If you have not then please consider reading, commenting, and sharing at least once this year! The Blogference brings together ministry leaders from around the world to discuss relevant ministry issues. By leaving a comment and sharing your thoughts you create a diverse and energizing experience for leaders seeking to have an influence for Christ around the world!

The Topics This Year:

• Virtual Evangelism–A Personal Story

• Virtual Ministry–A Challenge

• Evangelism and Latinos

• Leading as  a Mom

• How Social Media is Influencing Culture and Changing the Church

• Thriving at College

• Missional Campus Ministry

• Spiritual Leadership

• Leading Strategically

• 50 Year Olds and 20 Year Olds–One of Campus Crusade’s Biggest Internal Challenges

To Participate the Blogference:

What we need in order to reach an entire campus with the gospel is exactly what Millennials crave – empowered leadership.

The Millennial Generation (born from 1980-2000) is the largest generation in American history. It’s a generation leery of corporate America, who do not respond to command and control management. They want choices, experiences, autonomy and opportunities to lead.

“Millennials won’t tolerate being controlled. They want to be led. Big difference.”- Travis Robertson

So what is the bottleneck holding back this tide of Millennial Leaders? [This post just so happens to dovetail nicely with Ken Cochrum’s post yesterday about Jethro and Moses. Ken dealt with the qualities of those who can be entrusted with leadership. I want to focus on the bottleneck of leadership and the desires of the Millennial Generation.]

Wikipedia describes a bottleneck as “a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources.” What would you say is the bottleneck in campus ministry?

I’d say Staff.

More specifically: staff spending their time doing ministry instead of empowering student-leaders to do ministry.
When we came on staff, I think most of us had a picture in our heads of what college ministry would look like.

Here was mine:

Cruising down the highway on an epic road trip with 4 guys I’m discipling, windows down, good music blasting (in that day – Stone Temple Pilots!). Ministry! That’s seriously what I envisioned. Seriously.

I think most staff come on campus to do ministry, not to empower others to do ministry.
The Apostle Paul wrote that the role of a Christian leader is to:

“equip people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up” – Ephesians 4:12

So staff’s job is not to do ministry. But to equip others to do ministry.

Our job as staff is to cultivate an environment that encourages the people of God to be stewards of the gifts God has given them and help them use those gifts to minister to others.

To create an environment where ministry bubbles up (instead of being carried out by, or commanded down from staff). A decentralized, permission-giving ministry. In the phenomenal book Unfinished Business (highly recommended to further explore the Biblical mandate of empowering/equipping), Greg Ogden writes:

Ministries can only extend as wide as there are self-initiating, Christ-honoring leaders. It’s the pastors job to hustle and keep up with and encourage the ministry that is bubbling up everywhere

We tell students: “If you have something you are passionate about, get a team together and come tell the staff what you are doing so we can platform you and help you get others involved and resource you to get there (as long as it fits into Win/Build/Send).”

Back in 2007, NASA foresaw a need to change how they worked with the incoming Millennial employees and asked a consultant (from Microsoft) to recommend changes. The full article is worth the read, but here’s an interesting insight:

Top-down or command-and-control methods will prove less effective for the next generation, but millennials can be brought together for a mission they consider meaningful. Defining the mission, and remaining flexible enough to refine and redefine it, will create an environment in which leaders will emerge.

That means organizations will need to rethink leadership and management and make them more distributed.

A distributed, empowered movement of leaders. Sounds exciting. And messy.

A pastor friend once told me:

You can either have a ministry that is empowering or controlling.

You can’t empower and control at the same time.

The moment you are controlling, you are no longer empowering.

Which of these two has the most potential for explosive growth? Which is more predictable?

If we’re serious about reaching every student on our campus AND engaging this massive generation of leaders staff have to do less, control less, and empower more.


How have you empowered students to lead?

What changes do you need to make in how your staff team operates?

Do you agree that staff are THE Bottleneck?

Photo courtesy of coelacanths

Making ideas happen = Ideas + Organization + Communal forces + Leadership capabilit

Go ahead read that again. Make sure it sticks. According to Scott Belsky’s book, Making Ideas Happen, this is the framework for seeing our ideas come alive. We talk a good game about being innovative and doing whatever it takes to make Christ known, but how are we doing within Campus Crusade (or any Christian ministry) with these components of making our ideas happen?

To get the conversation started here’s my unnofficial rating of Campus Crusade for Christ from a scale 1-10…

• Ideas (5) – Honestly, this is tough to rate across the breadth of our organization. My general feel is that we have some good ideas coming from our teams at the local level and various other levels, but trying to comply with organizational expectations leads to uncertainty about our freedom to dream.

• Organization (5) – Some teams and people are more organized than others but more often than not I feel like communication and organization between teams, regions and ministries is a struggle. Too often our staff are living in a state of “reactionary work flow”  just trying to just stay afloat with day to day ministry.

• Communal Forces (6) – Scott Belsky says ideas don’t happen in isolation, therefore we must get better at broadcasting and refining our ideas. This is where technology has such great potential to fuel the speed and development of our ideas. I’ve seen an increase in this “sharing” culture in the past 2 years and yet often I find our staff struggling to buy into helpful technology or just plain ruling it out.

• Leadership capability (8) = I think we have a high leadership culture. Leaders who motivate teams, overcome obstacles and make hard decisions. I love the people I work with and they have sharpened me.

As we infuse and innovate for the Gospel sake, may it be balanced with making sure the right ideas actually come to fruition. If you are a student, staff, volunteer or just an outside observer, how would you rate Campus Crusade for Christ?

Here’s some links to Staffhacker posts that would be super relevant to these screencasts:
1. Why I use Mailchimp, and why you should too: http://www.staffhacker.com/156/why-i-use-mailchimp-and-why-you-should-too
2. How to get subscribers for your newsletter: http://www.staffhacker.com/159/how-to-get-subscribers-for-your-newsletter
3. Creating your first email in Mailchimp: http://www.staffhacker.com/157/creating-your-first-email-in-mailchimp
4. Designing newsletters with your donor in mind: http://www.staffhacker.com/161/designing-newsletters-with-your-donor-in-mind
5. Writing newsletters that get read every time: http://www.staffhacker.com/162/writing-newsletters-that-get-read-every-time

If your self-leadership development efforts were illustrated through spoons on a wall, what would it look like? Would have many spoons…or two…or maybe just one?

My mom has always had a collection of spoons – those little souvenir spoons that you can find while you are traveling. She has spoons from most countries in Europe and other places she has visited in her lifetime and they have been on the wall of her living room since I can remember.

That’s what I think our self-leadership development should look like–having a lot of spoons on the wall. Those spoons to me symbolize various takeaways, wisdom, insights, and experiences from a variety of different places and people and times in our life. Looking at the collection, I can’t help but appreciate the diversity of the spoons as well as the personal stories behind them.

It’s so easy to fall into the mindset that your development should be provided to you from whoever is leading you or through your immediate context. Should your leaders be seeking to provide development for you and those they lead? Absolutely. Should you expect them to provide all, or even the majority, of your development or what you need to increase your leadership capacity and grow? Absolutely not!

Waiting for someone who is supervising you to provide all of what would help you as a leader is foolish, passive, and can be at times even childlike. You’re putting your own development completely at the mercy of one other person’s strengths, limitations, motivation, and capacity to develop you. And you know what – they aren’t you! Chances are you need, and even want, different types of development than your leader because you are a different person and a different leader. Even the greatest leader can only give you so much.

So let’s own our development and continue our journeys towards learning, growing, changing, and increasing our capacity to serve and lead others. Here’s what I recommend:

Go get some spoons!

1. VISIT!

Go visit the people and places that have the spoons you want or you feel like you really need right now as a leader. My mom wouldn’t have all those spoons if she never went anywhere. Waiting for your leader to do all the work for your development is like waiting for a spoon to show up at your front door. That’s anti-adventure, anti-adult, and anti-leaderlike.

2. COLLECT!

What’s the point in going somewhere or visiting someone for the sake of development and learning if you don’t actually take something away that can help you be a better person or leader or even help you execute your responsibilities better. So find spoons that help you refine your strengths and growth areas. Find spoons that help challenge your thinking and paradigms. Find spoons that will speak into your life, inspire you, help you dream big, gain new skills. Find spoons that help you in your personal and emotional life as well as in your personal and leadership relationships. There’s a lot of spoons out there
than can help you grow into the person and leader you want to be. Don’t wait for people to drop them off at your door. GO GET ‘EM!

3. POLISH!

One of my chores growing up was polishing my mom’s spoons. It was fun to dip a spoon into a cleaning solution so half of the spoon was dirty and the other half was perfectly clean. By polishing them up, the spoon’s became so shiny that it was like it was a totally different spoon or I was totally seeing it for the first time. The task of polishing all the spoons also served the purpose of reminding me of all the places and types of spoons that there were. When they were hanging on the wall they were easily forgotten, but taking them down to polish them would evoke memories and a renewed appreciation for what they looked like along with the backstory behind it. You can go and get a lot of “spoons” over time, but if you forget those insights and takeaways
they won’t transform your leadership much over time. Find ways to remind yourself of those great insights and transformational experiences that you already have on your wall and at your disposal!

One of the best “spoons” I’ve picked up over the years is that when it comes to your development as a leader, you have to own your leadership development LIKE a leader. That means it’s no one else’s job to make sure you have a good spoon collection. It’s your job, your calling, your journey. And spoon collecting should become a passion! I’ve picked up spoons from my leaders over the years, from seminary, from reading books, from friends, from my teams, from countries I’ve been in, from media, from church, from social media, from conferences, blogs, and a host of other places and experiences too. There’s a lot of spoons out there for the taking!

So figure out where you want more spoons, where you really need more spoons, and maybe check out what kind of spoons others around you have for ideas about what kind of spoons can best help you. It’s also good to remember that we don’t collect spoons like we collect data or information. We collect the spoons of leadership development for our own transformation and so we can serve others and ultimately help them learn how to start spoon collections on their own.

But whatever you do, don’t settle for a wall with one or two spoons on it. You just end up looking like you’ve not really visited that many places. The people we lead and influence deserve more than one or two spoon’s worth of leadership!

Where are you going to get your spoons? What advice do you have?

How are you managing to remember and consistently apply insights
and takeaways you’ve gained in the past? Any suggestions?

Randy Newman has served in ministry with college students, the Pentagon, and various churches in addition to publishing Questioning Evangelism, which helps non-evangelists do the work of evangelists.

What sorts of challenges are you facing in evangelism? What are you learning about the culture to whom you are ministering? What questions do you have that could make you more effective?

“What you are doing is not good,” offered Jethro, “you will wear yourselves out.” Let me ask this: What Would Jethro See in Me?

When I think about leadership capacity I can’t help but turn to the story of Jethro counseling Moses on how to avoid burnout in Exodus 18. You know the plot. Moses had become the defacto decision-maker for two million people and it just wasn’t working. “What you are doing is not good,” offered Jethro, “you will wear yourselves out.”

Usually when I hear this passage taught the focus rests on Moses reducing the pain of leadership by increasing his own capacity, delegating wisely, and empowering others to lead. This is true. Anyone who is serious about spiritual leadership must master these crucial lessons. But there is another angle of that is frequently overlooked: the capacity, or readiness, of the followers to whom Moses is entrusting leadership.

A closer look reveals three key criteria that Jethro had in mind for the next generation of leaders. The developmental question I would want to ask myself, as a follower, is: Would I have been chosen according to these criteria? If not, where do I need to grow? It helps me to break
down Jethro’s advice in Exodus 18:21-22 like this:

1. Look at the Hands.

“Moreover, look for able men from all the people…” These new leaders had to have a certain level of competence in living life wisely. This is about skills. If someone were looking for a capable person to perform a certain task, would my name come to mind? What skills must I acquire or strengthen in order to both perform my current role well and prepare me for future changes?

2. Check the Heart.

“…men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe…” Each person had to have a heart that clearly pursued God and his ways. This is about character. Do other people know what I love, fear and hate? Can I be trusted to make and keep commitments, both small and large? Character growth is tricky. It’s not like we can just put some good ideas down on a Personal Development Plan and start checking them off the list. God’s economy doesn’t work that way; it takes time. Also, sometimes I can’t even see my most needed areas of growth because I am blind to them; I need others to help me by speaking into my life. Rather than wait for an annual 360 review, I often ask teammates to give me informal feedback (and keep my heart open to their counsel).

Capacity in character grows naturally as we abide in Christ, walk in the Spirit and bear his fruit. That’s him working, not us. Paul offers several ways that we participate in growing our character: by transforming our mind (Romans 12:1-2), by allowing ourselves to be influenced by other godly people (1 Timothy 4:12), and by embracing suffering (“we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character” Romans 5:3).

3. Examine the Head.

“…and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times.” This is about perspective and discernment. Am I ready to lead ten on a team? How about 25 on a project? How about providing spiritual and strategic leadership to several teams in multiple locations across time zones and cultures? You may not currently aspire to that level of leadership, but God is always using our current responsibilities to prepare us for another future role. Movements requires people – leaders – who can rise above the clattering demands of the present and gain a longer-term perspective from the Lord. (I recently blogged about how I am learning to do this here.)

Finally, the relative importance of these different capacities shifts depending on what level of leadership is required (see the chart below). At the grassroots technical skills tend to be most crucial. We ask questions such as: Can she share her faith? Can he emcee a meeting well? How well can she keep a small group together?

As one moves to higher levels of leadership, interpersonal and conceptual skills take on greaterweight, while the need for technical skills actually diminishes. Different questions surface, such as: Is she worth following? Can he partner and share power with others? Do I trust her perspective and judgment? In choosing that strategy, is he honoring Christ and really looking out for the long-term interests of our institution? Is he lording his position over others or using his authority to serve the community and the mission? These are critical qualities for those who will lead us into the future.

What would Jethro see in you?

(Figure from Leadership in Organizations, 7th edition by Gary Yukl, Prentice Hall, 2010.)

True leaders might be known for lots of things, but living in the past “ain’t one of them.”

It was the infamous baseball manager Sparky Anderson who said, “ I have my faults, but living in the past ain’t one of them…there ain’t no future in it.” Sounds like something that other baseball philosopher Yoggi Berra might have said.

Leadership is primarily future oriented, not past or present oriented. A leader, in one sense, needs to live in the present, but needs to operate with a future oriented mindset and focus.

A true leader preoccupies himself with the future.

Leaders are mesmerized by the future…they think about it, dream about and live in it (as opposed to living too much in the present…and certainly not the past.)

As I read my Bible, I see over and over again how God plants a vision of a preferred future in a leader’s heart (a God-given vision, not just a good vision) and sends him/her out to gather people to move toward that vision~ Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua; and so as not to forget the ladies, Debra, Ruth and Esther.

With the possibility of being overly simplistic (which I have been accused of before) I will go out on a limb and say that Managers / administrators are concerned about the present and how to make what is, better. Leaders are concerned about the future and how to bring into existence what is not.

“Most organizations are over managed and under led.” –Warren Bennis (a professor at USC, and acclaimed author on the subject of leadership)

As a leader you are never happy with what is, because in your head and heart you see what isn’t …what could be and must be. You do this because you can’t help it, because you see the “not yet” of the future as if it already IS …you can’t get it out of your head and out of your heart, and you need managers/administrators to help you go hard after this vision and make it a reality.

So here is the big question…what happens to leaders and their followers when they don’t pursue the future? What happens when they get so consumed with taking care of the present that they have no bandwidth and energy to dream about what could be?

They become bogged down in the present with no energy to act on dreams of a God-pleasing and better future. It’s what one pastor called administrivia. This happens to lots of visionary leaders.  They should delegate more and let manager types handle lots of the details, but they don’t due to the fact that they have never asked or trained anyone else to take care of these things, so they can focus on the bigger picture of the future.

Here are two things that happen when a leader does not own, live in and operate with the future in mind:

1. People lose hope in the present because they can’t see a positive and
engaging future.

People working on various tasks that are not intentionally connected to a bigger, inspirational future can, over time, not only loose hope, but lose motivation and a solid work ethic. It can get boring, hum drum, same old thing day after day. Two brick layers were laying bricks for a new multi-million dollar church facility. A passer by asked them what they were doing. One responded, “I ‘m laying bricks.” The other responding, “I am helping build a magnificent building for the glory of God. One had the visionary big picture in mind, whereas the other was focused on doing routine tasks.

2. A leader with God-given genes and gifting to be future oriented, but who is focused too much on the here and now, will get tired a lot quicker…tired emotionally, physically and emotionally.

If you are a leader and the Lord has gifted and equipped you to lead futuristically, but you are not doing so because you are overly occupied with the details of the present, you will wear yourself out. People operating from inside their “Wheel House” are energized and strengthened; those operating outside are weakened and de-energized over time. There is a reason for the fact that, according to Author Richard Swenson, there are 22 separate organizations in the USA that exist to deal exclusively with pre or post Pastoral Burnout. And it is not limited to pastors, but leaders across the board. By God’s grace you will want to live out of your gifting to prevent exhaustion and potential burnout.

In closing, let me say that many leaders are traveling too fast and trying to do too much.

My experience has led me to believe that it is unrealistic to try to clear the brush in the jungle for a new path, and at the same time be up in the trees looking ahead to where the path is heading.

You can’t effectively lead the orchestra and at the same time, be in the pit playing one of the instruments.

“I may have my faults, but living in the past ain’t one of them. There ain’t no future in it.”

Pastor Dave Kraft is currently one of the pastors at the downtown campus of Mars Hill Church, and is the Director of Leadership Develpment and Coaching in The Resurgence, a ministry of Mars Hill Church. Dave is also a professional coach with Ministry Coaching International, coaching pastors around the country.

You can check out Dave’s site which includes many articles and resources for ministry leaders here: http://davekraft.squarespace.com/

In February 2010, Dave’s book “Leaders Who Last” was published by Crossway. When he is not investing in the next generation of leaders, which he loves doing, Dave reads, works out, watches movies, plays the piano, and listens to music.

Rob Bell has ignited a firestorm of controversy with his recent book Love Wins.

How is the controversy affecting those whom you lead?

What sorts of responses are you coming up with when discussing the issue?

Are there any particular parts of Scripture or resources that you are using to walk people through the issues at stake?

Being a campus staff I have noticed that the general feeling over the name change conversations for the past couple weeks have shown fellow staff to be either indifferent about the change or optimistic that it could help the organization.

Unfortunately I am adamantly against changing the name not because I hold to tradition, I lack vision for the future, or am unsupportive of our leadership. The reason is I truly believe that “Campus Crusade for Christ” is more than a name. I say more than a name because of the method our ministry obtained it. I have many reasons to be opposed to this change but I thought the most powerful argument for our future is to truly understand God’s work in our past.

The vision Bill Bright conceived that we all love and cherish as CCC staff, had another part to it that I think is very relevant to this conversation.

Part 1:

All staff should know that Bill Bright experienced God in a supernatural way when given the mission and vision for CCC. But many staff are unaware of the second part of the story. Lets look at Bill Brights words himself. In Bill Brights book “Amazing Faith” Bill Bright can barely describe his experience with God.

“God in an usually way opened my mind, touched my heart…I can’t translate into English or any other language what happened, but God met with me…My experience was so meaningful, and yet indescribable. People have asked me what happened. There is no way I can describe it. Without apology all I can say is I met with God. I didn’t see a physical form, I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I have never been the same since that unforgettable encounter” Page 61 A.Faith

Part 2:

Bill Bright rushed into his mentors office Dr. Wilbur Smith’s after his vision occurred. Bright explained this vision to Doc. Smith, and Smith began to process what happened: “The next morning Bill was called out of class to see Smith. The professor told him “I believe God has given me the name for your vision.” He showed Bill a small piece of paper with CCC written on it; underneath were the words, Campus Crusade for Christ. They prayed and Bill went home with more stirring news to share with Vonette” pg. 63 a.faith.

According to this description “Campus Crusade for Christ” was not thought up in a meeting room.

CCC was not voted on in the local church, or even brainstormed on a piece of paper. According Bill Bright the name was given to his mentor, who believed the name itself was given to him by God. In one sentence I will just say that our name change does not seem to be spirit lead (not personally but in terms of how the name was given in the past) but instead part of the frantic changes CCC is undertaking to achieve past success or maintain its admittedly “plateaued numbers.”

I love CCC and out of that I implore CCC to NOT change its name, and if we do I fear this change will mark the beginning of many other changes to come not inline with our vision or mission as a ministry.