Lesson(s) from Beryl
June 2, 2012
This week we have seen our first tropical storm of the hurricane season. All week Beryl has been reaking havoc. As I was checking twitter the other day two tweets caught my eye and reminded me of two leadership principles.
The first was this:
It was apparent there was a de-lima. As Beryl took an intermission, Tybee was crowded with people hoping to enjoy a day at the beach. Unfortunately there were some extreme rip currents. What should be done? As a leader you want to encourage people to enjoy and visit your area, yet you want to be able to make sure they are safe. I did not want to be whoever was in charge of making the call on this one. The first thing I was reminded of is leadership is about making tough decisions.
The second tweet seemed to be a compromise. Apparently one red flag means you can still get in the water, but according to the news you can only get into up to knee deep. I know it is hard to put the entire idea into a 140 character tweet, but it made me wonder. How do they enforce “knee deep”? Did the life guard or police pull people out who went in below knee deep? What if I was knee deep, but when a wave came in it went above my knees? The second thing I realized is there may not always be a clear answer. If it were easy leaders would not need to make the decisions. If the choice was clear anyone could make it.
Am I on track here? Let me know.
What Makes a Good Ministry Blog?
May 31, 2012
Last week I posted about tweeting and ministry. Here’s a response I got on facebook from my buddy Ben.
He got me thinking. What is the best way to leverage my blog for the ministry I will be in. Keep in mind I will be taking over two awesome, small, rural churches where the majority may not be blog readers. With that being said here are a few blogs that I know of and my thoughts towards them.
- Ben Gosden’s Friend – as Ben mentioned his friend will blog about the sermon he is planning for the week. I love the idea. I’m not sure if Wednesday would give me enough time to make adequate adjustments. I have seen Andrew Conard post his entire sermon on a public google document and ask for feedback. I love both ideas, but would probably tweak it a little bit.
- Ben Gosden’s Blog – Covered in the Masters Dust is a great blog. Ben will be a bishop one day if that is what he desires (I called it). He is a really sharp guy. He blogs about the topics dealt with mostly in mainline Christianity, specifically United Methodism, theology, doctrine, and church polity. I love checking out his blog. I highly recommend it, especially for young clergy. I hope to have opinions and ideas on his level one day, but I am simply not there yet. See also John Stephens or Kevin DeYoung.
- J.R. Lee – J.R. does an awesome job with his blog. He is probably the closest to what I want to emulate. He does two things really well in my opinion. The first I love his midweek review. He gives a lot of bullet points of things going on in the life of the church. Second he teases the upcoming sermons. Usually it is just the logo and a brief description. He also will put in some random post about books, life, devotion, etc. I could see something similar being beneficial.
- Perry Noble – Perry does a great job of providing devotional insights and bullet points of things going on in a church. It serves as a great way for the Sr. Pastor to adress all the people in an individual way, even though he could never spend the time with everyone due to the size of his congregation. He is very good at using his blog to challenge and motivate. It probably is not just my natural communication style, but extremely effective. See also Steven Furtick or Brandon Williams.
So all these include some academic, devotional, church development, and doctrine. I’m just trying to find the right mix. Did I describe these right? Did I leave any out? Which do you think will be most helpful?
Transitions: Twitter in New Ministry
May 30, 2012
As I transition to Senior Pastor at Hagan and Union United Methodist Churches I am re-evaluating how to do some things I regularly practiced as a youth director. For one twitter was one of the main ways to communicate. I imagine I will be still tweeting regularly, but the urgency of tweeting will be probably decline as a primary way of communication as well as move down my priority list. This twitter info-graphic I saw on Orange Leaders blog helped shed some light. Mainly, my main demographic (rural) is not really on twitter. Does this help you consider ways to manage your tweeting?
David Donnan 