This will sound like a rather odd recommendation, but here it is. I find Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, a little full of himself. I’d heard the advice to start with questions of purpose and passion years ago, well before he wrote his book, so the idea that he invented or came up with all this is, well, a bit much. And his work with brain science feels at the same time both oversimplified and overstated. Finally, while he may be a perfectly lovely human being, he comes across as a bit self-important. Having said all that, I’d still encourage you to watch his TED Talk, based on his...

This is the first in a series of posts on common leadership pitfalls. When I think about the best leaders I’ve known and seen and when I think about occasions my time – whether in a primary leadership role or not – has been best used or wasted, several themes come into focus. In this first post, I will take up one of the most common leadership pitfalls: confusing good process with actual productivity. I intentionally modify “process” with the adjective “good” because I want to be clear that a) I think attention to process is very important and b) this isn’t a complaint about busyness for busyness sake. Attending with care to...

4. Don’t Give Too Much Attention to Troublemakers During the first World Cup match I watched this year, I was struck that when a fan came streaking onto the field to cause a ruckus, the cameras moved away. That is, we didn’t actually see the ruckus, we only heard about it briefly. One of the commentators mentioned that this was per FIFA’s instructions. While I have plenty of critique for the way FIFA is run, they’re definitely onto something here. For when you give troublemakers the attention they seek, you inspire more people to make trouble. I think leaders – in congregations, schools, businesses, and the home – can learn a lot...

One of the really interesting side discoveries of the research we did as part of the Vibrant Congregations Project is that it’s really hard to change alone. Maybe I should back up a bit to put this more in context. The Vibrant Congregations Project was a research endeavor generously funded by the Lilly Endowment to help a team from Luther Seminary investigate what contributed to congregational vitality and vibrancy. Partnering with congregations all over the U.S. and Canada, we studied four dimensions of congregational life – stewardship, vocation (connecting faith and daily life), biblical preaching, and biblical fluency (patterns of...

You know the stats. The mainline church in North America has lost significant numbers of members over the last several decades. The ELCA alone suffered a 20% loss over the last fifteen years. This isn’t news. What is news – or what should be – is how little we’re doing about it. Oh, don’t get me wrong – we have all kinds of programs and meetings and studies and initiatives. Yet when it comes down to calling into question basic assumptions about worship and preaching and congregational life and leadership, we continue to do what we’ve been doing for much of the last century. Last night, after making a presentation on some of the...

After a few emails and comments, I realized that I could have been much clearer on the difference between transformation and tweaking things. One question in particular was most helpful and ran, in several forms, something like this: Isn’t there a time for tweaking? Or, can tweaking things prepare for transformation. In short, the reply to the former is “absolutely,” while the reply to the latter is “rarely.” Both answers hinge completely on the nature of your context. When the context is relatively stable, even though there may be significant changes and challenges at hand, the task is to figure out what has not been working in an...