To become the leader God has created you to be, you must learn to wisdom to say "no" some times. Saying "no" to things that doesn't add value and help to your vision is a necessity. This is not about pleasing or displeasing any one. This is you being honest with your self and with your God's given vision as a Leader. The quality of your leadership can be rated by the quality of your submission to the Leadership of the Holy Spirit in your lives. This is very important. The Leadership of the Holy Spirit in your life is the inspiration for saying "no" to things that are not necessary to you. How will you know your necessity as a leader? You will know through the leadership of the Holy Spirit in your life. Leadership in the kingdom of God is not all about pleasing any body or pleasing your self. This is about you pleasing the Lord! When you know what pleases the Lord and when you understand the instruction of the Lord to you, you will master ...

God's concept on leadership is you being responsible and accountable to Him (God) for how you make your choice, and decision of your life (even on tiny matters). Leadership in God's kingdom is the seat of God's idea, and intention. It's a place where the world will hate you simple because you are on God's side. The first prove of leadership in God's kingdom is REJECTION. You will be rejected by many, not because you are wrong but simple because THEY DONT UNDERSTAND THE PATTERN OF IDEA GOD HAS ENTRUSTED INTO YOUR HAND. Leaders are individuals that run with God's idea. The second thing you should expect as a leader in God's kingdom is ISOLATION. The uniqueness of the idea or plan God entrust into your hand to run with will first isolate you. People will leave your life. Your friends will be confused. Your family will doubt you. When God calls an individual into leadership - every thing about them change. Leadership in God's kingdom change...

Some marriages at which you officiate won’t make it. You pray not and work hard in premarital counseling to counter that possibility, but it happens. Some nonbelievers with whom you share the gospel won’t listen. The pain is great when nonbelievers just keep rejecting the good news. Some of the seemingly godliest people you know will fall into sin. I’ve done this work a long time, and I’m still shocked at times. The enemy leaves no one off his radar. Some church members will get mad and leave. The first time it happened in my ministry, I was defeated for weeks. It still hurts when it happens. Some spiritual heroes will let you down. No one intends for it to happen, but even our long-term heroes are still human. Some staffing situations won’t work out. That’s when you’re reminded that because you’re a leader, your decisions affect marriages and families. Letting someone go, especially in our ministry world that preaches grace, is seldom easy. Somebody related t...

Ever wonder why some people are influential, and others, well, aren’t? Take getting others to buy into your ideas, for example. Some people seem always to be able to win the day with their ideas. Others, not so much. I get asked all the time by leaders how to get their team members to take their ideas (and their leadership) more seriously. What’s fascinating to me is that the conversation almost always begins from the angle of how to pitch ideas. It’s as though most of us have convinced ourselves that we just need a better argument, point or insight and then our ideas will catch on. Sometimes that’s the case, but more often than not it’s deeper than that. It’s easy to think leaders buy (or reject) our ideas. But I’m not sure what’s what really at play most of the time. At a deeper level, it’s often a question of whether leaders buy you. As harsh as it sounds, here’s the truth: if a leader doesn’t buy you, they’ll rarely buy your idea. Leadership, as Joh...

I’ve been and always will be doggedly suspicious of pastors who rarely (or never) mention Jesus. John Piper says, “What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ.” We ministers of the gospel—and Christians at large—can fumble this commission in three main ways. 1. We speak in vague spiritual generalities.  Love. Hope. Peace. Joy. Harmony. Blessings. All disembodied from the specific atoning work of the incarnate Jesus and exalted Lord. It all sounds nice. It’s all very inspirational. And it’s rubbish. He himself is our peace. He himself is love. He himself is life. He does not make life better. He is life. Any pastor who talks about the virtues of faith, hope and love, with Jesus as some implied tangential source, is not feeding his flock well. 2. We present Christ mainly as moral exemplar.  We tell people to be nice because Jesus was nice. We tell them to be sweet because Jesus was swee...

Sometimes we do the things we hate. And sometimes we get confused and begin to hate ourselves for the things we’ve done. There is a world of difference between ‘walking in the light’ while confessing our sins (1 John 1.7-10), and letting our sins define our identity. While it is appropriate to mourn our sin (Matthew 5.4), it is not appropriate to hate ourselves. In the heat of the moment of regret and shame, we can almost think that self-loathing is good and right and biblical (after all, we have offended a Holy God and become unclean!). But in truth, God never calls us to hate ourselves. The truth is that God loves us (John 3.16, 1 John 4.10). And the only one who loves our self-loathing is Satan. Why? 1. Because when I loathe myself I loathe someone created in the image of God Proverbs 17.5 says, ‘Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker.’ James writes that the tongue ‘is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with i...

Dear Pastor, I love you. I want nothing more than for you to be all who God wants you to be. So this might hurt a little. I’m writing you this letter because I have noticed a few things that we have fallen into saying or doing that don’t represent Christ well. With all due respect, please stop: 1. STOP PRETENDING YOU ARE PERFECT. Jesus is perfect. You aren’t. Let us see your humanity. Share your mistakes with us. It gives us hope to know that even the pastor doesn’t always get it right. It also gives us the courage to be honest about our faults too. 2. STOP EMOTIONALLY AND SPIRITUALLY ABUSING YOUR STAFF. Although some elements of the church are like a business, church staff should not be treated just like employees. They are family. They aren’t perfect, but you need to love them anyway. When you hurt them, you hurt God’s family. I know far too many pastors who need therapy after the wounds of working for a bad boss. 3. STOP HIDING YOUR SECRET ADDICT...

Pastor, if you burnout, you have no one to blame. I know, that sounds absolutely depressing and accusatory. But for pastors it’s true. Why? Before I answer that, let’s back up. Why do leaders burnout? They burnout because they don’t get enough sleep, they say yes to too many things, they don’t eat properly, they preach too many times a year, they have too many meetings, they don’t recharge themselves well, they don’t do anything relaxing or fun, they don’t take a Sunday off, they work too many hours, and they don’t deal with the emotional side of ministry well. So, whose fault is this? Well, if you suffer from these, your first response will be to say that your church puts a lot of pressure on you (which they might), your elders have high expectations for you (which they do), so it must be them. Your kids want to be in every sport, and you and your wife want to make sure your kids get all the things you didn’t have. So if you burnout, whose fault is...

Have you been hurt by a church? If so, you’re not alone. As a pastor of a church, I’ve heard stories from people who have found church confusing, contrarian, or even damaging. Not every church hurts people, but most churches have hurt someone at some point. Some people are hurt through their own mistakes, others because of sin committed against them, and still others because of failed leadership. This reality can leave them reluctant to re-engage, afraid of being hurt again, wanting to protect themselves, and questioning the place of church in their lives. The good news for the hurting is that God has spoken to your pain in the Bible. Most of the writing in the New Testament about how to live in a church exists because the church has never been perfect. Most, if not all, of the letters were written to solve problems in the church: Galatians to solve legalism (Galatians 1:6–7, 3:1–3, 4:9, 5:1). Colossians to solve heresy (Colossians 2:4, 8). 2 Timothy to solve tension i...

Leaders often succumb to the temptation to make everything about them. It is about their goals, their career and their recognition. They become a selfish leader. But God has called us to be a different type of leader. God has called us to be stewards of people. And rather than take from our team, He has called us to give ourselves to our team. He has called us to be generous leaders. But what does that look like? Let’s look at seven of the most common sins of selfish leaders and how to overcome them: Relishing the spotlight. Instead, give credit. Point to others. A leader’s success is never about him. It is about them. While it is easy to soak in the praise of others, give credit where credit is due. Remember their success is your success. Skimping on pay. Instead, give a fair salary. Don’t intentionally underpay those you oversee. Don’t take advantage of a person’s naiveté. Do the best you can when you can. And when you can, err on generous pay. Limiting authority...

4. There Is a Spiritual Cost. The more influential you become as a leader, the greater the intensity of spiritual attack on your life. (By the way … I’ve had shots taken at me for saying this, but it’s true. I’ve experienced it personally … and in the Scriptures, we see in Acts 19 a demon literally having a conversation with seven guys … he tells them he knows Jesus and has heard about Paul, probably because he was causing such a disturbance, but then he tells the guys that he hadn’t even heard about them!!! Like it or not … the enemy doesn’t pursue everyone with the same intensity.) You will experience spiritual warfare. You will encounter temptation on a level that is greater than anything you could imagine. You have to be willing to fight the fight and pay the price if you want to be a godly leader. 5. There Is a Personal Cost All of the things listed above come around to this … there IS a personal cost when it comes to leadership. It will NEVER cease to affect ...

Jesus gave some INCREDIBLE advice in Luke 14:28-30! Today, we will dive into five areas where we need to be willing to pay the price as a leader. 1. There Is a Financial Cost. Books cost money. Conferences cost money. Putting yourself in a position to be stretched and grown cost money. AND one of the qualities that I’ve always noticed in leaders who were “getting it done” is that they were personally willing to pay a financial price. 2. There Is an Emotional Cost. Leading in the church is one of the most emotionally draining things you will EVER do. You will discover that you can go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows with one email or phone call. Your heart and motives will be called into question. Critics who don’t know you (and don’t want to know you) will malign, misrepresent and attack you. On most days, you will feel overwhelmed and unworthy of your calling … and all of this requires that we be willing to pay the price emotionally. ...

Terminate with compassion. Almost without exception, the pastor is terminated. But termination does not have to be without compassion. The pastor’s family will need financial provisions; thus, many churches provide compassionate severances. And though pastors have full responsibility for their sins, they are hurting as well. Tough love and compassionate love are in order here. Don’t forget the pastor’s family. They have felt the greatest amount of betrayal. They are humiliated and hurt. This person they likely held in high esteem has fallen hard. The family needs compassion, love, attention and counseling. Many church members do not know what to say, so they say nothing. I know one church member who sent the spouse and the children a simple handwritten note: “I have not forgotten you. I am here for you. I am praying for you.” It made all the difference in the world. Be forthright with the congregation. The rumors are often worse than reality. You don’t have to give the sor...

When we are insecure, our first reaction to CHANGE is almost always negative. We resist CHANGE. This can be particularly true of veterans with a military past who have moved away, moved around, seen hard and difficult things, and then returned home again. Resisting CHANGE seldom works because CHANGE is inevitable. It’s going to happen whether we like it or not. You can’t stop growth. You can’t stop CHANGE. Sometimes we resent it. And sometimes we just ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist and we resent it. The older we get, the more we want security, and anything that shakes our comfortable nest threatens us. We don’t like that. We don’t like things to be unpredictable. We don’t like things to CHANGE. We want to know exactly where it’s going. We want everything to be programmed, right in place. If anything comes up that is a surprise, we resent it, because it gives us that feeling of uncertainty. So we complain and criticize and we gripe and we grumble. CHANGE always produce...

Life Is a JOURNEY. To become the leader God has created you to be, you must acknowledge you are in a specific journey. Individually, we all have our individual journey and collectively, we have our collective journey. You are not here by accident. You are not a product of mistake. The Past, present and future exist for the sake of this journey. You are coming from some where to be here and you are moving to some where. Either you like it or yes, you are on a journey into your place of leadership.. Individually, we all have different specific, detailed and unique pattern for this individual journey. You were born into the journey and you were created for this journey. There is a blueprint for this individual journey called LIFE. It’s a journey from ignorance to knowledge. It’s a journey from immaturity to maturity. It’s a journey from the past to the future. It’s a journey from God’s plan into the reality of God’s plan. Understanding this principle and operating in them brings yo...

I commend you to the Holy Spirit and God’s word to help you to discover and learn all that God has proposed you to learn and discover in Jesus Name. The topic for today’s teaching is LIFE Our Case Study is JOHN 10:10 I will start by saying every body is created by God to be a leader. Every body is a leader and every leader needs a leader. You were given life for leading sake. The greatest life Jesus gave to us is LIFE and this is His invest in you for leadership. Jesus and has given you life, lets check what life entail. What is Life? Life is the greatest gift Jesus has given you. I want to explain Life in three phases. 1. Life is a package. 2. Life is a journey. 3. Life is a woman. Life is a PACKAGE The understanding of life is the understanding of your self. From God to humanity, there is nothing that is made to be single. God operates as the FATHER, as the SON and as the HOLY SPIRIT. Man operates through the BODY, SPIRIT and SOUL. The YOU that is reading ...

IDENTITY is the character, mind – set and idea that distinguish people among the crowd. She is the expression of a specific plan and a purpose for living. IDENTITY is the image and the beauty of the solution that lies in your potential. She has the ability to show forth your source to you. IDENTITY is the expressing power of the vision and mission set into your life by God. She determines the assignment of your life and that of the next generation. She can become a reward to your generation or a punishment to them if she does not reflect the glory of God (carelessness). She reveals the maturity or the weakness behind living. She determines your position in life. She determines what you will gain from life. IDENTITY is the truth that will define your history and she is the truth that will determine your worth and value. She is the picture and the voice of your life. She is the beauty and the manifestation of your potential (C.T.I). She is a gift given to you by God but you must dis...

You are welcome to the lecture and the lesson one in this school – Inspirational Leader.  I commend you to the Holy Spirit and God’s word to help you to discover and learn all that God has proposed you to learn and discover in Jesus Name. In this first lecture, I will be teaching you on – IDENTITY. You are welcome to this present truth of God’s word and our case study is Genesis 1:27 - 28. The subject matter is ‘IDENTITY’ You were born with the ability to become a leader in a specific course according to God’s plan for your life. Your birth was an opportunity of a section of God’s plan to start unfolding. Your birth was not an accident. Your mind-set contains new ideas for leading specific people to a specific destination God has set for their life. There are no two ways about this – EVERY BODY IS A LEADER AND EVERY LEADER HAS A LEADER. Irrespective of your age and status, you are born with the ability to lead. You are not just here to add to the numbers. You are no...