A New Logo to Express Two Important Aspects of Life Giving Leadership

In almost every coaching and consulting conversation there are two aspects that surface; MESS AND CREATIVITY.

“Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean,but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.” Proverbs 14:4 (ESV)

There is something very freeing when I relax and embrace the messy context of life as a leader.

Can you picture these two farms next door to each other? Farmer “A” has a clean stable but is left to his own strength to plow his furrows and prepare his fields for sowing. Farmer “B” has the added strength and guaranteed greater harvest of plowing with an ox but must also spend some time cleaning the stable.

The wrong question for a farmer is, “How can I farm and keep everything clean, controlled and predictable?”

The better question is, “What contribution can I make that will produce abundant fruit?”

Every day I am investing my time in one of two ways. I am working to attain or maintain a clean stable or I am choosing to wade into messes where there is greater potential for a greater harvest. Swatting flies, shoveling manure, wrestling a yoke onto an ox, and following its backside while keeping the plow straight somehow captures at least 80% of my best leadership. This book explores those kind of days.

Here are some examples:

Do I respond to an attacking e-mail with prayerful face to face conversation – or go to work on a sermon? Can something as spiritual as the study of the Bible be a clean stable a leader retreats to avoid messy relational encounters?

Do I pray for grace and invest some time in a person who leaves me depleted – or go spend time with my best friend missionary? One of my ways of avoiding the messy stuff is to convince myself I am just soooo busy….but I am sure that is just me? It takes almost no effort to make myself busy. It is hard to admit that I value clean over mess and my busy pace is actually a cave where I hide to feel safe.

Do I include a person who asks hard challenging questions in the invitation list to a meeting – or only invite those who I am sure will agree to my recommendations? The ox comes dressed in many different ways – and one can be a person who relates to me like a porcupine.

Can you see the “no ox” and “ox” in each of these decisions?

When I enter into a consulting process with church or para church organization leaders one of the yellow flags that is set off in my mind occurs when I ask them to write down specifically the issues, challenges, questions, problems, and opportunities about which they think it would be of value to have an outsider’s perspective. When what comes to me could be summarized as, “Help us get our stable organized and clean; remove the mess, confusion, uncertainty, risk, and lack of control from our leadership I know that the first thing that must change is the leaders and perspective and goals.

A TRUE STORY OF A CHURCH I COULD NOT HELP

I showed up on a Saturday evening for a first contact with church leaders. They spent the first block of time showing me around the facility they had built.

Parking lot paved, striped, and sealed. . . beautiful; hope none of the guests have a car with an oil leak!

Entrance perfectly color coordinated and no handprints on any of the walls or doors.

Perfectly lined up chairs and soft lighting; the feel of a very nice restaurant.

AND – they showed me the chart and schedule involving many volunteer hours each week keeping the grounds and building pristine.

Is there anything wrong, unbiblical or ungodly with having a nice place to meet? Well of course meeting environments are filled with cultural values and expectation – but NO I cannot make a strong case that the Bible forbids or speaks against a nice place to meet. But the problem is has this sacrificial investment in cleaning a substitute and maybe even an avoidance of partnering with God’s work of cleaning up lives?

Turns out I could not be much help to them. They had brought me in because they wanted to see new people come into the church. They knew they were aging and in a slow decline. Yet they had voted a few months before to close down a children’s ministry to reach out to children in the community. WHY? They were upset by the mess it created – they even had to repaint because of hand prints on the hallways.

Is it possible to be very very busy about the wrong things?

Being clean and organized can have the feel of a museum on display. That is very different from an auto mechanic cleaning up the garage on a Monday morning so he can find the right tools and be more productive in what will be a messy week of several cars torn down, seeking to diagnose the problem with these two cars, others left with their guts ripped open waiting on a part to be located or delivered, and those up on the rack being reassembled. Ministry is living in the auto shop not strolling through the museum.

THE CRAYON COLORING IS NOT ONLY MESSY

IT REFLECTS THE CREATIVITY OF A THREE YEAR OLD

PICKING THE COLOR AND

TAKING THE CRAYON IN ITS FIST AND MAKING A MASTERPIECE!

So much written on leadership comes across as dumping guilt on and a dark cloud of hopelessness on leaders. Leaders come away from the post thinking, “Here are five more things I have been doing wrong, or failing to do at all. How can I add them to my schedule when I am already buried under demands and expectations?”

I catch glimpses of God as my leader; and I believe he is concerned that his followers experience life; an abundant life of joy and peace.

God created and when he looked around he said, “It is good!” That reminds me of a three year old running to bring me another masterpiece for the refrigerator door.

I think there is a very legitimate place for creative fun and day to day joy. My leadership is much more effective when it flows from my heart singing out, “I can’t believe I get to do this.”

Lord, may the men and women touched by my coaching embrace the mess and unleash the creative life of the Spirit.