This chapter comes as Jesus sits the boys down and says, “Guys this is what you need to know if you are really going to be effective”. It is basically a one chapter training school I have [...]

Stop trying to “get there” I am continuing to unpack just what it was that hit me so hard about Matthew chapter 10. It started to dawn on me that the whole chapter was like an intentional training school. It was Jesus trying to prepare the disciples for ministry. I started to notice that a [...]

A journey to rediscover the true meaning of leadership At the start of last year I came to a series of significant personal revelations. I think I was feeling a bit as though I had pushed hard for four years and that it was time to take it a bit easier. God seemed to have [...]

Not all dreams are good I’ve been doing a bit of reflection on my own journey with leadership and have realised something: Whenever someone felt really strongly about wanting to do a particular role, and I let them, it didn’t work. I also see in me, the times I am attracted to a role it [...]

The crutch that trips you up As I mentioned in a previous post, I love the way Moses related to God.. mainly because I find it easy to identify with. One of the moments I find most easy to relate to is God’s initial calling of Moses. I also think it is one of the [...]

A different kind of leadership I love leadership. I love the creative challenge of trying to work out with God what the future might be and how we get there. I must say though, that there are lots of times when I want to give up, and even more times when I feel “driven”. There [...]

The journey towards understanding I know saying that people are different is like saying the sky is blue.. obvious (unless of course you are English in which case the sky is rarely blue : ) ). But it is this fundamental observation which I think I am only slowly starting to understand. I began my [...]

Telling God where to Go Do you ever find yourself getting fed up and very angry with God? I love Moses. Time and time again he lets God have it, responds to him with complete unbelief, anger or fear, and yet God gently responds each time without condemnation. My favorite interaction is in the book of Numbers [...]

I have been doing a lot of chatting with people about leadership and how they build teams. One of the things that is getting clearer and clearer for me is that a central missing ingredient when a team isn’t growing, is a vision or a story. I came across a story about Pixar and Disney [...]

A friend sent me a quote a couple of days ago about burnout: Burn out comes not primarily from doing too much, but from doing what we don’t really want to do – so that one foot is moving forward and the other foot is trying to run away’. – (from a book: sleeping with [...]

I taught our students some of the story of John Wesley and came across a number of the questions he asked his small groups to engage with. Imagine asking these questions in a group of 6-12 people every week! 1. Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I am? [...]