April, 2013 | Release the A.P.E.

Spiritual Courage: Taking Down Goliath

2 responses
April 4, 2013

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By Jon Hietbrink

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” — CS Lewis

What we’re trying to do is hard.

Catalyzing new movements of missional communities is complicated, and our job description as leaders is often a mile long: disciple, pray, vision, witness, fundraise, meet, care, decide, communicate, recruit, repeat. To be a leader is to embrace the reality that more will be asked of us than we can give–we choose to make our home in the deep end not because it’s comfortable, but because that’s where Jesus calls us. In the midst of all that we’re asked to shoulder as leaders, one thing surfaces again and again–the indispensable role of simple courage. Leadership is most certainly about vision, strategy, and organizational behavior, but at it’s most fundamental level, leadership is about exercising the courage to look fear in the eyes and defy it by fixing our gaze on Jesus instead.

Show & Tell

2 responses
April 3, 2013

duck and ducklings

By Beau Crosetto

It is alarming to me how much leaders do not model for the people below them. I see it especially apparent the higher I look up the leadership ladder. It seems that the more and more someone gets removed from the ground level, less and less modeling takes place. It is bothering me. These are the most skilled and advanced leaders. They/we need to be showing people what to do, not just telling them!

It’s time to get back into the pond and show people how to swim instead of shouting from the shore.

The other day I was having a conversation with a person I really look up to as a leader. They asked me about how I was modeling for the guy I am raising up and I realized I wasn’t doing a very good job in one area specifically. Sorry Nick 🙂

I had fallen into the trap that most leaders fall into:

Who Do You Think You Are?

2 responses
April 1, 2013

This is a guest post by Laura Hairston. Laura is a wife, mom & practitioner. She serves on the National Leadership team for Forge America Mission Training Network and is co-founder of Waken Ministries, both organizations helping with missionary formation & discipleship. She lives in the North Dallas suburbs where she mentors teenage girls in her home as well as longs to see her neighborhood look more like the kingdom of God each day. Her heartbeat is for every follower of Jesus to see themselves as missionaries in their every day lives. Twitter | Facebook

“Who do you think you are?” is what I’d really like to say to those “Christians”—yes, those are air quotes—who think they are better than everyone else. Just because we know Jesus and have decided to follow him doesn’t mean we turn inward and raise ourselves in status. On the contrary, we should be turning outward and becoming more gracious and humble.

I’ll preface the rest of this by saying I used to be one of those “Christians.” I only spent time with the people I worked around and attended church with, and most of them were all the same since I worked in a church. I never had time for my neighbors or really anyone else for that matter. I was constantly surrounded by people who believed and valued the same things I did.