Logan Leadership

The more successful we are at recruiting, the more that has the inadvertent effect of diminishing our emphasis on the long-term development of others. Why invest in long-term leadership development when you can just use ready-made leaders from somewhere else? Ironically, short-term success short-circuits long-term success.

The other problem we run into with recruiting leaders is seeing a drop in quality in our pool of qualified candidates. We’re tapping them all out without bringing in new life and we’re giving them less time and attention, spreading them too thin. It’s like overfishing a pond. Instead we need to stock our pond with new life and multiply it.

I was field-testing a training process recently. As I reflected on it, I realized we were answering questions that the people at the training event wouldn’t even be asking for at least two more years. Sure, I might know they would be asking it in two more years, so it’s tempting to throw the information in there. But is it helpful?

It’s really, really easy to make that mistake. Too many trainings are like that one. We dump a whole truckload of information on unsuspecting people who didn’t need it all yet. It’s like someone saying they’re thirsty so we hit them with a fire hose. How does this realization change how we deliver training?

I received this text recently from my friend and colleague Gary Reinecke:

“Quick note to tell you how helpful the Journey Together Now pathway has been with the church planters I am coaching. The genius is in the simplicity, conceptual road-map and coach-friendly style. Thanks again for pioneering creative ways of disciplemaking.”

At first I was surprised because I hadn’t designed the Journey Together Now pathway for church planters. I’d designed it for laypeople involved in discipling relationships. But when I thought about it a little more, it made perfect sense. Church planters are in the business of promoting disciple-making, just in group settings. That’s what churches are—vehicles for making and growing disciples. Church planters need a broad conceptual map for how to guide people along that journey.

Here’s a little tidbit I’ll just throw out there for free. If you’ve been in a smaller-sized training or consultation with me you may recognize the picture accompanying this blog entry. That’s my frog. After we finish a session, I like to toss the frog. Each person the frog is tossed to needs to share something gleaned from our time together. It can be an ah-ha lightbulb moment, a question, a thought, a reminder, a realization, anything. Eventually the frog is tossed to everyone and we’ve all had a chance to reflect on the gathering. I’ve found this to be a great closing exercise that helps solidify the learnings. You’re welcome to steal it if you’d like…the idea, not the frog. I like my frog.

Go ask some people on the street what their impression of Christians is. Afraid what you might hear? That’s a reasonable fear. We are known for being “against stuff.” We are known not for our deeds but for our words—and our words are often arrogant, closed-minded, and contemptuous of anyone who thinks differently than we do. We are known for generosity only to our own and on our own terms. In shorthand, people don’t like us because we speak in words (not deeds), are bigoted, and don’t do any good.

When my friends Matt and Hugh moved to Denver with an eye toward incarnational missional living, they set a goal of each making 50 new friends who weren’t believers. Meeting that goal required them to think through their definition of “friend.” It certainly means more than a facebook friend, but might it mean even more than someone you know who is friendly to you?

Ultimately they decided that someone was a friend when they invite you to be with their friends. Until someone feels safe enough with you to include you with their other friends, you’re probably not a true friend yet. Think through this definition of friendship in your own life. Sometimes the way we define our “friends” means the friendship might be more on our side than on theirs.