New Ideas As a Team Measuring Stick

We are reading a new book now with our ministry team (Simple Church). In this book, the authors suggest that in an organization of passion, new ideas will emerge.

Where there are passionate leaders and passionate volunteers, there is always an abundance of new ideas. Combine this passion with the many needs that are prevalent in the lives of church members and you have the equation for new programs and special events.

Simple Church, p. 48

If this is true, then we must do something about a staff meeting that concludes with little or no discussion of the next step/course of action (these have occurred a lot lately). No new ideas is a subpar measurement. We can make a couple of possible assessments:

• The leaders are not passionate
• The leaders are not creative
• The leaders are not observant
• The leaders are not leaders

Employing the observation, interpretation and clarification method (OIC), I must now move towards clarification. I must engage the other team members in a dialogue that will cause them to shed more light on this situation. I do not want to conclude that the team that we have aren't leaders or observant or creative or passionate. But if they are, what then? We must move them towards those goals. That is the responsibility of leadership! We must set the table to allow them to eat their fill and nourish their hearts on the healthy diet of biblical, simple leadership.

May the cry of our heart be passionate, creative, observant leadership of the sheep entrusted to us as shepherds. May God grow us first so that we in turn may lead others to the same end and that we may say, as Paul did, "follow me as I follow Christ".

For passionate leadership full of ideas,
Mike