MIM
EZINE, FEB 15, 2005
CONTENTS
– Guest
Column - Women Have Natural Leadership Advantages
-
Login Leadership - When to Move a Position from Volunteer to Paid
Status
-
Transforming YOUth - Without a Compass: Developing Objectives and Method in Teaching
Youth
– Book Review – A
Jewel in His Crown: Rediscovering Your Value as a Woman of
Excellence
–
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Guest
Column - Women Have Natural Leadership Advantages
by Dr.
John Jackson
, © 2003
Most people agree that women generally have a more finely
tuned relationship radar than men.
In part, that may be because of how women and men
differ in the way their brains function.
Clinical studies have shown that women think with
both hemispheres (the creative and the analytical) of their
brain simultaneously, while men are wired up to think with
each hemisphere sequentially.
Because of this, I think women have some natural
leadership advantages. Leadership
is more like family than it is like war.
Leadership requires a focus on the future and strategic
decision making ability.
And, since I am one, I like to think that there are
lots of good leaders who are men!
But, I see a number of leadership dimensions where
women may have a natural leadership advantage.
Dr. John Maxwell defines leadership as
“influence”. If
that is true, we want to be sure to exercise our leadership
influence opportunities with the greatest of care.
I’ve learned over the years that leadership
influence rests on certain principles.
So how is leadership more like family than it is like
war?
Leadership rests on
relationship. While
you can certainly be a leader on the basis of a position or
on the basis of strength or power, that form of leadership
does not change the heart and character of a person.
Leadership based on force or demand may cause someone
to act, but it will not cause them to change.
Leadership that rests on relationship recognizes the
connection of heart, the sharing of a dream, and the
stirring of hope that comes when people are in relationship.
Women have a “natural” advantage in this area of
leadership development.
Leadership requires
commitment for the long haul.
Many leaders make the mistake of accepting a
leadership role and then only thinking short term in that
role. My
experience suggests that lasting leadership thinks of the
long haul. Rather
than a “sprint”, leadership is generally a
“marathon”. Because
women generally have greater endurance than men, I think
women are uniquely suited for leadership that lasts!
Leadership means both
strategic focus AND simultaneous sensitivity.
When we first had children, I would periodically
“watch the children” when my wife went out for the
evening. When
she’d return, she’d find that we’d had a wonderful
time . . . but did nothing other than play and have fun.
When she watched the children, she’d also be
cooking dinner, doing laundry, talking on the phone,
cleaning the kitchen, and planning her next day’s
activities! I’d
get a headache just thinking about it.
Leadership does require strategic focus . . . but it also
requires simultaneous sensitivity to multiple dimensions of
behavior, data, and complexity.
Because women think with both hemispheres
simultaneously, women have a natural leadership advantage!
The truth is, I think God has given both men and women
leadership advantages. God
has “wired us” so that we have a natural complementary
nature. Married
couples that make it recognize their spouses as
“God-gifts” because of their unique and complimentary
gift mixes. Since
leadership is influence, I think God has positioned women
for major leadership impact in the relationship fabric of
our lives. Women
. . . seize
your leadership opportunities and influence your world for
Christ!
Dr.
John Jackson
is the Founding and Senior
Pastor of
Carson
Valley
Christian
Center
(www.carsonvalleychristian.com),
and the author of PastorPreneur (www.pastorpreneur.com),
a book which equips Church leaders and Christian business
people to creatively reach their local communities for
Christ. Dr.
Jackson has a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and lives
in
Genoa
,
Nevada
with his wife Pamela and
their five children.
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Login
Leadership - When to Move a Position from Volunteer to Paid
Status
By Tom Hanover
Our church recruited Laurie from another para-church
ministry to help us launch a new feeding program.
I was told she could cook and could do so for large
groups. That
seemed to be an essential skill for this ministry.
What I didn’t know is the spiritual gift of
leadership she would bring with her −
and what a gift it was.
Laurie had a unique ability to network with lots of people
from all walks of life who were captured by her vision to
feed the hungry and create a safe place for the
disadvantaged. It
was great fun some months later to celebrate the feeding of
the 5,000th meal and to honor her leadership
among us. We
were really doing Jesus’ work.
Laurie started as a volunteer.
However, we quickly moved her status to a paid staff
person. What are
the advantages and disadvantages of volunteer status versus
paid staff status?
Disadvantages
- For
all of our rhetoric about all Christians called to
ministry, we still grant greater respect to those who
receive pay for their services.
We behave as though paid staff persons have
greater expertise, deeper spiritual commitment, and
higher religious insight.
Hiring a person may de-value others who volunteer
their time and energy to carry out the ministry.
- Sometimes volunteers act as though they are not
competent enough to carry out ministry because they buy
into the belief that only professionals should carry out
ministry. “Do
not try this at home.
Only a trained professional should do this.” However,
it’s important to remember that Jesus saved some of
his harshest words for “ministry professionals.”
- Paying
staff requires resources (salaries, benefits, office
space, etc.) that might be better utilized in other
ways.
Advantages
- We
might assume a variety of motivations for a
volunteer’s service.
They may enjoy helping others or sense they are
making a difference in the world.
They may see their service as a response to
God’s gift of grace to them.
- For
those who serve and receive payment, pay is not likely a
high motivator. Similar
skills in the world’s market place could well warrant
higher pay. However,
pay can free a person from other employment that may be
required for personal or family responsibilities.
- A
supervising leader can expect a level of commitment and
accountability from a paid staff person that may not be
appropriate from a volunteer.
This could include involvement in staff meetings,
staff training, communication, and administration.
While a volunteer can work from their gifts and
their passion for a particular ministry, a paid staff
person is expected to “get the job done.”
- Pay
provides opportunity to invest in the future.
While a current volunteer may not want payment,
pay may be necessary to attract the particular mix of
gifts and skills needed down the road when this
volunteer is no longer interested or available.
- Paying
a leader can provide administrative and training support
so that volunteers invest their time in direct ministry.
The paid staff person creates the opportunities,
coordinates the ministry, accomplishes the preparatory
work, and offers the training needed for volunteers to
serve effectively.
- Paying
a staff person allows those who cannot volunteer time
and involvement for whatever reason to be supported by
those who can offer financial support.
Some
key questions to ask:
There are many, many volunteers who serve faithfully and
effectively without payment.
They do so out of a personal commitment to Jesus
Christ and the church. They
would be insulted if we were to try to measure the value of
their gift by an hourly wage or a salary.
However, if the service of a paid coordinator can help them
maximize the impact of their gifts and commitment, then
their ministry is multiplied.
They can focus their efforts in ways that capitalize
on their gifts. They
enjoy their ministry more and God’s Kingdom is blessed.
Tom
Hanover has served in a variety of pastoral leadership roles
for over 30 years, the last four as a District
Superintendent supervising the ministries of more than 100
pastors and churches in southwest Ohio. He has a BA (cum
laude) from Taylor University, the MDiv and DMin degrees
from United Theological Seminary in Dayton. Contact
Tom at thanover@pastors-study.com
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Without
a Compass: Developing Objectives and Method in Teaching
Youth
By
Shane W. Parker
What is your overall objective and approach when you teach
your youth? Do
you have an outcome you want to see, or do you simply try to
find out what they “need” most at the moment until the
next perceived need arises?
One week you may find out that one of your students
came home drunk from a party, so you hit the group hard with
a message on the dangers of alcohol.
The next month you might have a young lady in your
ministry who confesses to having sex with her boyfriend, so
you generate a series of lessons on the need for sexual
purity.
The cycle continues as you discover the wounded students and
treat their symptoms. The
difficulty with this approach is not that these topics are
unwarranted areas of instruction.
If all you find yourself doing is treating symptoms,
you are putting a small bandage over a gaping wound.
The problem with this approach is that it is never
going to lead to the achievement of your stated objective.
You
must develop a long-range, biblically rooted plan and
approach to teaching that is going to do more than teach
“can’t do’s” to your students. You need to begin
with God’s clear teaching and move students toward an
adoration of Him. Don’t
allow your students’ sinfulness to hijack a systematic
plan to help them encounter the whole of biblical truth.
For maximum impact, develop a consistent, daily and
weekly approach to teaching youth that will accomplish your
stated vision or purpose.
In order to give you an idea of one such method, we will
look at a message by Dr. John Piper, Pastor for Preaching at
Bethlehem
Baptist
Church
in
Minneapolis
,
MN
. This message
was delivered to a gathering of youth ministers in 2002.
The interesting dynamic of this talk is that it deals
with the stated objective (s) and approach to teaching
youth. The
message can be summarized as follows:
Objective(s) or
Vision:
1.
When they (youth) graduate, you might say with
all earnestness, “I testify to you this day that I am
innocent of the blood of all of you for I did not shrink
from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts
20:26).
2.
You “breed young people who burn for Christ,
when He alone stands and everything else falls away.” (Note:
the “burning” comes from the reaction of the disciples
on the road to Emmaus, as they reflected on how they had
been effected by Jesus’ teaching from the Scripture in
Luke 24:32)
Method (Teaching
Practices that will lead to successful achievement of the
Objectives):
1.
You must go to the Word and think about it
until it burns in you.
2.
Pray over this Word until it burns in you.
3.
Think about their lives until this burning in
you connects.
4.
Find language that stabs and pierces and
awakens your youth.
5.
Get at the God-centeredness of all truth in
the Bible.
Looking at the method of teaching Dr. Piper outlines, we
can observe how each of the five principles in the method
are focused on producing “young people who burn for
Christ.”
First, he roots the method in the Scripture.
The teacher of students must first, himself, be made
passionate by the Bible through meditating on it, praying
over it, and thinking about the biblical truths in
relationship to the lives of the students.
Also, the teacher of youth must creatively think of
language that communicates the truth with passion.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the teacher of
youth is to focus on the God-centeredness of the Bible, so
that students will treasure God above all else.
Each of these principles is directly correlated to
the stated objective to “breed young people who burn for
Christ.”
Dr. Piper’s model is an excellent one to adapt for your
own ministry; however, the larger point is that you must
have a goal to your teaching and develop a methodology that
will reach that goal. Both
the goal and the methods must be firmly rooted in Scripture,
and the students should be aware of the objective you are
trying to achieve (For further discussion on the importance
of ensuring students are aware of your objectives, see the October
14, 2004 MIM E-Zine Article entitled, “The
Road to Remember: How to get your students to retain what
you teach” ).
Knowing where you are going and how you intend to get
there should result in producing students who “are bred by
the purposeful teaching of the God-Centered truth of Jesus
Christ that calls them to embrace Jesus as their Treasure
and to do the impossible for the glory of His name”
(Piper, Imparting a
Passion: A Challenge to Youth Workers, Desiring God
Ministries, 2002).
Get
more information on Dr. Piper’s message, Imparting
a Passion: A Challenge to Youth Workers,
---
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---
Book
Review – A
Jewel in His Crown: Rediscovering Your Value as a Woman of
Excellence
by
Priscilla Shirer,
Moody Publishers, ISBN 0-8024-4083-5, 160 Pages.
Journal, ISBN 0-8024-4094-0,
186 pages
A Jewel in His Crown written by author/speaker Priscilla
Shirer is a delightful study into a woman’s life and her
place in the royal court of God. Both the book and workbook
provide an in-depth exploration of issues relevant to a
woman’s life at all stages and her relationships with all
people.
Shirer points out that women are Royalty, and they need to
look for their place in God’s Court. As daughters of the
King, women should put on their own crown and at once take
upon the qualities of one in a royal court.
It is vital for women to claim their inheritance. If they
don’t’, they block God’s purpose for their life and
insult Him by trying to be someone they are not.
Though the book or workbook can easily be used separately,
together they provide a more complete tool.
The
book (s) are filled with topics, which encourage women to be
women, to glory in their likeness to God, and to embrace the
fact they were specially fashioned by Him.
The book version includes in each chapter, a study, a prayer
and a list of things to consider.
The Journal is unique. Chapter by chapter, it accompanies A
Jewel in His Crown perfectly. Questions, quotes and
scriptures are designed to bring a woman’s gem-like
qualities to the surface, where they belong.
Shirer
relates her own difficulties in relationships and then
later, candidly shares the important lessons she learned
from overcoming the trials.
Both books are rich with tools to bring all women into the
glory of their womanhood.
The book and journal are suitable for teens and young adult
women. Older women will benefit as well, as the knowledge
extracted from these books will teach women about their
value as a woman, and prepare their spirits, mind and bodies
for the man God has chosen for them. By doing so, and
applying the principles in the book and journal, unmarried
women can then enter into a married union with the fullness
of grace God has provided, with the man God has selected to
be their groom.
Either book, or both as a set, would be an appropriate gift
to a young woman in her teens and can aid all women in their
journey as God’s woman. Married
and older women as well will enjoy the set and be able to
deepen their understanding of their place in God’s
Kingdom, their place on the earth, and their place in other
people’s lives.
Dian
Moore is a Christian freelance writer and editor as well as
the hands behind Hands for Hope, a small entrepreneurship in
the northern panhandle of
West Virginia.
Visit www.handsforhope.com
for more information.
Order A Jewel in His Crown
Order A Jewel in His Crown Journal
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