Week 42 and a leader who equally loves the loo!

Week 42 and I'm just finishing Tony Blair's masterful autobiography.
irrespective of your political position - these are the memoirs of a global leader who for 10 years held one of the highest offices of leadership, bringing huge influence, and impacting generations to come through the decisions he made as a leader. These memoirs are filled with leadership insights and learning's.
I've blogged on some of the early learning's already, here are some of the latter learning's:

Tony led with ordered thoughts.
Time after time in the book he mentions pausing before speaking, withdrawing to a side room and gathering his thoughts; stepping away from the media/public to gather his thoughts. the mental togetherness he practices is highly commendable.

To succeed you have to be more than clever. You have to be able to connect and you have to be able to articulate that connection in plain language. The plainness of the language then leads people to look past the brainpower involved.

A leader has to both manage complex situations and to judge them.

In the fickleness of our times, moods always trumps the policy every time!
In this matter, the public aren't always logical, but that's their prerogative.

In my reading I discovered perhaps why I like Blair so much. Here's what he writes about global travel:
"The one problem is that travel does play havoc with the digestive system. You need to eat healthily and with discipline. I am very typically British. I like to have time and comfort in the loo. The bathroom is an important room and I couldn't live in a culture that doesn't respect it."

Yep .....he and I are very alike!!!

More learning's:

Basically, most people are psychological itinerants in search of someone who wants to hear about them, who is interested in what they have to say, and who will regard what they say as both sage and stimulating.

Leaders live with the worry of what comes next - of the next call, the next slip of paper, the next confrontation, the next frisson of fear.

Blair changed the face of prime ministers. While he took office as the leader of a country, our time and generation made him into a global leader. This is unique to our time and era - leaders are much more global than 20 years ago. That global might be in different countries, or that global might be in different cultures, ethnicity's, contexts. Communications, a flat world and the 6 degree reality.

I highly recommend Blair's autobiography.

Week 41 and my Anabapist heritage has found me out!

Week 41 (ouch, only 11 weeks left in 2010!)
Spent the weekend reading some excellent books. None more so than one entitled "The Naked Anabaptist" @ Stuart Murray.
This was a few-hours-don't-put-it-down-didn't-expect-to-enjoy-this-so-much kind of book.
28 pages turned down and a lot of underlining ....means this is a pretty interesting book.

Basically a history of the Anabaptist movement, Murray is drawing a contrast between the movements original context and what it means for faith in our context. If historical Anabaptism was a challenge to the era of Christendom, modern Anabaptism is a way to effectively, missionally live in today's post-Christian era.

Its a good read.

What I really enjoyed was the learning of the modern Anabaptist's core convictions, and the deeper explanation of the first core conviction in chapter 3. Here are the core convictions:

1. Jesus is our example, teacher, friend, redeemer, and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church, and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him. [Brilliant comment!!]
2. Jesus is the focal point of God's revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centered approach to the Bible, and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implications for discipleship.
3. Western culture is slowly emerging from the Christendom era, when church and state jointly presided over a society in which almost all were assumed to be Christian. Whatever its positive contributions on values and institutions, Christendom seriously distorted the gospel, marginalized Jesus, and has left the churches ill equipped for mission in a post-Christendom culture. As we reflect on this, we are committed to learning from the experience and perspectives of movements such as Anabaptism that rejected standard Christendom assumptions and pursued alternative ways of thinking and behaving. [The comments about how Christendom distorted the gospel, marginalized Jesus and has left churches ill equipped ...equally brilliant.]
4. The frequent association of the church with status, wealth, and force is inappropriate for followers of Jesus and damages our witness. We are committed to exploring ways of being good news to the poor, powerless, and persecuted, aware that such discipleship may attract opposition, resulting in suffering and sometimes ultimately martyrdom. [Another excellent insight.]
5. Churches are called to be committed communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability and multivoiced worship. As we eat together, sharing bread and wine, we sustain hope as we seek God's kingdom together. We are committed to nurturing and developing such churches, in which young and old are valued, leadership is consultative, roles are related to gifts rather than gender, and baptism is for believers. [Perhaps this one misses the ethnicity challenge of the modern church; it might also tend towards idealism ...yet it pushes us to rethink certain forms of the modern church.]
6. Spirituality and economics are interconnected. In an individualist consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation, and working for justice.
7. Peace is at the heart of the gospel. As followers of Jesus in a divided and violent world, we are committed to finding nonviolent alternatives and to learning how to make peace between individuals within and among churches, in society, and between nations.

It was nearly 8 years ago that I ate lunch with a local Mennonite (Anabaptist) church pastor. His concluding question, after we ate and talked was "does the Baptist church you pastor know they have an Anabaptist as their pastor?"

Anyone else wish to raise their hand and join in some excellent core convictions??

Of course, for all you Baptists out there, do you realize how much you owe your beginnings to the Anabaptist influence!!

Week 40 and what I really think about visiting Africa!

Week 40 and time to be honest.
Not that I'm dishonest at other times. But, sometimes I choose not to share my more personal or vulnerable thoughts. This blog is me going to a more personal level than other times - and hence, more honest.

Here's my honesty - I don't really like going to Kenya, Africa.
I love the guys we partner with; I love our driver/agent Ben; I love all that's happening in the Furaha Community Huruma Centre, part of the Furaha Community Foundation; I love the first thing in the morning and the smells, aroma and sunrise of Kenya. But, i don;t really like going to Africa.

It's a hard journey - two major long flights.
It's a hard place to stay - my guy hurts for the entire time I'm there.
It's a hard place to lead - as team leader you are constantly aware that you are in a desperate city, a city that saw a terrorist attack against Americans; a city filled with desperate people seeing white people as targets; it's a place where the word police does not always equal justice but more often equal corruption.
It's a hard place to relax - travel through 10 time zones, hit the ground running, force yourself to sleep at the wrong times, swallow malaria meds, avoid the bad bacteria you are surrounded by; travel in a matatu with dust pouring into your lungs ...as well as hitting potholes, enduring near misses, sit in pollution clogged air, constantly watch over your shoulder.
Entering Kenya, Africa is hard and I don't really like doing it.

But during the past three years I've lead a team into a large slum in Nairobi twice a year.

This visit one of our team asked me why I keep going on the trips?

My answer - I have to, for my sake!

Not that I want to appear selfish, but, I have to find a way to keep myself exposed to some of the worst poverty on the face of the globe.
I have to find a way to keep myself aware of the reality of 60% of the world's population.
I have to find a way to be among the poorest of the poor and be where Jesus would be.

My spiritual leadership is dependent upon understanding true reality, and that reality has to involve the reality of what's happening in our globe and with the majority of humanity.

If I don't go, and go regularly (we so easily forget or switch off) I will move towards a self focused existence and a skewed view of reality.

But it does more.
It pushes me to maintain spiritual leadership as a faith exercise.

Let's be honest. Sometimes in the leading of a local church autopilot can kick in.
I've been doing this for over 10 years. Putting together a preach, leading staff, leading a congregation can too easily be done out of experience and not out of faith.
But when you enter Huruma slum and you see the chaos, hopelessness, desperateness of daily life, the though about seeing transformation come through the presence of Christ - the only way such could happen is through a moving of God. that is a act of faith, not an act of experience or professional pastoring.
Going to Kenya, Africa and the hardness of going ......renews the call of faith, the cry for more faith, the reliance upon faith and faith alone.

Going - is a spiritual necessity for effective spiritual leading.

Anyone want to join me?
Anyone want a shot of renewed, invigorated, desperate faith?