Not a Camouflaged Soul

Category: Leadership

  • Gems from Garbage

    Undercover Boss logo
    Image via Wikipedia

    After the Super Bowl, I watched a show called Undercover Boss. The president and COO of Waste Management, Larry O’Donnell, spent a week working within the company, doing a variety of tasks while not letting anyone know his actual identity. He worked as a porta potty scrubber, trash collector, sorter of recyclables, and even got fired for the first time in his life. Through this process, he was able to see his company in a new light, gain fresh ideas regarding policies and procedures, and developed relationships with employees he likely would have never met otherwise.

    How could this experience relate to serving in a church setting (without the duplicity)? We all should…

    1. Be willing to serve anonymously. To desire credit is to give in to pride.

    2. Be aware that there are no lowly jobs. Christ served others humbly, and often behind closed doors.

    3. Be generous with our praise for others. None of us work alone. Brag on the family.

    4. Know our strengths. Be mindful that we all have a distinct and individually-crafted part to play, so it is important to find the area of service God had in mind when He designed us. Dr. Ergun Caner once said that a call from God is for a specific PLACE, TIME, and TASK. God equips each of us differently.

    5. Be open to new methods. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is NOT a reason to continue doing something. As Perry Noble says, the church in the book of Acts had to change radically how it did things when its membership went from 12 to 10,000+.

    Mr. O’Donnell learned from his experience. So can we.

  • Thrifty Hair Dryer Uses

    Silly. Waste of time. Unthinkable. Nonsense. No way.

    Then I found myself using a hairdryer on my razor.

    I saw a clip of Clark Howard on Headline News. He is a money expert, with tips on how to make your dollar go farther. He said to take a hairdryer to your razor to make it last longer, since they wear out faster if they are left to air dry.

    My first thought was, Who has time to blow dry their razor?

    But has anyone else PRICED razor blades lately? It’s crazy what they charge.

    So, I had a few extra minutes the other morning. And I tried it. We’ll see what difference is made, if any.

    The point? Sometimes methods that seem preposterous might actually work. To dismiss the inconvenient is to eliminate options and opportunities.

    In ministry, this is a HUGE mistake. We should never rule out anything that could potentially impact the world for Christ. Christ Himself was innovative, don’t you think? Dining with tax collectors and prostitutes. Teaching the teachers. Paying taxes from the mouths of fish and feeding thousands from a boy’s lunchbox. All “outside the box” methods, to say the least.

    My Gillette® Fusion™ had to get pampered for me to learn a lesson. I don’t even use a hair dryer on ME.

  • Rhino Hide

    Two things needed for a Pastor to survive leading a Church; the heart of Jesus and the hide of a rhinoceros. -Ron Dunn (from Ike Reighard on Twitter)

    After forty years as a pastor, I can testify that I see problems in a different light than I once did. There are disappointments that would have knocked me down years ago. Today I have more readiness to chalk them up to the challenges of my profession, and to simply move on. By now I’ve had enough opportunities to see what the Lord does with the worst of circumstances. He has more than won my trust, so it will take a far greater blow than it took yesterday to knock me down. –from Dr. David Jeremiah in his book, Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World