Video Transcript: Final Thoughts

Congratulations. You have made it to the end of this class. You'll notice this is less leadership  session 36. I've been titled at final thoughts I've been giving a lot of thought to what do I want to say in this last session here with you? I thought I would just look at some maxims that have been helpful for me maxims about leadership, you know, maxims are those pithy statements  that take an idea. And they just put it down in a memorable way. You know, one of my  favorites is, is Dwight Eisenhower, who, a one time during the World War II, got his generals  around a table and put a string on it. And he says, try to push that string to the other side of  the table. And of course, it was difficult, because once you try pushing the string, it folds  around, and sometimes come, folds around sometimes comes loose. And so he said, No, the  best way to get that string to the other side of the table is to pull it and says, so the maxim is  you always pull people, you don't push them. In other words, you got to get engaged people, I guess, in terms of what we've talked about, engage people's feelings, and engage people in a  commitment to what they are doing and talking about. So I thought I would do that sort of  thing. But I've decided to go a little different direction for tonight for this session. And but  first, let's remind ourselves where we are, we've been talking about this model of leadership  for a long time, that is a leader enters a group of people who have a culture and the culture is defined as the way we do things here. And that leader engages the people in that culture to  help them define a preferable future, and they get a vision for that preferable future. And  then the leader rolls out that vision. And he also provides the impetus for the prayer and the  planning, that are needed in order for that preferable future to become a reality. Or here it is,  in the words, we've been using a leader with all of his pluses and minuses, strengths and  weaknesses, interacts with a group of people to define the culture, the way things are done  here in order to develop a vision for a preferable future. And then provides the impetus for  doing the actions necessary to bring about that future with plans and prayer. So we've been  talking about each section of that for a long time, we talked about the leader, who you are.  And if you started with the intro class, you know that we talked about all of the kinds of things that affect you, as a leader, there's your personality. And so you got to be thinking about the  personality, we talked about personality tests you could take to help you do that. Are there  certain styles of leadership that you have that are ingrained in you there's baggage you have  from your background, your family of origin, and that impacts how you are a leader, your birth order even affects how you act as a leader. And so we've looked at all of those things that  would impact you, as a leader, as you come into a cultural situation, things you have to be  aware of, if you are going to lead well, and not just push people, but pull them forward into  the future, then we talked about culture a great deal, the way things are done here, we talked about how culture you can look at in a macro setting, as well as in a micro setting that you  you look at the big culture. And so we looked at the culture of the United States, we looked at  how it's changed over a period of decades. And, and and we looked at the place of the church  and the culture of the United States. And I asked you to apply that to your own particular  setting. We've looked at the sub cultures that had some wonderful interviews generational  culture, with John Burton, and with Maya Clark, looking at, you know, the ethnic cultures and,  and here in our area that the African American culture and what she's doing in order to  change that culture, and how she's providing education. And so we talked about culture, the  fact that you've got to define the culture where you are, and I've given you tools to do that,  how you looked at the values of the place of the written documents, the the physical  manifestations of where you are ministering, and how all of those contribute to the way we do things here. And the way things are done, become important to people and they become kind  of set in concrete. And then we talked about how do you develop a division a vision for the  future, then? How do you engage people and looking beyond what is to what could be? How  do you identify that? That statement of urgency that will allow people to see there's a need  for change? And then how do you put that into words in such a way that's compelling? And so  you roll out the vision, we looked at all of those kinds of things, then we looked at change  theory and how this is going to involve change. And and then now we've been talking about  strategy and strategic planning, and how a strategic planning has to consider various things  like spiritual warfare like prayer, those kinds of things. But all that's in the past tonight. In this  session, I simply want to talk to you about the why. Great movie in the United States has 

become an iconic movies, The Blues Brothers. It's a 1980 movie, so it's an old movie, but it's  about the two blues brothers, played by Dan Ackroyd. John Belushi, Jake, Jake Blues gets out  of prison at the beginning of the movie. They are two blues singers by the way their brothers  and, and his brother Eldridge was there to pick them up from prison. And they decided to go  visit the person they call The Penguin. It's a nun at a Catholic orphanage, they were raised in  

an orphanage. And this Catholic nun was somebody that was very important to them and  precious to them and cared about them loved them, so they go to visit her. And they find out  from her that the orphanage is in great peril the school they are the orphanage, every part of  it's in great peril. That unless they can come up with money in 11 days, the place is going to  be repossessed, and shut down. And so Blues Brothers sense that they are on a mission from  God. In fact, that's a phrase that they repeat over, excuse me, over and over and over again,  we're on a mission from God, they say it to the police, they say it to the bad guys who are  chasing them and say it over and over again, we're on a mission from God, we're on a mission from God, we're on a mission from God, they decide to get their blues band together and hold a benefit concert and raise the money necessary. And so the movie just talks about them  getting their old band together and how they do that, and the people who are against it, etc,  etc, etc. But it's that phrase, we're on a mission from God, we're on a mission from God, and  they could define that mission very well. We're on a mission from God to save that school.  Now, related to that, put that on the shelf for just a moment, we're going to come back to  that. Related to that, as a teacher, consultant researcher, that's helped me a great deal. It's  somebody in the business world, not in the Christian world, necessarily, but he relates to the  business world, his name is Simon Sinek s-i-n-e-k. And he did a talk years ago, that's called  Start With Why. He developed what he calls the Golden Circle. Now the Golden Circle is made  up of these various elements. First of all, on the outer circle is the what what we do you know, what the results of of our work? And then the next inner circle is how how do we do it? How do you do what you do? And the why is why you do what you do? What is the purpose behind it?  What are the beliefs? What are the values behind it? And what he said in his talk about  businesses is that businesses usually start with the what? And he's found over and over  again, that the most successful businesses don't start with a what they start with a why. And  he gives us several examples. Apple Computer Company, for instance, he said when they  started, they were like many other computer companies in the sense that their job was the  what was to produce computers. But most other computers back companies back then  Gateway, Dell, etc. Always began with the what when they were trying to sell their  computers. What does this computer do? This is our computer. This is how much memory it  has. This is what its capacity is this is the variety of things it can do. They start with A what  now buy our computer, He said, Apple turned it entirely around. And they began with the why  they said we are a company of innovation. We are always looking to think differently. And so  we are always trying to come up with the best, the most ingenious plan that we can to  produce a computer. Now how do we do that when we provide unique designs, we provide a  unique operating platform and the what is a here it is This is what it will do. And he says  Apple, you know blows everybody out of the water when it comes to selling computer but not  only that, they were able to expand their business because they're what wasn't we're  producing these computers. That's what we do. Because they started with why they could say well, we can expand it to telephone in telephones, cell phones, and they produce the iPhone,  which became an instant hit, they produced all of these other things, the iPad, the iPod, the,  the Macintosh, the etc. All of these separate things they could do because we're a company  that thinks differently. You want to join us in thinking differently, are you somebody who's who wants the best and, and is looking for the best and the most innovative that you can have and he'd cite other companies that did just the opposite. They started with a what. And they said,  We're going to sell flat screen TVs Gateway Computers tried to do that failed entirely because  they were a computer company. That's how people interpreted them. Dell Com Computer  Company went through a difficult time they tried to expand their business. And every time  they tried to expand, it didn't work beyond computers because of people so thought of them  as a computer company. And so it constantly says you got to think of why. If you don't, you're  destined to failure in business. They've used TiVo. Now maybe you're not old enough to 

remember TiVo, but TiVo was an incredible, innovative design. When it came out. It was a it  was a machine that would allow allow you to tape programs. So you didn't have to be home  all the time. So your TV would take the program, you could cut through the skip commercials,  you could do all that sort of thing. It was an incredible thing. But people tried to sell it on the  basis of what, look at all these things this TiVo machine will do for you. And it was a disaster.  It didn't sell the company went belly up. He said, what a difference that have made if they  had started with the why, and started asking things like, Are you a person who likes to control your time? You know, are you somebody who likes to control your time? Well, it's tell you how  we've arranged for you to do that. We've built this machine. And here's the what, here's what  it will do. But starting with the why. Now, that talk was something that was powerful for me. In fact, I went back to my staff after I'd watch them on YouTube, and you can find it there. And  we simply talked about what's the why behind what we're doing. Now, in a church, we can  often talk about the what, right, we can talk about the what till the cows come home, what  what do we do? Well, we've got this children's ministry, and we invite you to bring your  children to our children's ministry, because you know, we're going to take care of them, we're  going to educate them, we're going to love them. And we're going to love them the way you  love them. So come bring your children to our children's ministry, or we do youth ministry,  you're concerned about your teenager, we've got a great place for them. Or, you know, we do this thing as we provide a social relationship place for you. And we can quickly do that. In  fact, I find myself even talking about that when I was strategizing with a group of people  about ministry to the senior citizens and saying, what do we do? Well, people need friendships when they retire, and they move to our community. So here's what we do, we provide this  group and you can come there and there, there aren't any expectations. And you can become part of something that will lead to friendship in your life, what you do. And we so seldom talk  about, why do we do this? And so the big question is, what is our why? What, what is the  ground level of why we do what we do? Now, we've talked about leadership, why do we lead?  Why do you put yourself in situations you know that session that identified the price to pay?  And the dark side of leadership? Why? Why do we put ourselves out there where we've talked  about the fact that leaders are the ones that are shot first? Why, why do we do this? Now we  can talk about what we do, and that's been most of this class, what do we do? But why do we  do it? Now some have found the why and the answer of the Great Commission and the great  commandment, the Great Commission is, you know, Go into all the world and, and make  disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy  Spirit, teaching them to observe what I commanded and low I'm with you always to the end of the age and the great commandment, to love God with your heart, soul, mind and strength  and love your neighbor as yourself. Those are wonderful whys. Why do I do this? I do it.  Because I have met Jesus Christ. He's made a difference in my life. I've given him my life. And I am willing to take any, any steps he leads me to take another teacher in CLI Steve Elzinga,  has written a book and I'm sure it's in one of his classes about Titanic, the Titanic, was built in  1912, launched in 1912, it was going to be the unsinkable ship, right. And lo and behold, on  its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, from England, to New York City and in the United  States, it hits an iceberg and the iceberg dashes it so that it's doomed, it's going to sink and  suddenly start launching the lifeboats. And that's when they start finding out that there aren't enough lifeboats on the boat to save the 2,200 plus people who are on the ship. There's only  enough lifeboats space for 1,200 to be saved. And so they begin launching the lifeboats and  the rule is that men and women first, now women and children, excuse me first, and so  women and children start loading into the lifeboats but because everybody's in a hurry, the  ship is starting to list. The lifeboats are launched before they're full. And so the lifeboats are  directed to start rowing away from the ship because when it goes down, it's going to cause  this sucking sensation. So you don't want to be near when this place goes under when the  ship goes under, and so the lifeboats row away. What was fascinating about the story about  the lifeboats is that most of them were not filled to capacity at all. In fact, here's a picture.  The Carpathia was the ship that came the first ship on site after the Titanic sunk and they  were rescuing the lifeboats. But here's a picture of one of the lifeboats. And you'll notice that  if you count all the faces in there, you'll come up with about 20 people in a lifeboat that was 

designed for 40. And so the lifeboat was not full. There was a phenomenon that they noted  the survivors and that is that is the lifeboats rowed way, they didn't go back to pick up  survivors. Now there were reasons for that some people were scared that they would be  overwhelmed. They'd be swamped with people trying to get in. But there were 700 people  that could have been saved, if the lifeboats went back. But none of the lifeboats except I think it was one went back. And that struck me, that struck me because I'm, I'm part of a church.  And sometimes it's compared to a boat. In fact, I went to a pastor's gathering years ago for  Promise Keepers in Atlanta, Georgia. And I remember the speaker, Max Lucado, was the  speaker that night and, and just before he began speaking, I was talking to the man next to  me, and he was from a denomination where we have some theological differences. Let's put it that way. And so I began the conversation by saying, you know, hey, you know what, I've got  a young man who was in my office just last week. And he was telling me about the fact that  he's dating and as a Nazarene girl, from the Church of the Nazarene. And so you wonder what the differences are. And so we talked about all the difference between you and me. And dot ta dot ta dah, that we began to just highlight some of them. And then the talk began, and I like  to, paint this picture of a ship going through the waters, troubled waters, and there's all kinds  of people in the ship. But instead of throwing out life rings and hauling people aboard the  people on the ship are arguing about what the seating capacity should be and what the  seating system should be, and who gets what chair and who gets what sense of honor and  place of honor, etc, etc, etc. And it was just very convicting for me, because I realized that  sometime along the way, I had begun to lose my why. Why do I do this happens in the church, it happens to leaders. In fact, my brother once told me a story. I think it's a fable, but maybe  not. Along the east coast of the United States, there are various exclusive clubs only the very  rich can get into them. And turns out that for many of those clubs, there is a similar story of  their beginning, they began as life saving stations, people very early in the history of the  United States noted that at certain places along the coast, there were objects that were made up likely that there could be a ship that would founder there, there were reefs that were that  sort of thing that a ship would hit. And so they established life saving places. And here's a  picture of one of them back very early in this in the 1900s. And the idea was when the word  would go out, these volunteers would come rushing to get their boats out of the lifesaving  station and get their boats in the water. And they go and rescue as many people as they  possibly could. But over a period of time, people began to think, you know, this is cool, we  should get together more often than just when we're out there in the lifeboats. And so they  put additions on, they built nice buildings and, and they created places where they can meet  and there they would have lectures about, you know, life saving techniques, and how to  handle your boat better. And all those kind of lectures and, and after a while, people would  come for the lectures and the food and, and a few of them would show up in the call would  come out to actually rescue people. And after a while, they said, You know what, I'm really  kind of tired of this running out, they're getting too old for that, you know, to engaged with  other things. And so they would hire people to do that for a while. And then after a while, they quit paying them. And what you've got is a nice, nice club that used to be a life saving  station. And I thought about my church, I thought about myself, in my first church, my goal  was to see people meet Jesus Christ. Why? Because I met him. I had met him, he had, he had  come to me, and he had shared his love with me. And I had gotten to experience his love in a  powerful life changing way. And I wanted others to experience that. Now, unfortunately, I  grew up in a church that didn't teach me about that a great deal. In fact, you know, life saving was not part of it. We even in seminary, my training was to take care of the people in the  lifeboat not go and find more people to bring in. And that that training, stuck with me except  that I had experienced people coming to faith. I'd experienced in a music group that I sang  with saying an honor camp and we saw people come to faith in those situations, I went on a  summer's Missions Program, got to see people impacted by the gospel, the good news that  Jesus Christ came to save them from their sins, that God loved them, he wasn't angry with  them, he loved them, he wanted them to come to salvation, got to see it happen. So that  became a big part of my why and then my first church how we got to see people do that a  little tiny church, people coming because their lives were a mess. And they were looking for 

some solution and they were afraid of God they were riddled with guilt and to share with them the good news I got to disciple those people, some parts of it I didn't do well I didn't know how to do leadership well, but some of that activity on my part lessened as I got into my next  church where I had to learn to lead and now I thought, Well, okay, the, the life saving part is  lesser than I've got to leave this group and and lead them through that relocation for seven  years. It was about trying to hold the group together. It wasn't about bringing new people to  relationship with Jesus Christ. And so I had to rethink my why. And even now in retirement, I'm starting to think of why why do I do this? Why do I do what I do? I figured it out, figured out  why I do this. It's because I have experienced forgiveness of my sins through Jesus Christ. I  realize that my theology is right. Now my theology was probably always right, that I'm saved  by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And that God came to me not because I was such a  good kid or a good person, but he came to me because simply because he loved me. And he  offered me salvation and Jesus Christ. And now I've experienced that, and I want to share it.  And I want God to create a passion in me for sharing it. So a passion that will drive me to be  engaged and things like this, you know, my hope is not that your organization will just reach  some new level, but that will be more impactful for the kingdom of God. That's what we  leaders are supposed to be doing. As we do that we are serving the people around us,  because we are people who have been impacted by the love of Jesus Christ. And we're  compelled now to be people who are witnesses of His love, in our area, and out to the world.  And so I want to close this session on leadership, by simply asking the question, what is your  WHY you can become a great leader. We've looked at some of those early sessions, great  leaders like Stalin, like Adolf Hitler, you could probably probably name some great business  leaders who created havoc in their wake. Because their why was just about money or just  about getting ahead or just about getting people's approval. Spend some time with God and  figure out what is your why. And when you do that, then live it out with a passion, the why of  Jesus Christ as a head of his church, and you get to be part of the wonderful process of him  building his kingdom until he comes again, and says to you, well done, good and faithful  servant. So thank you for spending time with me a lot of time with me as it turns out, and now bless you, my, my words to you are blessing. See you in the name of Jesus Christ, as you lead  in his church. May you experience His power working in you and His love flowing through you  so that the world is changed because everything rises and falls on leadership.