Do you increasingly find yourself involved in teams, work groups, projects or task forces that require working with people you don’t see every day? Welcome to the growing world of virtual teaming. Here are four brief posts and one video link to help you contribute your best to your virtual team.

1. Embrace the New Rules of Work

2. When Did My Team Become Virtual?

3. Do You Trust Me?

4. 8 Tips to Improve Any Virtual Team Meeting

Click here to view the embedded video.

What tips would you add?

In this interview, Ken Cochrum talks about the opportunities and barriers facing Virtually-led Movements (VLM) and Cru in leveraging digital strategies for launching spiritual movements.

Click here to view the embedded video.

How do you respond to uncomfortable feedback?

Recently I spent some time ministering alongside another leader. He has a lot going for him: passion, conviction, a large scope of responsibility, and very able people around him. The potential for long-term impact is tremendous.

As we spent time together, aspects of his character and the way he treats others naturally surfaced. Near the end of our time he asked for some feedback (a really healthy move). I had been praying about what to say, and attempted to deliver my words of encouragement and suggested corrections with grace and truth.

My feedback was met with a bristling defense. Others who have attempted to speak appropriately into this leader’s life have met with the same fate, or worse. Brother, wherever you are today, know that I am praying for you. Our mission is at stake.

Feedback. We love it, and we hate it. As leaders, we can’t live, love, or lead well without it. Feedback is a gift from God to keep us on course, to humble us, and to ensure we don’t get too far ahead of the parade we are supposedly leading. Receiving feedback is a huge piece of learning to share leadership.

Here’s what helps me respond well to uncomfortable feedback:

• Embrace it. Feedback signals to me the impact, often unintentional, that my words and deeds have on others. Thank the messenger.
• Commit the issue to prayer. The spirit of God helps me sift out what is helpful and what is not. Jotting the issue down in my journal keeps it in front of me.
• Ask for help. Asking a friend or coach for their insight really helps. Often they affirm the messenger’s insight!
• Don’t shoot the messenger. Most people will no longer offer feedback to me if they’ve been rejected more than once.
• Lead on!

How do you respond to uncomfortable feedback?

By just about any measure, the Apostle Paul’s commitment to go to whatever lengths were necessary to bring the gospel to those who had not heard was remarkable.

Roland Allen, Anglican missionary to North Africa and China, explains: “In little more than ten years St Paul established the Church in four provinces of the [Roman] Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia. Before AD 47 there were no churches in these provinces; in AD 57 St Paul could speak as if his work there was done.”[1]

Paul’s primary calling and burden was to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to win as many Jews or Gentiles as possible (1 Cor. 9:19-22), and to press on to locations where Christ had not yet been named (Rom. 15:20-21). His ultimate goal was to plant churches by laying a foundation as a skilled master builder, thus leaving behind a healthy growing community of new believers in each location who were grounded in theology and the ethics of the law-free gospel (1 Cor. 3:6, 10; 9:10).

The vast distances and long periods of time required for Paul and his co-laborers to travel as the Spirit led them are impressive. Barry Beitzel beautifully captures the distance leadership challenge they surmounted:

The distances traveled by the apostle Paul are nothing short of staggering. In point of fact, the New Testament registers the equivalent of about 13,400 airline miles that the great apostle journeyed; and if one takes into account the circuitous roads he necessarily had to employ at times, the total distance traveled would exceed that figure by a sizable margin. Moreover it appears that the New Testament does not document all of Paul’s excursions. For example, there seems to have been an unchronicled visit to Corinth (2 Corinthians 12:14; 13:1); he refers to shipwrecks of which we have no record (2 Corinthians 11:25); and there was his desire to tour Spain (Romans 15:24, 28), though it is still debated whether or not he ever succeeded in that mission. Considering the means of transportation available in the Roman world, the average distance traveled in a day, the primitive paths, and rugged sometimes mountainous terrain over which he had to venture, the sheer expenditure of the apostle’s physical energy becomes unfathomable for us. Many of those miles carried Paul through unsafe and hostile environs largely controlled by bandits who eagerly awaited a prey (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:26). Accordingly, Paul’s commitment to the Lord entailed a spiritual vitality that was inextricably joined to a superlative level of physical stamina and fearless courage.[2]

The table below details the extent of Paul’s travels to many of the places he visited.

Table Source: Adapted from Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 122.

Paul was able to cover extraordinary distances given the limitations in transportation at the time.  His willingness to endure the hardships of travel to influence as many as possible for the gospel allowed him to make an incredible impact for the kingdom in his time on earth. That is some serious self-leadership.

What motivates you to go the distance?

Over the last few posts, we have been looking at ways that Jesus and Paul exhibited core aspects of servant leadership. We have looked briefly at Scriptural examples showing that Jesus and Paul both had a clear sense of calling, kept an intimate relationship with God, empowered others, and acted with love, humility, and zeal. Though this is not an exhaustive list, here are the final four traits that stood out to me from my research.

Vision

Both Jesus and Paul constantly kept the big picture in front of their disciples and audiences. While walking along the road to Emmaus with two followers who did not recognize him as the risen Messiah, Jesus “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem’” (Luke 24:45-47). Thus Jesus affirmed the missional nature of the whole of Scripture, the necessity of repentance and forgiveness to be proclaimed in the name of the Christ who suffered and rose from the dead, and the geographic progression of this proclamation from its starting point in Jerusalem to all nations. Paul took great pains in most of his letters and sermons to explain the big picture of God’s plan before calling his audience to action with imperatives (e.g., first Rom. 1-11, then Rom. 12-15; first Eph. 1-3, then Eph. 4-6).

Service

Although he was and is Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus did not come “to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), laying aside his rights and privileges as God. Jesus modeled service to his men by taking a towel and washing their feet, then instructing them to do the same to others (John 13:1-20). It is difficult to comprehend that Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). Paul also willingly set aside legitimate rights in order minister across cultures to people from diverse backgrounds, seeking to make himself a servant of all:

But I have made no use of any of these rights … that in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings (1 Cor. 9:15, 18-23).

Suffering

Both Jesus and Paul understood the role that suffering would play in taking the good news to the nations. Both willingly risked inconvenience, rejection of their message, pain, suffering, and their own lives in order to achieve God’s mission. Western leadership models, even Christian frameworks, tend to view suffering as an obstacle to the fulfillment of God’s plan. Biblical leadership embraces suffering as coming from God’s hand. Consider Isaiah 53, the great servant leader passage that describes the intense rejection, persecution, and death that the Messiah would endure for his followers. Near the end Isaiah writes, “yet it was the will of the the Lord to crush him” (Is. 53:10). Seriously? Paul also affirmed the role of suffering in many ways, particularly in character growth: “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rom. 5:3-4).

Results

Lasting fruit glorifies God (John 15:8, 16; Gal. 5:22-23). Both men left in their wake a growing community of loyal, trusting friends who were committed to following Jesus Christ, often at great personal cost. Both men completed their time on earth having accomplished the work God had given them to do (e.g., John 17:4; 2 Tim. 4:6-8). Both men touched lives, made disciples, and raised men and women who planted an unstoppable worldwide movement that continues bearing fruit today.

From the beginning of time God has been purposefully working out his redemptive plan for people from all nations. The missio Dei necessitates the calling and sending of leaders with the character qualities of servants who tell others the good news of forgiveness, freedom, and repentance in the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul represent two models of such leaders.

Where have you seen some of these traits in the lives of present-day servant leaders?

As servant leaders with a clear calling and vision for God’s glory to be spread to all nations, both Jesus and Paul exhibited core aspects of servant leadership. Recently, we looked at the first three similarities in their lives and ministries: calling, intimacy with God, and love.  Today we continue with three more.

Humility

The King of Kings and Lord of Lords said of himself, “I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:28). Paul frequently spoke of humility (e.g., Acts 20:19; 2 Cor. 10:1; 11:7; Eph. 4:2; Phil. 2:3, 8; Col. 3:12). Humility is the opposite of pride, which may be a servant leader’s greatest enemy. Humility is a dominant theme in the preaching and practice of both men.

Zeal

Both manifested intense passion for God and his glory among the nations. When Jesus cleansed the temple, he quoted Isaiah 56:7 “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples (cf. Luke 19:45-46). His disciples remembered, “it was written ‘zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:17). Paul exhorted leaders to lead “with zeal” and not be slothful in zeal but “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:8, 11).

Empowerment

Empowerment is about trust because it requires sharing power with others. Both Jesus and Paul invested in people as their primary strategy by aggressively entrusting others with the mission. Jesus bypassed the temptation to be enthralled with the crowds who followed him, choosing instead to prayerfully select twelve men, with an inner circle of three, to “be with him.” To these he imparted the majority of his teaching and training (e.g., Mark 3:13-20). Paul also had clear selection criteria for his missionary teams and local church leaders (e.g., Acts 15:36-40; 2 Tim. 2:2; Titus 1:5-9; 2:2-10). Both men actively involved women in their ministries (e.g., Luke 8:1-3; John 4:5-30; Acts 16:13; Rom. 16:3).* Both men trained and released other leaders by sending them out (e.g., Matt. 28:18-20; John 20:21; Acts 14:21-24; Titus 1:5). Thus they prayerfully, intentionally, and strategically risked the future of the church by empowering others.

Where do you run the greatest risk of giving into the temptation of pride? 

Merriam-Webster defines “zeal” as “eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something.” To what degree does this currently reflect your pursuit of God and His glory?

When was the last time you strategically risked the future of your ministry by empowering someone else?

————————-
* Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary, page 251. Schnabel notes: “The circle of Paul’s coworkers included a considerable number of women. It has been estimated that 18 percent of Paul’s missionary coworkers were women.” He lists Paul’s female coworkers who shared in Paul’s work and were specifically identified with the Greek affix syn, or “with,” as Phoebe, Priscilla, Mary, Junia, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis (all from Rom. 16), Apphia (Philem. 2), and Euodia and Syntyche (Phil. 4:2-3).

Jesus and Paul both left immense spiritual legacies. Their approaches to leadership shared many similarities and one profound difference. As servant leaders with a clear calling and vision for God’s glory to be spread to all nations, both Jesus and Paul exhibited core aspects of servant leadership through their lives, strategies, and methods. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, but to capture some of the key similarities in their ministries.

Calling

Each viewed himself as called by God as a servant sent to proclaim the good news. Understanding and acceptance of one’s calling provides a deep personal sense of security and emotional stability. This stable foundation allows one to freely serve others without risking personal worth. A clear sense of calling also provides motivation to endure through inevitable difficulty and suffering. Jesus frequently referred to his calling and purpose (e.g., Luke 19:10; Mark 10:45; John 13:1-4), as did Paul in the majority of his letters (e.g., Rom. 1:1-5; 15:20-21; 1 Cor. 9:15-23).

Intimacy with God

Jesus and Paul constantly affirmed and modeled the fundamentals of pursuing unbroken fellowship and abiding intimacy with God. These practices included devotion (e.g., Mark 1:35; 2 Cor. 11:3), intercessory prayer (e.g., Luke 11:1-13; Eph. 1:15-23), and walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit (e.g., Luke 4:1; Gal. 5:22-23). A servant’s ministry shrivels up when an abiding first love for God is abandoned (e.g., John 15:1-8; Rev. 2:1-5).

Love

Both men constantly referred to the primacy of agapao love. Jesus summarized the entire Old Testament law in two commands: Love God and love people (Matt. 22:37-40). He gave a new commandment to his disciples to love one another “just as I have loved you,” promising that “by this all people will know that you are my disciples (John 13:34-35). Jesus connected love to obedience and to the indwelling presence of the Helper, the Holy Spirit (John 14:15-17). Love was Paul’s dominant ethic, far above service, self-sacrifice, faith, or hope (cf. 1 Cor. 13:1-8; Gal. 5:22-23). Paul’s missionary teams were controlled by the love of Christ as they served as ambassadors in the ministry of reconciliation (cf. 2 Cor. 5:14-21).

How fresh is your sense of the Lord’s calling?  How intimate is your relationship with Him? Are you consistently growing in love for God and others?

Over the past 15 years I have constantly sought to answer this burning question, which I call the “Ten Day Rule of Heart:” If a global leader has no more than ten days per year of face-to-face time with his or her co-laborers in a multinational context, how can one appropriately serve, strengthen, inspire, align, equip, and coach those field leaders to live and lead well throughout the other 355 days?

This question informed my recent thesis research on servant leadership across distance and cultures. This series of posts will share some of the insights I gleaned from exploring Scripture, current research and best practices, and interviews with more than 80 global leaders.

The Need for a New Paradigm

Effective spiritual leadership across distance and cultures is a crucial topic for all Christian missions right now as the lines between local and global cultures blur, as the majority world surpasses North America in sending missionaries, as hierarchical organizations flatten into peer networks, and as a new generation of volunteers and full-time laborers assume responsibility for the Great Commission. Ministry in the 21st century will require character-grounded, innovative servant leaders who can flex with God’s Spirit and who are comfortable leading over greater distances with less control over God’s people.

Where do we find models of leaders like this? Whether you are leading across a city or across time zones, you are probably experiencing some of the challenges of 21st century global leadership. The New Testament offers abundant examples of servant leaders who led well in local and distance contexts.  If we focus on the ministries of Jesus and Paul, we find that while their immediate scope may have been different, many foundational elements of their leadership were the same.

Jesus: Up Close and Personal

Jesus’ ministry was primarily local and focused on one people group. The Jews to whom he ministered shared a common heritage, language, and culture. Geographically, the majority of Jesus’ ministry events recorded in the gospels took place within a 15-mile radius of two primary locations: the Sea of Galilee in the north and Jerusalem in the south.

Paul: Loving Over Distance

In contrast to Jesus, Paul’s ministry was primarily cross-cultural and conducted over great distance. Paul and his missionary teams would have covered about 1,200 miles as the crow flies from Jerusalem to Berea in Macedonia, one of their most remote areas of church planting. They covered great distances in relatively short periods of time, rarely lingering more than a few Sabbaths in any particular location.

Though Jesus and Paul ministered in different contexts, their ministries had many similarities.  We’ll look at some of these similarities in the next three posts.

If you have led locally and over distance, what are some of the similarities and differences you’ve encountered?

It seems appropriate in this the 200^th anniversary of Charles Dickens’ birth that we look at a tale not of two cities but of two leaders.

In our leader-obsessed culture perhaps we should focus not on the leader but their leadership.

These two pictures portray leaders in action.

The leader in the left hand picture is serving the other person by enabling them to get to their level. The leader in the right hand picture is serving the other person by enabling them to go beyond him.

These pictures take us to the very heart of the issue, which is an issue of the heart. Where does a leader find his or her sense of identity? Is the leader secure enough in who they are and therefore willing to enable others to press on to higher things?

In the life of Jesus we see this second picture of leadership. John 13:3-5 informs us:

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Unless we as leaders are secure in our position and in our identity, we will be unable to resist the temptation to solve other people’s problems (because it makes us feel good and massages our ego) instead of coaching our people and teams to solve their own problems. This is true empowerment. This is multi-generational servant leadership.

What do you think?

My friend and personal coach Paul Duncan lives in the UK and has been on staff of Agape (CCCi) since 1985. He currently is an executive agent for the European LDHR Director. He holds a Masters in Coaching and Mentoring from Oxford Brookes University; he is married with two daughters.

Email: phrkduncan@blueyonder.co.uk

Paul on Facebook

What’s the top reason leaders fail?

It’s not illicit sex, financial mismanagement, or being overpromoted while underskilled.

According to a large amount of research — biblical, contemporary, and my own interviews of 80 top leaders with whom I work in a multinational organization — the answer is PRIDE. In many cases, people named isolation and disconnection from relationships as precursors to moral failure. The root cause was often identified as pride.

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” wrote the wise author of Proverbs 16:18. The apostle Peter, #1 leader of the early church, taught that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). Jim Collins and his team researched tons of failed institutions and concluded in How the Mighty Fall that the first of five stages of decline leading to failure is “hubris born of success.”

All this data has sensitized me to subtle forms of pride in my own life. Like an unwillingness to admit blame for something, or reluctance to thank someone, or desiring credit for an idea. My sensitivity has been heightened through indepth study of Jesus, the servant-king, portrayed by Isaiah as one who was humble, merciful, faithful, and who did not raise his voice in the streets.

Humility stands out in sharp contrast to the shameless self-promotion over 110 million viewers witnessed in last night’s overhyped Super Bowl. Madonna, still a brilliant entertainer at 53 years of age, performed a new song focused solely on L-U-V Madonna. We expect that from her.

But I don’t expect it from some of the strong men of faith I’ve been following on Twitter. Recently I have noticed that the vast majority of posts from two particularly influential Christian leaders have fallen into the same category of shameless self-promotion. Not just personal updates; those are fine. They humanize us. But incessant deluges of tweets with links to more and more of their own stuff. I find myself praying for them — and for the rest of us — not to succumb to the fervor of pride so easily fanned into flame by social media.

What do you think?