Patrick O'Connell

Leading by Hand

If you're leading people I have a question for you: How often do you write handwritten thank you cards to the people on your teams?

Emails and verbal affirmations don't count. I am talking about sitting down and writing words on a card with a pen. There's something intimate about the act of handwriting that the person receiving the note connects with. 

If you can't remember may I encourage you to start writing. Not only are you missing  out on an opportunity to show gratitude but you're missing out as a leader. People aren't going to care about you, your vision, or your plans until they know you care about them. Leadership is a people thing. The sooner you let people know you appreciate them the better it's going to be for everyone.

Two years ago I set a goal of writing three thank you cards every week to the people who contribute on my ministry teams. I write them and then pray for the person I am thanking and get it into the mail.

I hope my contributors appreciate the card. I want them to know how grateful I am for each of them. But the real benefit of writing cards has been personal. The practice has helped me grow as a leader. I have come to realize every one of our contributors brings something unique to the table. 

I use the time it takes me to write the card to pray for the person.During the five minutes it takes me to write the card, I am focused on the person and thinking about the things that I can do to help them grow.

Writing thank you cards is a great way to build humility into the rhythm of the leader's life.

If you do thank your team with handwritten letters, how often do you write them? I'd love to know the details.

Ask for Leadership Feedback

If you're a leader I have a suggestion to help you grow: Ask your closet peer leaders to give you feedback about your leadership. Give them permission to tell you the areas where you need to grow to lead at the next level. Don't hold back--tell them they need to be brutally honest with you.

When I first arrived in Kansas City as a church planter I struggled to get my bearings. I had lead in the military and in the corporporate world. But ministry was a different challenge. Six months after the launch of Restore I found myself sinking.

A trusted friend suggested I go to each of the leaders on my team and ask them to help me grow. While the idea of being vulnerable wasn't pleasant, I knew it was the only way to get to the next level. What I learned in my feedback conversations was both painful and illuminating. Since then I've been able to navigate my weaknesses better while building on my strengths. Had I not allowed my peers to be honest with me, I am not sure I'd still be in ministry.

If you're stuck or you're wallowing or you just don't know how to take your leadership to the next level, ask the leaders around you for honest feedback. While this can be painful, their assessment of your leadership will pay huge dividends for you in the long run.

The Scale of Leadership

There is a disconnect between the leadership of Jesus we find in the Gospels and what we find in most churches. Jesus was satisfied to lead a few. We try to lead many.

The church is enthusiastic about leadership. We have leadership conferences and workshops and books and seminars. All of them are designed to grow you and I into better leaders. Like anything, there are pros and cons to this strategy.

I see the problem as one of scale. Jesus led a small group. He had influence over many. But he spent most of his time with a small group of people and led through them. He was relational and intimate with a few.

I am not sure if there's any one way to lead. Certainly we can't all lead like Jesus. But it seems to me that we ought to slow down a bit and learn to acknowledge the scale in which God calls us to lead and embrace it.

 

Leadership in the Blood and the Mud

I am leader born of the blood and the mud. (I say that with great humility.) Leadership has never come easy for me. People tell me I am a pretty good leader but that's because I've had to work hard to become one.

I grew up in a leaderless house. My parents were divorced when I was young and so I was more interested in surviving than I was leading. When I was an adolescent I rebelled against anything that smacked of leadership.  When I joined the Army I found out that I was a pretty good leader. The Army was hard but I learned that I was a leader. And when I transitioned into the business world I continued to grow as a leaders. I also learned to discern good and bad leadership.

As I found my way back to God I encountered incredible leaders in the local church who helped me grow even more. It wasn't always easy, but their investment in me helped me to take my leadership to the next level. Many of the leaders I encountered have had a profound effect on me. I followed several to Kansas City to help plant Restore.

Leadership is critical--especially in church planting. We all get that.

But how you become a leader is as important is how effective you are. Some people are born leaders. I've met them. They make it look easy. They're something about them that compels you to want to follow them. Call it 'it.' Call it that 'special something.' It doesn't matter. Some people have it and you know it when you see it.

But most of us need to work at it and that's good news.

 And I am learning that each of us have an environment where we are molded into better leaders. For me, it's climbing into the blood and mud. I learn best when the situation is dire or when the stakes are great. That's when I can really shine. It's not always pleasant but there's no place I'd rather be.

If you're a leader, don't be afraid of the blood and the mud. For some of us, it's where we learn our best leadership lessons.

I'd love to hear more about your leadership journey. 

 

Asking Questions

I met with my friend Jeremy last week to catch-up. We talked church planting and family and calling. I found myself asking him question after question about his experiences with his church plant.

After Jeremy arrived back home he emailed me and thanked me for asking him so many questions. I am not sure what benefit he received from my cross-examination.

That's the way I need to do it. I want to stay learning. I've been involved with seven church plants in the past 4.5 years and you might think I have it figured out. But I don't. 

It was great catching up with Jeremy. I hope we have the opportunity to work together again soon. And I am grateful to Jeremy for his willingness to share his expereinces with me.

Asking the hard question about leadership

I've been asking some of the leaders in my life to help me become a better leader. I ask them out to coffee and then ask this question:

What would it take for you to follow me?

I ask them to be candid: I give them permission to be critical of me. I tell them that I need them to be honest so that I can become a better leader.

They have been some of the best leadership conversations I have ever had.

Remarkable lives for Jesus

One of the questions that I've been wrestling with is this: how do I help people live REMARKABLE lives for Jesus. Taking this a step forward, I am wondering what are some of the things the church can do--that it's currently not doing--to achieve this goal?

I have more questions than answers at this point and so would appreciate your thoughts.

Grow(ing)

So I've been thinking quite a bit about spiritual growth within the context of community. Here are some things I've heard that have helped/confused this issue for me:

• The hard part of doing community is that some people aren't ready to grow with the community.
• Pain is a megaphone to change a hurt and dying world.
• We are often times put on the position of being the catalyst for people to grow and some will resist it, and ultimately refuse it.
• Community is messy and sometimes ugly.
• People who you think are the most unlikely to be willing to grow will surprise you when they say yes.

Nobody said this stuff would be easy.

Make Big Problems Smaller

Here's some good wisdom I heard this past week.

Take a big problem and break it down into little pieces.

Sounds straight-forward doesn't it. Like this is so obvious that you wondering why I am even botherning with it.

Because it's not easy. Big problems are big for a reason. Sometimes big problems can't be made smaller. The trick is to always be trying. You can't always make them smaller but you also can't afford not to try.

Questions from the Road

Yesterday, Troy and I took a ride to Des Moines, Iowa, to retrieve a trailer full of church gear for Restore Community Church. That’s a whole story unto itself because it’s a way cool thing. But this post is about questions and the church.

Troy is a gifted leader who has taken a step-forward in faith to plant Restore. He brings a great deal of experience and passion to the table and frankly I can already sense that I am going to need to notch up my game to keep up with him.

During the 3 hour drive there and the 4 hour drive back we were able to talk about a lot of things. I am not going to bore you with all of the details, but I did want to let you on to some of the things we covered because, well, because it was just so darn interesting:

·         What will the church look like (not just Restore but the North American church) in 5, 10 and 25 years.

·         What is the best way to reproduce leaders and artists?

·         What are the unchurched looking for in a church?

·         What mistakes is the church making today?

·         What kind of church planting model is going to work best at reaching the unchurched?

·         How do we honor God in all of this?

·         How do we build a church that balances the dichotomy between inviting seekers into the church while maintaining a focus on orthodox Biblical Christianity?

·         How do you maintain the uniqueness of the church from the larger culture?

·         Why do some churches simply die?

·         How do we really avoid becoming a church that merely provides religious goods and services?

As you can see, we asked more questions and came up with few answers. But what I love about all of this is that we are asking questions: I am inspired that we are not simply building another church but thinking the very nature of church.