The following article is written by Kirk Walters, our Missions Pastor at Mt. Paran North. Before coming to MPN he was a Sr. Pastor near Jackson, MS, a youth pastor in Mobile, AL, and was successful in business. He and his wife Laura have 2 great kids, Bradley and Lauren.
I just returned home from Scotland after visiting our missionaries with Jeremy and another guy from our church. Yes, we did play St. Andrews and it was spectacular (I make no apologies!). On the flight from Edinburgh to New York, the flight attendants were still serving snacks in a frenzied manner as we began our initial descent into NY. I asked one of them why they were in such a rush. It turns out the pilots had played a joke and told the flight attendants we would be an hour late, when we actually were almost an hour early. The flight attendants were literally running down the aisles picking up trash and securing items in order to prepare for landing (they even threw the bags of trash onto the bathroom floor!). They sat down within 30 seconds of landing. It was extremely funny to Jeremy and me because we knew what had happened, but I wonder how it was viewed by the other 200 passengers unaware of the joke. The other passengers probably thought the flight crew was extremely inefficient and unprofessional.
It got me to thinking about leadership. It’s important for leaders to relate to their employees and volunteers. This should include many moments of laughter with one another that build relationships. However, leadership involves timing. Just as leaders need to make right decisions at the right time; good leaders know when it’s time to relate and when it’s time to lead. These pilots didn’t understand the law of timing. There are moments that require leaders to lead in a transcendent way:
• When it involves mission – jokes would have been fine over lunch, but the crew should be committed to its mission (making the flight safe, enjoyable, and efficient).
• When it affects another person’s performance – the passengers unaware of the joke simply thought the flight attendants did a poor job of planning.
• When it reflects poorly on the organization – the displeased passengers will remember one thing – the airline seemed disorganized!
The real problem is that people’s potential view of the flight attendants is not accurate. These flight attendants were great! They handled some unruly passengers with professionalism and even handled a minor medical emergency (I’ll let Jeremy tell you about that) with great compassion.
It makes me wonder about my own leadership – do I lead and relate well? Am I intentional about timing my relationship and leadership moments to maximize my employees/volunteers potential for the good of the organization?
After making it back to New York’s JFK airport yesterday around 2pm we took a cab to Laguardia where we were to fly home to Atlanta at 5:55pm. Then a storm hit Atlanta and our flight was delayed. Then delayed again, and again. Then it was cancelled. So they stuck us on 2 different return flights and we eventually landed at midnight. After getting my luggage, I shared a car with Kirk, our Missions Pastor. They dropped him off and then me, and I walked in my house at 1:45am.
I layed down, and Cooper starting throwing up. So I went to the store to get some medicine. We all fell back to sleep at around 3:30. That would be 8:30am Scotland time, or more than 24 hours after I woke up the day before.
It was an awesome trip, and I’ll post a bunch of pics soon, but for now, here is my tee shot on # 1.
7|22 has played a huge part in the modern ministry landscape. If you haven’t already seen it, watch this video. The faith and courage required to make some of the statements he makes are incredible. They have a pretty big announcement about the future…
Excellent post from Tim Stevens on parenting that relates to Student Ministry. I encourage all parents and anyone involved in Student Ministry to go check it out…HERE.
Here’s an excerpt
Here is the key learning: Environments matter. Who my daughter is influenced by as a 15-year old is dependent greatly on the environments that my wife and I placed her in as a 10- and 12- and 14-year old.
It’s a little early to tell whether we will survive life with teenagers, but here is the advice I would give parents of pre-teens…
-Get involved in a great church with strong youth leaders.
-As they start middle school, don’t give them the option to stay home from the youth program.
-Find a school that has strong values and where there is good chance they will be able to find solid friends. That might mean paying for private school or moving to a better school district.
-Get them in situations where they are hanging with young adults who are following God. That’s why we had college-age students live in our home for two years.
-Teach them the joy of serving when they are very young.
-Let them participate in events where there is a good chance they might take a step spiritually, like summer camp, missions trips, or weekend retreats.
Oh, and one last word of advice for those with teenagers—stop lecturing and start listening. Stop giving direction and start asking questions.
- I spent time this week with our 20′s and 30′s pastor nailing down our Fall and Winter series for The Gathering (once a month young adult worship service). It’s gonna be great.
- Our team is looking into streaming our HS service each week, making it available for viewing through the website during the week, and incorporating that into our web strategy to reach students (it’s really stretching my thinking)
- That could lead to a long term strategy of some kind of video based multi-site Student Ministry…which isn’t really being done, best we can tell. But that’s way down the road from where we are right now…just dreaming.
- I’m pumped about testing out home based small groups for discipleship this fall. I will unpack this more in a future post.
- After watching more than 70 students make public professions of faith through water baptism the last 2 summer camps, I’m looking for a way to create meaningful baptism opportunities locally throughout the year. If you have ideas, leave a comment.
- My trip to Scotland has given me an opportunity to really make some headway on my book project.
- Corrie and I haven’t been on a date in way too long. Our schedule has been ridiculous, but that’s still my fault…priorities, priorities, priorities!
- I cannot force myself to Twitter.
- I was doing so good working out and losing weight until camp and stuff…I’m ready to get back in a routine.
- Our church just announced some pretty major personnel changes at the Executive Ministry level. The great thing is, everyone’s staying here, they are just moving to different departments to fit need and giftings.
- Kicking an idea around for the Spring of ’09 that I would love to do, but don’t know if I’ll have the time, energy, or resources to do it…so it’s probably worth doing. Stay tuned.
This is my personal blog. Most of what is written is my opinion, observation, original thought, or things I find interesting somewhere else. While I am employed by Mt. Paran North, the things expressed here are not endorsed or necessarily accepted by Mt. Paran North or it's leadership. So don't go sue the church because you don't agree with something I write. Just post a comment and tell me I'm an idiot. It'll just be better for all of us.
The following article is written by Kirk Walters, our Missions Pastor at Mt. Paran North. Before coming to MPN he was a Sr. Pastor near Jackson, MS, a youth pastor in Mobile, AL, and was successful in business. He and his wife Laura have 2 great kids, Bradley and Lauren.
