Tag: vision

Shift into Focus

I’m having a seriously hard time keeping my focus. I start to write a few paragraphs about something important to me, but I get distracted two sentences in . . .

In order to stay focused, I’m making effort to re-focus. Thankfully, TEAM has a mission statement to help me: Our mission is to partner with the global Church in sending disciples who make disciples and establish missional churches to the glory of God.

TEAM’s mission statement captures our commitment to disciple-making and church planting. Each member of TEAM spends our time and energy in different ways, but we all contribute toward this common goal. As a Senior Director, I spend the bulk of my time and energy to encourage and equip other leaders in TEAM. I do this so that they can encourage and equip others, so that we can together see more people following Jesus and growing together in community with other believers. That’s why we’re here.

I’ll never forget seeing “Schindler’s List” when it came out in the early 1990’s. There was a movie, too, but I’m talking about a brief magazine article about a young church planter in Germany. God gave this church planter a list of people in his community to pray for and pursue for the sake of the gospel.

As an aspiring church planter, this little article reminded me that ministry is about people: people with faces, people with names, people with families, people with joys and sorrows, people who know Christ and people who don’t yet know Christ. The focus of what we do is the people to whom we have been sent.

“Schindler’s List” helped me to focus during many years of preparation (seminary, support-raising, language study) and throughout my subsequent years of ministry in Japan, and the Czech Republic. Over these years, my list has included names such as Marcus, Naomi, Chie, Hiroko, Oki, Yasu, Kazu, Non, Masa, Shoji, Jan, Richard, Mira, Jana, Michael, Jirka. Who is on your list?

This little article that left a lasting imprint on me was in a magazine published by TEAM, and the church planter was Diet Schindler.

30 years later: Diet is still with TEAM, still serving Christ in Germany, and still inspiring and equipping others to make disciples. He’s written a new book, Shift: The Road to Level 5 Church Multiplication. I bought it here today, and I encourage you to check it out. You can also find it and other great resources for disciplemaking ministry at exponential.org. May Diet’s book and exponential’s resources help us keep our focus!

Keep listening,

David

confidence = competence?

Someone who read my post last week sent me a provocative article that observes the tendency of many people in my culture to confuse confidence with competence. Those with the most passionate voices and most compelling vision are not necessarily those with the ideal leadership profile. In fact, this author notes that “most of the character traits that are truly advantageous for effective leadership are predominantly found in those who fail to impress others about their talent for management.”

In case you are wondering, this is not some outrageous claim nor a random comment from the edge of the internet.  This is the Harvard Business Review, and it’s substantiated by a significant body of social science research. There is a strong consensus among leadership scholars that humility is a core quality of effective leadership.

Of course, we don’t need social scientists to prove this to us.  2,000 years ago, Jesus taught and modeled how to lead effectively: The meek shall inherit the earth . . . I have come not to be served, but to serve . . . The greatest among you should be like the youngest . . . Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.  His disciples echoed these teachings over and over again: Be completely humble and gentle . . . Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others . . . All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another . . . Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

So I don’t need scientific research or modern case studies to convince me that leaders need to clothe themselves with humility and make every effort to be good listeners of those they serve.  But scholarship, empirical studies and even modern management publications can open our eyes to our blind spots.  They are just one more thing that we need to listen to.

Question: In the past few days, who or what have you listened to?  How is it helping you to become a better leader?

Why we’re here

We love helping leaders who cross cultures in order to serve people. That’s why we’re here.

We love Jesus Christ and believe that He is working out His purposes among all peoples of the earth. He calls ordinary people to go from their own culture to another in order to serve people in His name: cross-cultural servant leaders.  That’s who we’re for.

We envision a global missions force of cross-cultural servant leaders who are growing in competency and character so that they may effectively serve those to whom God sends them. We know ministry teams can thrive even in challenging circumstances when they receive proactive care, training and tools.  We understand that leaders grow through personal coaching that draws out the wealth of their own experience and God-given dreams. We believe mission organizations that are committed to developing healthy leaders and teams produce lasting Kingdom results.

We will provide content on this site to help mission leaders, teams and organizations to think, grow, and do what they are called to do.  We welcome your participation – questions, comments, disagreements.  Help us to know how we can help you.

Grace & peace,

David Sedlacek, PhD
Missionary, TEAM | The Evangelical Alliance Mission