There are some mature responses expected—and needed—from the leader when a team is stressed.

Every organization and team has times where everyone is stretched, stress abounds, and even times where it seems things are going backwards for a while. It could be in a time of crisis for the organization or during an exceptionally busy season. It could that be internal or external issues are causing the stress.

In these seasons, good leadership is more critical than ever.

Mature leaders have learned (often the hard way) that the way they respond in stress will directly impact the organization and everyone attempting to follow them. Ultimately the care for the organization greatly depends on the leader’s response during the stressful seasons.

5 Mature Responses for a Leader in Stressful Times:

A Sense of Calm

A leader must display a calmness in the midst of crisis. If the leader panics everyone panics. Trying times test a team and the leader needs to add a calmness to the situation, helping assure people everything will be okay.

This does not mean that the leader should give a false hope. People should understand reality, but it does mean helping people find a sense of balance and hope in the midst of what may seem hopeless in their minds.

Steadfastness

There will always be temptations to give up under stress—for the team and the leader. A leader must walk by faith and keep the team moving forward. Through good times and the bad times the leader must stand firm.

You can read the hard lesson I learned about this issue in my post of advice to the leader when things are going wrong.

Integrity

Character is most tested during stressful times. A leader must remain unquestioned in his or her integrity for the health of the team and organization.

People will watch to see how a leader responds. What a leader says or does in these seasons will be taken even more seriously (and subject to people’s own interpretations), so the leader must strive to be above reproach.

Strategic Thinking

Decisions are harder to make but more important during stressful times. The leader must think strategically for the organization—helping to steer towards clarity and progress.

I help leaders make decisions every day. Unfortunately, many organizations fail to operate at peak efficiency because of how they make, or refuse to make, decisions.

One of my primary responsibilities for INJOY Stewardship Solutions is identifying opportunity and timing for churches needing to raise significant capital or expand their cultures of generosity. After doing so, then the ability to setup meetings with their leadership teams to present our campaign and generosity services in hopes of serving them is the next step.

Other than the components and technical aspects of the campaign and giving solutions, the top question I get from leaders I speak with is:

“Who should I invite to the meeting?”

As an example, I have been asked this question three times in the past two days alone.

I respond, “Think of a best case scenario. If this meeting is everything you hope it could be and it is clear we can help you accomplish more than you can by yourself, you want to have the people in the room who if they look at each other and nod—you are ready to go.”

It is then I give them the biggest secret to successfully making group leadership decisions.

The more people involved in making a decision, the less likely a decision is to be made.

Every time I say this the other person wholeheartedly agrees. This is because of the Law of Diminishing Returns. As the number of people increases, the overall effectiveness decreases.

Experienced leaders know the more people you have in the room, the more personal agendas, uninformed opinions, poor questions, and an overall lack of vision you get. This can then infiltrate the decision-making process and either hijack the process or grind it to a halt.

So if you have an upcoming important leadership decision which requires board or committee approval, gather information from a large group, but then only make decisions with those necessary to get approval.

This will save you time, energy, and frustration.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.

You may not recognize the picture that accompanies this blog post. The picture is a small circle of Astroturf that has been worn out by golf clubs. I was in a part of the world dominated by deserts, and my friend introduced me to golf on a sand golf course. From the tee, the golfer carries this Astroturf to where the ball lands in the sand, places the ball on the turf, and then hits his next stroke. Essentially, he carries his green grass with him no matter how much desert surrounds him.

I think of that image when I’m reminded that God has a way of granting us water in a dry land, hope in the arid . . . green grass in the desert. Here are some ways I encourage you to carry your green grass with you no matter how dry your desert might be:

1. Read the entirety of God’s message. I don’t mean read the whole Bible this week; what I mean is make sure you see the ultimate victory that comes in Christ. In Him, we have the absolute assurance that the river of living water awaits (Rev 22:1). Our job is to trust that truth when we’re surrounded by sand.
2. Get somebody to be with you in the desert. By definition, the desert can be a lonely place. It’s hot. It’s dry. It seemingly goes on forever. Being in that atmosphere is easier, though, when you know someone’s walking with you. Invite a brother or sister of Christ into your desert.
3. Secure some prayer partners before you’re in the desert. Get some folks now who stay on their knees on your behalf—and remember they’re there in the tough times. Do it soon; if you wait until you’re in the desert, you may be so emotionally drained you won’t have the energy to seek prayer.
4. Count your many blessings. And, as the hymn says, “name them one by one.” Particularly, seeing God’s continual care in the past can give you hope in today’s desert. The God who took care of you yesterday will take care of you today. In fact, count that fact among your blessings!
5. Even when it’s difficult, thank God for the desert. That’s not always easy when our lips are parched by the desert, but obedience requires we give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess 5:18). Somehow, gratitude has a way of helping us see even the smallest sliver of green grass in the widest desert.
6. Remember that the God of the green grass is also the God of the desert. In fact, God often uses the desert to make us thirstier for Him (Psa 42-43). When we recognize these truths, we don’t get frustrated by the desert; we rejoice when we see the grass.

If you’re in a desert today and you’re comfortable requesting prayer from our readers, feel free to leave a comment on the website. We’re praying for you.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.

Grace is such a tough concept for us to embrace.

It’s simple enough to define—God’s undeserved favor—but nearly impossible to internalize for most people.

We know that God’s forgiveness can’t be deserved or earned, and yet we keep our distance from God because of our inability to deserve or earn his forgiveness.

We wind up keeping our distance from God because our focus is still on ourselves rather than on his faithful, forgiving nature. But the Apostle John declares, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Notice this: God doesn’t forgive us of our sins because we confess them. He forgives us, in response to our confession, because HE is faithful and just.

Our confession—literally, our agreement with God that our sin is offensive—is a prerequisite to experiencing his cleansing power, but our confession doesn’t actually earn or merit his forgiveness. Forgiveness simply flows out of the goodness of God who is always true to his own nature.

He is faithful to keep his word, so when he offers forgiveness, he follows through. And he is just in that he always honors the good news of Jesus.

It takes humility to recognize that God’s grace and forgiveness are dependent on his goodness and not ours.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission. 

Over the past decade a floodwater of cultural change in our country has occurred, leaving a massive impact on the church in America. Movements and organizations spring up almost as fast as they whither. The leaders of many social and para-ecclesial syndicates wish to influence in the church in such a way that the church will embrace the obligations they press on her.

When I sit back and read the deluge of thoughts and opinions online about what the church ought to be doing, I sense a noticeable lack of focus on the gospel. In the many ways, it is easily discernible in twitter rants that recur on a daily basis that there is a discernible deficiency with regard to Scripture and the gospel. Any intellectually honest assessment of the content of so much that is bandied about on the internet must necessarily lead to the conclusion that people are bored with the gospel.

When we turn to the Scriptures, we get everything necessary for life and godliness. We hear God’s voice in Scripture. “The Holy Spirit says,” “The Spirit said through,” and “As the Spirit says,” are some of the most commonly used introductions to Old Testament citations in the New Testament. The whole of the Bible is the whole of God’s Word. It is God speaking by the Holy Spirit to the church. The church is perfected by the washing of the water of the word and the proclamation of the whole counsel of God given by those men God has called and equipped to faithfully preach and teach the gospel. Christ is the only head of the church; and, as such, is the sole authority for how the church is to function in the world.

Jesus is also the great High Priest of his church and the perfect sacrifice for the salvation of the souls of His people. The central message of Scripture is the message of the gospel—the good news of what God has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation of his people.

Surely, the message of the cross impacts more than simply the forgiveness of the sins of an individual; but, it is not less than that. In fact, whenever the gospel in preached by the apostles, that is the central message of the cross. Does the Kingdom of God include the Christian’s work in the world, in his or her neighborhoods and in schools? Of course. In the broader sense in which the Scripture speaks of the Kingdom of God.

However, in the narrow sense, it is the local church in her worship and witness to which Scripture speaks when it refers to the Kingdom of God. It is the rule of the crucified and risen Christ in the hearts of his people that is a manifestation of the Kingdom. How does this Kingdom come to bear in the church and in the world? Through the proclamation of Jesus as the only Savior of sinners.

The message of the gospel ought to permeate our worship services, witness and deeds of love and mercy. In the means of grace (i.e. the Word of God, the sacraments and prayer), the gospel is front and center.

The Apostle Paul declared, in no uncertain terms, that he “determined not to know anything among the people of God other than Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). The Apostle gave the Spirit-revealed center of the church’s message when he said, “Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”

When certain individuals were preaching Christ in Philippi with the hope that they would provoke and add to Paul’s affliction (since the apostle happened to be in prison for the Gospel at the time and was not able to preach to the people in the church), he responded in the following way: “Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice” (Phil. 1:18).

When he wanted to encourage the spiritual growth of the members in the church in Colosse, Paul explained, “This you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth” (Col. 1:5-6).

When he wanted to encourage the godly leadership of husbands and the godly submission of wives in Christian marriage, he wrote,

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22-32).

Skinny, nerdy, and lacking much athletic ability, I grew up trying to get people to like me. Although I didn’t compromise my Christian values to gain popularity, I used other techniques to gain approval. Those techniques included profusely offering compliments to others, smiling a lot, and avoiding ruffled feathers. Slowly I developed people pleaser tendencies that followed me into ministry. Several years ago after I realized that I was becoming a people pleasing pastor, I began to change how I relate to my board that I’ve described below. Although I’ve made progress, I’m still in recovery. In this post I share three ways I’ve learned to not be a people pleaser with my board.

For my third book, People Pleasing Pastors: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Approval Motivated Leadership, I researched over 2,000 pastors and saw myself reflected in many of their stories. In one phase of on-line research pastors could anonymously record their pleaser stories. I gathered over 100 single spaced pages of stories, many of them heartbreakers. Here’s one pastor’s story that struck a chord in me.

For the first three years after coming to First Church, in the fall I would bring a list of recommended goals for the coming year for the church board to consider adopting for the church. The third year I did it, the board asked me to discontinue this practice as they did not want the church to be a “pastor-driven” church. They stated that someone other than the pastor should drive the goal-setting process. This was a hard blow for me as I saw it as a rejection of me as their leader. They wanted me to be their chaplain, but not their leader. I honored their request and stopped bringing recommended goals to the church board. However, I never really got over that experience and I have remained fearful about trying to take an active leadership role with the board ever since. Perhaps this is part of the reason why I feel bored here and want to move on, but have no idea where to go next.

I felt the pain of this pastor because I’ve been tempted at times to replace my leadership role as a pastor with people pleasing. However, at my current church in London, Ontario, I have an excellent relationship with the board that I attribute to these new behaviors. I feel like I am fully free to lead yet not people please.

1. I listen a lot. I don’t assume I know it all. Having moved from the U.S. to Canada, I not only adjusted to a new church, but to a new culture as well. I’ve adopted a posture of listening and learning and in the first 60 days I met with over 100 people in various venues simple to listen. The word has gotten out that I really want to listen. It has given me solid credibility with the church.
2. I over-communicate. The first year, each week I sent our board a brief summary of my week’s activities and learnings. I’ve also added a new feature in our weekly Sunday bulletin called, “Where’s Waldo (a.k.a. Charles).” In a paragraph I share a synopsis of what I did the week prior. An 80-year-old church member told me that she enjoys reading what I’ve been doing. She said she never knew what a pastor did during the week.
3. I’ve become intensively collaborative. Many U.S. pastors have come to Canada and have failed because they’ve assumed a very dominant top down leadership style. It does not work in Canada (and probably not as well in the U.S. as it once did).  I’ve enjoyed listening to other’s ideas and incorporating their suggestions into my leadership. I’m not people pleasing in doing so. Rather, I’m honoring how the body of Christ should work together.

I still have a ways to go in my people pleaser recovery. But I’m making good progress and enjoying the journey.

What have you discovered that has helped you avoid people pleasing tendencies?

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.