Category: Meanderings

Playing Through

Adam Hamilton on What Leaders Do and Why

Below are the notes and liveblog of Adam Hamilton’s first presentation to the North Carolina Annual Conference. Adam is pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, the largest congregation in The United Methodist Church, a congregation he was appointed to start almost two decades ago. I appreciate Adam’s willingness to share what he is learning along the way. As he shared at the end of the session, Adam was dealing with the pain of two clergy staff members being involved in an extramarital affair. You can check out the conversations at http://www.cor.org to see how Church of the Resurrection is handling this as a community.

What Leaders DO, part 1:

  • Set the TONE of the organization.
  • REPRESENT the organization in the community.
  • Hold the organization ACCOUNTABLE to accomplish the mission.
  • Own ultimate responsibility for the organization’s SUCCESS.
  • Responsible for preparing the organization for the FUTURE.

What Leaders DO, part 2:

  • Clarify and champion the MISSION.
  • Discern and cast the VISION.
  • Ensure PLANS are developed to accomplish the mission.
  • MOTIVATE and INSPIRE (the body) to pursue the mission.
  • Evaluate, celebrate victories and honestly address shortcomings.
  • One thing leaders don’t do … they DON’T GIVE UP!

Five Important Leadership Principles:

  • It’s all about PEOPLE.
  • Healthy organizations have a clear MVP (Mission, Vision, and Plan).
  • Change, innovate, improve or DIE.
  • The DISCIPLESHIP pyramid. (10% are going on to perfection, 10% are tithers and leaders, 30% are regular attenders and givers, and 50% give only when they are in worship). Most sermons and worship celebrations are geared to the top two tiers of the pyramid, but you must have a strategy to reach not only those at the bottom of the pyramid, but those who are not yet on the grid.
  • Discernment by NAUSEA. Successful churches / pastors / leaders are willing to do what unsuccessful churches / pastors / leaders are unwilling to do.

Are you willing to do “whatever-it-takes”?


You can check out the video at this link: “What Leaders Do and Why“
Scribble Live Notes:

  • 1:48 PM: AllenBingham Adam is on stage now and hoping to inspire and encourage us.
  • 1:52 PM: AllenBingham I believe in the church and do not want to devote my life to a dying institution.
  • 1:55 PM: AllenBingham There is no future with a hope given our current realities: from 2001-2007 membership is down 4%, UMW down 14%, professions of faith down 18%, confirmations down 21%, worship attendance down 8.4%. We can continue to do this for another 44 years.
  • 1:58 PM: mfmcclure The UMC will die in 44 years @ current rates of decline….what are we going to do about it? #nccumc
  • 1:59 PM: AllenBingham So let’s do three things better: (1) leadership, (2) worship and preaching, and (3) living out our witness in the community. Adam tells us the story of a two-point charge (Drake’s Chapel & Calhoun) in central Missouri (7 and 30) now (worship 30 and 60). A district lay leader kicked in to help out — that doubled the worship attendance in two years. We could double our denomination if every church did this.
  • 2:01 PM: chadmfoster Adam Hamilton…”We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.” #NCCUMC
  • 2:01 PM: NCCUMC Adam Hamilton is currently speaking. Check it out at nccumc.org! #nccumc
  • 2:01 PM: mfmcclure The UMC will die in 44 years @ current rates of decline….what are we going to do about it? #nccumc
  • 2:01 PM: chadmfoster Praying for boldness and inspiration for Pastor Adam as he prepares to teach us at #NCCUMC
  • 2:02 PM: AllenBingham So let’s talk about leaders. What are the qualities of an ineffective leader and an effective leader. Adam is using audience aparticipation.
  • 2:09 PM: chadmfoster AH “don’t do the stuff from the bad leader list.” #NCCUMC
  • 2:10 PM: AllenBingham Effective leaders are authentic (I respect those who are respected by their team), encourages, humble, passionate (I light myself on fire and people come to watch me burn), courageous risk-takers, love people, visionary. Take a clue – stop doing those things on your ineffective list and start doing those things that are effective.
  • 2:10 PM: chadmfoster AH “don’t do the stuff from the bad leader list.” #NCCUMC
  • 2:11 PM: AllenBingham Leaders can laugh at themselves … check out the video.
  • 2:14 PM: AllenBingham Leaders set the tone of the organization, they represent the organization in the community, hold the organization accountable to accomplish the mission, owns ultimate responsibility for the organization’s success, and are responsible for preparing the organization for the future.
  • 2:16 PM: AllenBingham Adam sets the tone by parking his car the farthest away. The other servants are starting to pick up the pace. Are we willing to become servants? Are members willing to become servants?
  • 2:16 PM: AllenBingham Check out my live blogging notes on Adam Hamilton’s talk on leadership at scribble live bit.ly #nccumc
  • 2:19 PM: AllenBingham Accountability is the key for leaders. We must own the organization’s success.
  • 2:19 PM: AllenBingham Managers plan and budget, develop processes and policies, problem solve, create predictability and order.
  • 2:22 PM: AllenBingham Leaders establish direction and cast vision, align people and resources to the vision, motivate and inspire, produce chaos and change.
  • 2:24 PM: AllenBingham Change looks like: records, eight-track tapes, cassette tapes, compact disc, ipod all have been our music sources over the last four decades. Is your church more like a record or an ipod. You have no future without paying attention to the digital age.
  • 2:30 PM: mfmcclure At Church of the Resurection they have two people who are under 30 years of age on every committee of the church…. #nccumc
  • 2:34 PM: chadmfoster AH “Your mission allows you to say goodbye to some people”…so you can reach others. #NCCUMC
  • 2:40 PM: chadmfoster “What is your Disneyworld?” #NCCUMC
  • 2:45 PM: chadmfoster How do you get to your Disneyworld? #NCCUMC
  • 2:50 PM: AllenBingham Leaders clarify and champion the mission (why we are here), discern and cast the vision, ensure plans are developed to accomplish the vision, motivate and inspire to pursue the vision, and evaluate, celebrate victories, and honestly address shortcomings. Leaders don’t give up. The mission of Hallmark is to “enrich lives” (cards, ecards, an movies). Is our mission clear and are people willing to die to see it through. The mission is why we are here, the vision is where we are going.
  • 2:57 PM: AllenBingham Its all about people. People are impressed that you love them, that your relationship is growing. Read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People … that is key to leadership.
  • 2:58 PM: AllenBingham Healthy organizations have a clear MVP (mission, vision, plan).
  • 2:59 PM: AllenBingham Change, innovate, improve, or die.
  • 3:02 PM: AllenBingham We tend to preach and teach most to the top 10-120% of the people. We need to focus on those at the bottom of the discipleship pyramid and those not on the pyramid. Where do I want my people to be in two years. If you don’t know, you will not get there.
  • 3:06 PM: AllenBingham Discernment by nausea. When facing a fork choose the one that makes you feel sick thinking about how you can make it happen. (Or as Robert Frost wrote: two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I took the one less traveled by …”
  • 3:16 PM: AllenBingham Adam closes by sharing a story about two staff persons who crossed a moral boundaries. At the moment of the “maybe” we have to be willing to be say NO. Lord help me be the person or the leader you want me to be. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me …
  • 8:48 PM: binaryflow Adam Hamilton – Session One video is now available online: tinyurl.com #nccumc

Dino Rizzo on “God Is … Here and Anything Can Happen”

Dino Rizzo, pastor of Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, LA, begins by spinning a great tale about preaching his first revival in Homa, LA.  Despite its “failure” in his eyes, God began to move that Sunday morning … he had to step aside and let God.  Something amazing occurs when we realize that God is here and anything can happen.

The lesson this week is from Mark 7:31-37:

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

Jesus tells us that if we see him, we have seen our Father.  What can we learn about God from this encounter with Jesus.

  • Faith Happens:  The crowd gathered with an expectation that something could happen … they brought others to meet Jesus.
  • Love Happens: Jesus pulled the man aside, perhaps to help him feel at ease.  Jesus does not want to embarrass us in front of others.
  • Spit Happens: Jesus seems to use “sign language” process (he touched his ears, touched his tongue, looked to heaven, sighed, etc.).  Dino observes that “spit” is a cure-all for all kinds of situations.  More importantly, Jesus will meet us where we are and will communicate with us where we are.
  • Hope Happens: Jesus says “be opened” and the man hears his own voice.  A miracle was accomplished in power, but more than that, Jesus responded with love and expectations changed.

Jesus shows up every day.  Do we believe that God is here and anything can happen?

God Is … Love w/ Craig Groeschel

Craig Groeschel, of LifeChurch.tv in Edmund OK, launches our One Prayer campaign with the question “Why would God love ME?”  Like John Wesley, he knew that God loved the world and he knew how to point at others and say “God loves you.”  But Craig, like many of us, found it hard to comprehend that “God loves me.”
Two questions prompt his thoughts:

  • Why would God love someone as BAD as me? Job reflects upon his encounter with God and says “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). Paul said to the church in Corinth “for I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:9).
  • Why would God love someone as INSIGNIFICANT as me (among six billion people on planet earth)? Moses said to God when he was being called to liberate the children of Israel “who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). David said to God as he led worship with his people “but who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill offering? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you” (1 Chronicles 29:14).

God does not just love you – there is more to God than that.  God is more that what God does, God is LOVE.  “ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:8-10).  We are not reflecting on God’s action, we are paying attention to who God is … God is LOVE! That changes everything!

  • God’s love COVERS your sins. “Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). When Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden, God covered them with the skin of an innocent animal (see Genesis 3:21). When a son rebelled against his father and squandered his fortune, the father welcomed him home and covered him with a new robe (see Luke 15:22). Paul said to Titus “when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy” (Titus 3:4-5).
  • God’s love makes you SIGNIFICANT. “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jeremiah 31:3).  See Luke 15 for the stories of the widow looking for a lost coin, a father with two sons, and a shepherd with 100 sheep left 99 to find the one lost sheep.

So this is Craig and my prayer for you this day: “for God so loved (insert your name) that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Amen.

I will post a link to the online version of the sermon at a later date.  It’s worth the watch!  Craig is a great storyteller and offers the gospel in a fresh way. Meanwhile check out his books below:

INTERPRETER magazine for May/June of 2009

The Interpreter magazine for May/June of 2009 asks the questions “What if we … Rethink Church?”  I am sure that it will only be a matter of time before our communication team’s marketing strategy, i.e. ReThink Church, becomes our theology for some.  Having said that, the question is on target, late in coming for too many churches, but right on target.  Consider the following articles:

CIRCUIT RIDER magazine for May/June/July of 2009

The recent issue of Circuit Rider is focused on the difficult topic of MONEY.  You may want to check out the following articles:

Last Week’s Diary Recovery

Last week was an adventure in many ways.  I wanted to capture some of the moments:

Calling the Reluctant to Action

Perhaps no one better demonstrated the reluctance that often accompanies a call from the Lord than Jonah.

As you may recall, Jonah received a call from the Lord to go to Nineveh and to call the city to turn from its wicked ways.  Jonah responded by doing what most of us would do — he booked himself a ticket in the opposite direction.  He went to port of Joppa and discovered a ship bound for Tarshish.  Now I need to tell you that if you gave me choice between the Spanish Riviera, which is where Tarshish is located, and Nineveh and its decadence; I would book passage to Tarshish with Jonah as well.  And that’s what we often do in our lives … we choose not what God wants, but what part of God’s word fits our thinking. In this case, Jonah says to himself, “I think a mission trip to the beach sounds a lot better than the mission to Nineveh.”

Those of us familiar with Jonah’s story know that a storm blows up almost immediately and threatens to sink the boat.  The crew throws everything overboard to lighten the ship’s load and when the captain goes below to check for further inventory to chuck he discovers Jonah sleeping!  He commands Jonah to wake up and pray to his God.  Its amazing how people find religion when stressed and everyone onboard is praying to every God imaginable.  When this does not seem to be producing fruit they turn to gambling – they cast lots to figure who has angered the gods and Jonah wins (or is it loses).

So they ask Jonah how they can fix his problem with the Lord.  Jonah suggests that they throw him into the sea.  After much soul-searching and prayer, the crew honors Jonah’s suggestion and Jonah is throw into the sea, where scripture tells us he was swallowed by a fish.  Some might ask how a fish could swallow a person whole and it is said that Dwight Moody’s answer was that it was easy for the fish because Jonah was only a “minor prophet.”  Anyway, three days later and the fish can’t stomach Jonah either and spits him up on the shore.  Did I tell you that our God is a God of second chances?  Let’s pay attention to the rest of the story:

3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
Jonah 3:1-10, The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989).

What might we learn from Jonah’s adventure?  Let me offer several thoughts:

  • First, God will find us out. We cannot run and we cannot hide, although many of us will spend most of our lives running away.  Our boats are not necessarily heading to Joppa, but our intent is too clear.  When our God calls us we want the Frank Sinatra option (let me do it “My Way”).
  • Second, sometime we think doing what God desires of us will make us happy.  Better yet, we think if we cannot be happy then there is no use trying what the Lord asks of us.  Did you hear Jonah’s sorry eight word sermon?  “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  Scripture tells us he did not even get to the center of the Nineveh … he just found a stopping place said his piece, turned around and walked away.  Jonah’s attitude is not different from a reluctant child offering an apology for hitting a sibling, cutting up the sofa with their new scissors, throwing a rock through the window … if it weren’t for moma would apologies ever be made?  For me the important word is that despite his sorry words God changed the hearts of a people (and this is all God desired according to the opening verses of Jonah).
  • Third, as we walk through Jonah’s story we are invited to enlarge our sense of who God is.  Jonah stomped out of Nineveh and waited for its destruction.  When the destruction did not come, he then pouted and railed against the Lord for making him look like a fool for speaking a word that did not come to pass.  His exact words were: “ That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2).  Jonah knows who God is, how God will act, and then gets angry when the Lord acts exactly how the Lord is supposed to act.
  • Finally, to complete the circle, God sends a bush to shelter Jonah from the sun’s heat and then the next day takes the bush away.  Now Jonah gets really angry and receives this rebuke from God: “ You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons” (Jonah 4:10-11).  And soit is with us … how many times do I forget to seek the welfare of the whole?  How many times am I consumed about my piece of the pie to the exclusion of others.

This week has provided us moments to reflect on the Dr. Martin Luther King’s 80th birthday about being willing to do the hard work in order to set a nation on a different tack in the storms of life.  This week an African-America was inaugurated as our 44th president — something that I could only have dreamed about as a child.  And yesterday Kay Yow died.  Kay’s dogged determination and attitude made it possible for women’s basketball to move from a sport played in front of family and friends (I saw a State-UCLA game in Reynolds coliseum in the 70’s that could not have had 500 people in the stands) to a game that attracts a crowd and a following.  To make a change in the world you have to be willing to dig in and make a difference no matter how reluctant you may be to take the first step.  This week I invite you to pray about where you are on life’s journey … is your ticket punched for your personal Tarshish or God’s mission to Nineveh?

When Things Go Bump in the Night

As I have reflected on my call to ministry, and in particular a calling to ordained ministry within The United Methodist Church, there is one constant theme – the prayers of my grandfather.  When I was young my grandfather, Buell Bingham – a pastor, would take me on his knee and we would read through the bible together in his study.  He would pray for me and my journey with Jesus Christ and tell me that God had a great purpose for me.  It was all a little overwhelming … especially for a five or six-year old.  My grandfather died when I was still in college completing my engineering degree and more than once I have told others: "My granddad had to die so that I could distinguish God's voice from my granddad's.  Up until then, those voices were confused in my head."

In the season after the Baptism of Jesus, we pay attention in the lectionary readings from scripture to how God calls servants into ministry.  Today we will talk about Samuel responding to a voice in the night.  But first, we need to tell the beginning of the story.

Hannah and Elkanah from Ramah had no children, so Hannah traveled to the tabernacle in Shiloh to pray for a child.  Eli, whose name means "my God," noticed Hannah's lips moving while she prayed, but no sound emerging from her mouth.  For whatever reason he supposed her to be drunk and proceeded to throw her out of the tabernacle.  We need to know that the drunken folks in the tabernacle were mostly Eli's own sons, who never received the treatment that Hannah was getting (much to God's disappointment).  Hannah told Eli that she was not drunk, she only wanted a son.  She then invited Eli to pray with her and made a promise.  When my son is born I will bring him to you to raise as a servant of the most high God (perhaps she noticed how sorry Eli's sons were, but giving up your first-born child is no small sacrifice).  And so it came to be that Samuel came to live with Eli.  Here is how scripture tells the next step in the story:

Continue reading “When Things Go Bump in the Night” →

Now is the time for turning …

“Now is the time for turning” read Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast in 1998.  After his personal scandal a supporter of Clinton’s gave him the book The Gates of Repentance.  The quote continues with these observations:

The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange. The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively. But for us, turning does not come so easily. It takes an act of will for us to make a turn. It means breaking old habits. It means admitting that we have been wrong, and this is never easy. It means losing face. It means starting all over again. And this is always painful. It means saying I am sorry. It means recognizing that we have the ability to change. These things are terribly hard to do. But unless we turn, we will be trapped forever in yesterday’s ways.

My job today is to not to rehash another sinner’s public humiliation and shame, but to invite you to reconsider your baptismal vows as we pay attention in this new year to what God is calling each of us to do with the gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ.  This gift begins this way according to Mark:

Continue reading “Now is the time for turning …” →

In the Beginning …

The majestic story of God begins with these words:

In the beginning when God createda the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from Godb swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

a Or when God began to create or In the beginning God created
b Or while the spirit of God or while a mighty wind

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, (Genesis 1:1-5). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989.


From there the creation story unfolds for four more "there was evening and there was mornings" until we reach the sixth day of creation, where Genesis' author offers these words:

26 Then God said, “Let us make humankindc in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,d and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27     So God created humankinde in his image,
in the image of God he created them;f
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.


c Heb adam
d Syr: Heb and over all the earth
e Heb adam
f Heb him

Did you get the impact of what was just read … we were created in the image of God.  Each of us, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, red and yellow, black and white, is precious in God's sight because we were made in Godself image.

But before lean into this passage, let's hear the whole creation story again, from the pen of James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938), Harlem Renaissance poet and preacher.

Continue reading “In the Beginning …” →