Unleashing The Power Of Rubber Bands (4 page)

So we knew that our weekend services needed to be transformational and point people both to our great God and to His community. They needed to be creative, relevant, and provocative in order to engage and move people. We began to highlight serving opportunities and the stories that emerged from them in our services.

Our small-group leaders needed to be trained in an ongoing manner. That training needed to be authentic and done in community. Our leaders needed to be envisioned and trained to lead groups where people could be known and transformed. Jesus needed to be at the center of these times, and serving opportunities needed to become a part of the rhythm of each home group as well.

Regular serving opportunities, both through home groups and Axis-wide events, needed to become a regular part of the fabric of Axis.

Transformational large group events.

Transformational small-group gatherings.

Transformational serving opportunities.

Three areas of focus, consistently given our best efforts, prayers, and ideas.

Building into the people who would lead each of those areas.

When you build an organization through a collaborative vision that honestly assesses current reality, you’ll find that the number of stone ships you encounter decreases. Somewhere along the way, someone will have the courage to tell you that while a ship is a great idea, you might want to reconsider the building material.

But remember this: Avoiding stone ships is not the goal. The goal is creating an organization that flourishes and thrives, that creates and transforms, and that becomes a force to change things and help people.

Seabiscuit

FOR A LOT OF REASONS,
I was not the most obvious or anticipatedchoice when it came to leading Axis, a ministry that was geared to the “eighteen to twentysomething generation.” For starters, I was a middle-aged woman, and to my knowledge, that was not at the top of the list of qualifications the Axis team wanted in its next leader. Axis had been started, appropriately so, by a guy who was edgy and postmodern.

Edgy and postmodern and young.

They got me.

I’m sure they weren’t thrilled when I came on board, and least thrilled of all was Steve. As the program director, Steve oversaw the teams that put the weekend service together. That service formed the bedrock of our ministry and was among the most important things we produced week after week. Steve had been doing this job almost since Axis began.

He was distant and suspicious of me—polite, but barely. He avoided and questioned me, which is a lovely combination (the tone you’re sensing there is my spiritual gift of sarcasm, finely honed over time). My first week on the job, I asked him, “When does the programming team meet?”

A simple, innocuous question. I was the leader of Axis, Axis held a weekend service, and the programming team designed, planned, and executed that service. I should probably know when the meeting was so that I wouldn’t be late.

“We don’t need you at that meeting,” Steve replied. Since then, Steve and I have had many a good laugh over that, but I wasn’t laughing that day.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but some of his reticence toward me was a reaction to leaders in the past who had come to that meeting, taken over, and changed everything. And I don’t think that was all that was going on.

Steve wasn’t thrilled about me as the new leader of Axis, quite possibly because he was hoping he might get the job, but certainly because he never expected they would give it to someone his parents’ age.

While my response to Steve was that I would be coming to each and every one of the programming meetings, I also did something else. Although I was pretty miffed, I tried to imagine what it would be like to be in Steve’s shoes. Here he was, in his midtwenties and absolutely passionate about designing a church experience that would reach his friends—friends who either hadn’t given church a second thought since third grade or had never given church a thought at all. Steve had a whole generation of friends who didn’t know what Jesus said, even though they thought He was a swell guy.

And for a couple of years before my arrival, Axis had been doing a good job at carving out a place for those people. Then they got me as their new leader. I think I understood the problem.

Slowly, over the next year, we built trust. It was rarely easy, and it took a lot of difficult conversations, the kind that don’t often occur in church settings. But I think Steve began to see that I was just as passionate about his generation as he was. He saw that I was more collaborative than hierarchical, and that I believed deeply in leadership development as a key and necessary component of leadership.

He saw that I could support and get excited about someone else’s ideas and that I could make mistakes and wasn’t afraid to own them.

It was difficult on my end as well as I tried to walk the awkward line of understanding a generation that I wasn’t a member of. I told my staff early on that if I ever came to work wearing leather pants they could fire me on the spot. They didn’t even have to check with the elders.

During one of my first programming meetings, I found myself listening as the team got excited about doing a Barenaked Ladies song that weekend in the service. Keeping an absolutely straight face, with a slight approving nod so as not to appear completely uncool, I left the meeting and quickly called one of my daughters.

“Yeah, Mom, totally okay. Sounds bad, but actually a really great choice.”

Thanks, Mallory.

So we did this funky dance for at least six months. Two different generations, who leads?

There is a great scene in the movie
Seabiscuit
that applies to this idea. The main character, Red Pollard, is the jockey who has been riding Seabiscuit to victory. He knows the horse so well that his riding is intuitive. But Red is involved in a disastrous accident that leaves him incapacitated for months.

From his hospital bed, he coaches the new jockey about how to ride his horse. And he lets him in on a little secret, a secret that comes from knowing the animal in a way no one else does.

“Keep him back a little. Let him feel the race, the track, and the other horses. And then, at the right time, get him neck and neck with another horse, one that has fire, and let him look directly into his eyes. When he locks eyes with that horse, Seabiscuit will take off.”

For months during his recovery, Red listens and watches as this other jockey rides his horse, until the day finally comes that he is deemed fit to ride again. Although he is in excruciating pain, Red pulls his broken and wounded body up onto his beloved horse.

To his surprise, as he rides toward the starting gate, he sees the other jockey riding up on another horse. They greet each other and move into position. The excitement and chaos of those prerace moments fills the air. And then the bell sounds, the gate goes up, and the thunderous roar of the horses begins.

Almost immediately, Red is feeling the groan and ache of his shattered body, bones knit back together but still rebelling as they bear the weight of the jockey and control the horse. It becomes clear that Red is not able to ride in a way that will propel Seabiscuit to victory.

And then, there he is. The other jockey. He sees what is happening and he pulls his horse back. On purpose. He pulls his horse back and waits until Seabiscuit gets neck and neck, eye level with him. He waits for just a moment, for Seabiscuit to get what he needs. Then he says to Red, “Enjoy the race; see you at the finish line.”

And Seabiscuit pulls ahead, first over the line.

It was a great moment in the movie, but more than that, I think it is a picture of great leadership. Those of us who have gone ahead and have been doing this for a while need to pull back. On purpose. We need to position ourselves beside those who are coming up and may be strugglinga bit. We need to give what we can of ourselves to let others move ahead.

Those of us who have gone
ahead and have been doing
this for a while need to
pull back. On purpose.

Those of us who have been building organizations or ministries or teams needto stop and put others on our shoulders in order to provide them with a better view than even we have. And then we say to them—in hushed tones—“Tell me what you see.”

It is always a tension, leading for now and for the future, slowing down enough to develop and bring along new, young leaders. But it may be one of the most important things we do as leaders as we identify, teach and train, bless and release the next generation(s) of leaders.

We have to trust that in their own way they have muchto offer, things that we cannot bring to the table. So while we lead them, we must also honor them and believe in them, cheering them on as we pull ourselves back and watch them race ahead.

In addition to a great staff of eleven employees, Axis also had about seven or eight interns who were part of a larger intern program at Willow Creek. When they were in our area, I was responsible for these additional people who gave greatly of their time and energy and giftedness to help grow and develop our ministry.

I was a great fan of the internship program. Although these young people were only required to spend twenty hours in our department, each and every one of them gave much more than was required. They were motivated, sincere, passionate leaders, excited beyond belief to be a part of Axis.

With no budget requirement on my part, I had extra leadership help in spades; what was not to like? Well, sometimes the interns made me tired. They were young and had a lot to learn. They made mistakes and messes, and they needed direction and guidance and discipleship and training. I realized that to give them what they needed, I would have to slow down a bit, pull beside them. Sometimes that was okay with me, but mostly I found myself getting annoyed. To be painfully honest, I would have rather been given the extra leadership horsepower without having to do any additional work on my part.

I know, I know, you’ve never felt that way.

One day, I sat down with my boss and told him what I was feeling. I explained that although I was a huge fan of the internship program, some days I was just irritated by the burden of it and the way it slowed us down. I really had a good complaint session, confession being good for the soul and all. And my boss, he just listened. Listened and nodded. Surprisingly, I felt a bit better just having said what was on my mind.

One of the things I love about the Holy Spirit is that sometimes His conviction is just a gentle grain of sand that settles into our hearts where it scratches and irritates until we finally do something about it. And when I left my boss’s office that day, the Holy Spirit went with me.

Of course I know He always goes with me, but that day He just gently hung around until my own words echoed in my head and choked in my throat. With slow realization, the selfishness of my attitude became fully clear, and I was ashamed. Not the kind of shame that occurs because everyone knows you’ve done something wrong. Until I wrote this chapter, no one except my boss and me ever knew about that conversation.

No, this was the kind of shame that emerges strongand hard, even though you know that no one else may ever know.

My boss never brought up the subject, but a few months later, I did. After referring back to that conversation, I told him I no longer felt that way. He smiled slightly and asked why.

I told him I had heard a whisper that day. Sometimes the Spirit of God is a loud wind, but other days He is just a still, small voice. And that voice reminded me that when I was nineteen years old and volunteering in the high school group at my church, a youth pastor named Jamie Barr let me make mistakes and messes, and he discipled me when I needed direction and guidance and training. He slowed down, pulled beside me, taught me, listened to me, and let me take off.

That was the only reminder I needed. I was reminded of Jamie Barr and I was grateful. And gratitude freed me to do the same for someone else.

One of the best gifts you can give to new leaders as you develop them is the freedom to learn from you, and then to do things their own way. Much damage has been done to new leaders when older, more seasoned ones insist on clones. I have seen too many young leaders who look disturbingly like mini-me versions of their mentors. There is a delicate dance between imparting the wisdom you have gained from experience and trying to mold someone else into your own likeness.

The writer of 1 Samuel captures this tension beautifully in chapter 17. The army of Israel is stationed on the edge of a ravine, holding ground but not advancing against the Philistines. On the other side is Goliath, spokesman-elect by virtue of his size and strength. In a loud, taunting voice, Goliath mocks the Israelites for their cowardice and invites someone—anyone—to come forward and fight him, proving which is the stronger army and nation, and therefore who follows the bigger and better God.

Israel’s army is nearly paralyzed by Goliath’s presence, and David, who has been sent to deliver news and food to his brothers, is simply mortified that no one is doing anything. He can’t believe they are allowing this bully to verbally abuse their God, and insists that he be allowed to stand up against the giant.

It seems, from reading this passage, that there is a tremendous undercurrent here. Sure, King Saul is probably a bit embarrassed by David’s suggestion of action in the face of his own passive attitude, but he also finds him amusing, perhaps even scrappy. David is a nice diversion, someone to take everyone’s minds off the fear-inducing Goliath.

But after laughing at him, Saul sees that David is not to be dissuaded, so he humors him.
Okay, sure, little guy,
I admire your spunk. Here, if you insist on going after the
giant, at least let me lend you my protective gear. I have a
helmet and a sword, chest armor and a shield. They’re a little
big, but that’s because they belong to me, and I am big and
you are not. But you will need them, so here, let me help you
get that on over your head.

Perhaps those who are watching snicker at the ludicrous sight of David clomping and tromping and stumbling and tripping in the heavy metal protection. But David is more focused on conserving his energy to defend the God of Israel. In 1 Samuel 17:39, we see him stop and say, with great clarity and courage: “I cannot go in these . . . because I am not used to them.”

From a strategic point of view, that might possibly be one of the stupidest responses in the Bible. Inexperienced and ill-equipped, David chooses to remove the protective armor. The armor worked for Saul, but it would only be a burden for David, hampering his movements. David decides to stick with what he knows. He grabs his shepherd’s staff and sling, and picks up five smooth stones from the river, stones just like the ones he had used to kill bears and lions that had threatened his sheep. David chooses to fight Goliath as the shepherd God has made him to be, not as the soldier-king that Saul is.

The rest of the story speaks for itself, but it is easy tomiss the courage it took for David to say, “I cannot go in these because I am not used to them.”

I guess the question for those of us who do leadership development is this: Do we have the courage to make room for people to do it their way? By insisting on that, we honor the individual that God made each person to be. We free ourselves from making people over in our image for our own validation.

To be sure, an enormous part of developing leaders is about teaching and training. We cannot do it without imparting truths out of our own learning and wisdom. Here we are again, at that increasingly familiar place of tension. But in addition to imparting our wisdom, we can encourage people to do things their way. We can ask the question “What do you think?” We can allow for mistakes and room for different ways of approaching issues.