Thou Art The Man

You know the story. Nathan comes to David, David has commited terrible sin. Nathan tells David a story. David becomes enraged at the protagonist in the story. He says, who is this guy?

Nathan says, You da man.

Usually You da man is a good thing. We say that in a golf game. We say that as a masculine comment. But, sometimes when things go wrong in life and we wonder why what we really need is a mirror. A mirror that can tell us, You da man.

David didn’t like what he heard. He didn’t love the fact that Nathan became his spiritual mirror. Nathan didn’t like it either. David could have had his head for saying what he did and that would have been that. But David feared God more than he feared the worldly consequence of his sin. When we have someone in our life who is a God Agent sent to be a spiritual mirror it can be painful but if we fear God it is essential. We must look ourselves in the face directly and deal with the issues God puts up before us.

This comes up because of a corporation my wife used to work for had a conflict resolution consultant come in and work with the corporation as to why there is so much muss and fuss among the people. After a time the expert went in and sat down with the CEO and said, You da man.

That wasn’t what the CEO wanted to hear. He wanted to find out who was causing all the trouble OTHER THAN HIM. No, the expert told him, it all starts at the top. Whatever problems exist, whatever assumptions your people have, whatever conflicts exist they exist substantially because of you. Your people reflect who you are. If you want change in your organization you must change yourself.

I don’t know if he will. I kind of doubt it. It’s a smaller company. He may not have to. But if the company does or if it wants to grow it will outgrow its CEO quickly. HE is the single limiting factor in the organization. It is ever thus.

I have had this experience in my own life. When I lived in Fargo my combined workforce in the companies I ran at that time was about 80 people. They unfortunately reflected the culture I provided. Our success (creative and aggressive) and our failure (organizational and asset management) flowed from me. Oh, we did OK. We were successful to a point. But to move up took another person. They outgrew me. I began to realize I needed other people’s strengths to help me move ahead.

Same thing happened when I became CEO of a large corporation in Chicago in the mid 80’s. We made bold and fast changes. Heads rolled. Things happened. Results came. But there came a point where the lean sleek aggressive nature had to be moderated with structure. It worked because the naysayers were gone. We never did it that way before was no longer in the corporate culture. We didn’t ask if or how we were going to do thus and so, we asked how soon. The only regrets I have from that experience is not taking action when the time presented itself. If fired too late, stayed with old programs too long, left old systems in place beyond their lifespan. I would have done better by taking action, demanding the system work and putting up with the complainers who said, “I’m not happy about the changes going on around here”. I had a few of those. They didn’t last.

When I left that company, some of the dogged determination and “get things done” spirit left. More meetings. More strategy sessions. More wonkyness. Not bad, it just didn’t flow from me.

This is true in Churches and Ministries. I have several friends in ministry who are tremendous leaders up to a point. Then they hit a spiritual ceiling that sits on top of them that if they don’t’ break thru will condemn the ministry they lead to stagnation in the same place they are today. A year from now they will be fighting the same battles with the same people with the same issues with the same frustrations because they left things the same. Not all change is improvement BUT there is never any improvement without change. Be of good cheer little flock, Change for the most part is reverseable. Unringing some bells can be positive change. It can be a unifier.

I know a pastor (who doesn’t read this blog) who was a tremendous leader. Prophetic gifting. Charismatic. But, the answer person. If an idea didn’t come from Pastor it wasn’t going to happen. When people came to Pastor with ideas or even potential course corrections nothing happened unless Pastor could construe it as coming from the Pastor’s vision. Ego driven Pastorate. This comes from a lack of confidence. That Church is about to close. The building will go up for sale. It lasted 6 years. Grew to 150 people and now is dribbling away to nothing.

The opposite of that is Doctor Owen Weston. When he was the Pastor sometimes ministries would spring up in the building without his knowledge, they would prosper and only after a couple months would he hear of it. People would say, "Wow, that ministry to Mom’s you have at your church is something". He would say thank you and then go back to the church and ask, “Do we have a ministry to Moms?” His churches grew organically because his people were enabled to move with confidence in ministry with confidence. Doc O has written several books on how to do it right. I have always admired him and his vision for allowing the Body to be the Body without the Pastor’s intervention. Most Pastors aren't as courageous or as confident as Doc O.

If you wonder why your ministry is like it is, find a mirror. It can be just a looking glass if you can tell yourself the truth or better still find a person who is a mirror for you who has the right and ability to say, You da man.

Otherwise, be prepared to live in mediocrity and far less than the potential God had prepared for you. It’s about you setting the tone. Whatever is important to you will be important to your people.

Since I have a couple dozen people who read this in ministry I’ll be nice and say, this isn’t about you. Unless it is.

Name the top frustrations you have in your ministry regarding:

• Giving
• Evangelism
• Love for one another
• Willingness to Change
• Volunteers
• Excitement
• People inviting others
• People not capturing the vision
• Passion
  

Anything that frustrates you about the people you are the leader of as Pastor or Minister in large part flows from you. It trickles down from the top. You know it’s true of all the pastors you know in all the other churches or ministries you know. You are not exempt. It’s you.

You be da man.