Jesus repeatedly said, “If you want to find your life you must lose your life.” Looking back I now realize I had it backwards. I spent decades making myself successful, all the while thinking I was becoming a better “leader.” I believe much of our absorption with leadership, in the Church as well as the culture at large, amounts to the justification of selfish desires that fly in the face of Jesus’ words and example.

What can you do today to obey Jesus? In all our lives, God has placed people who feel like anything but successful. Your job and mine is to come alongside those he has assigned to us to offer lift them up.

Maybe some of the leadership books you’ve been reading will come in handy as you promote others into the limelight you used to live in.

We can do these things actions with all good intentions in an effort to connect with lots of people as quickly as possible…as if the name of the game is sheer volume. God does care about the masses, but that care has to be done with the right heart.

Here’s what I’ve discovered:

It’s one thing to do outreach – it’s a different thing to reach out.

It’s possible to do outreach without the love of God in our hearts – to go through the external motions of what looks like love yet to miss the point of connecting with people’s hearts.

It’s not possible to reach out unless God’s love is at the center of hearts. When we reach out we extend our hearts to others who are in need. We show vulnerability to others who are in need of being touched by God who dwells in us.

Bottom line: Let’s do both – let’s touch lots of people…at the same time it’s essential that we connect with them profoundly at a heart level.

On the surface of things, it may seem a little dark to ponder one’s mistakes, but I don’t see it that way, and neither does God. In the Bible, God consistently choose people who were prone to make mistakes yet went on to be stellar examples of lives strongly lived.

Peter, for one, was a mistake maker who went on to great things. His mistakes didn’t impair him from greatness. He took risks that often led to failure but always left a deposit of faith in him. He was able to walk on water when the others were afraid to step out of the security of the boat. He failed after a step or two, but he received an amazing installation of faith just the same.

What you read here are my confessions from this past year. Each of them is an area where I blew it but then made a mid-course correction along the way.

Click here or on the above image to download the PDF.

How often do you take a risk? Every time I bring up the topic of risk it seems almost everyone thinks they are big risk takers. Everyone? Really? If that were so the world would be a different place. I’m not talking about an itsy bitsy non-dangerous one that is hardly worth mentioning, but a big and hairy – something that needs to be spelled with a capital “R”?

You say you want to change the world… Maybe you pray that. Maybe you read books that explain how we can change the world. The word “missional” is all the rage these days which is another way to explain how we can change the world, but how many missional people are actually getting dirt under their fingernails in order to change the world versus just reading more books and thinking great thoughts about changing the world. How many actually smell like windshield washing liquid because they have been out squeegeeing cars?

We must work while it is light for darkness is coming when no one can work.

People come to Christ gradually. God draws people into his Kingdom through a series of touches. Professor George Hunter, of Asbury Seminary, and I believe it takes between 12 and 20 profound touches on average for a not-yet Believer to come to Christ. As he puts it, “That’s a lot of toilets to clean!” I wish it was easier to win people to Christ but that’s not the way it works in our day – maybe it’s always been that way. Commit with me to the long haul.