Dare Great Things For Christ

Whether we like it or not leadership means standing alone.  Of course we need to lead others, so others are always a part of our lives, but whenever you take in things great or small you end up facing the fact that you alone are responsible for the change that you have initiated.  And solitude can be uncomfortable for many.  But for a Christian it becomes the meeting place with Jesus Christ and an essen...

They say it’s lonely at the top and they mean it.  Anyone who engages in leadership in the footsteps of Christ know that the labors involved are intense and often overlooked.  The fact is the most important jobs are often the most thankless.  Those who engage in leadership have to accept the loneliness of the grind.  Lonely of course because no one else is there but not lonely if we know Jesus.  In fact...

Without a doubt one of the hardest parts of being a leader is that we have to embrace solitude.  In this series we are looking at the various dimensions or kinds of solitude that leaders embrace and how Jesus meets each one of us along the way.  In this fourth part of our series we focus in on the solitude of risks.  On the fact that when we decide to act we inevitably have to act alone.  Or do we?  Per...

 Across the board and throughout time leaders have always complained about being alone.  The expression “it’s lonely at the top” says it well.  But this loneliness is not always a bad thing, in fact, usually it is the result of doing what leaders have to do.  When you lead you’re first and when you’re first you’re necessarily alone.  In this third part of our series on embracing solitude we look at the ...

Every entrepreneur knows that having a good idea is only the beginning of the process.  To be successful you need to take that idea to market.  This involves production which involves people, organization, and year of hard effort.  At times the loneliness of the innovator can be so intense that we want to stop innovating altogether.  And yet innovation, novelty, beginning new things is part and parcel o...

One of the most commonly used phrases to describe the experience of leadership is “it’s lonely at the top.”  The phrase resonates with leaders of all stripes and colors but what does it mean for a Christian?  Is there a way to find a deeper meaning to the solitude of leadership?  How did Jesus live His life as a leader?  How did the saints do it time and again?  And in what way can this pathway of solit...

Following the footsteps of Christ into leadership is a wild ride.  Anytime you step forward to change the status quo you need to be ready for anything that can come.  And yet for all of its challenge is there really any other way to live?  Anytime we exert our personal freedom we change the world around us.  Maybe the problem isn’t that we are making a difference, maybe the problem is that we aren’t com...

It's one thing to want to Dare Great Things For Christ and begin new initiatives and projects, it’s quite another thing to finish them.  The first stage in any initiative is dreaming, hoping, and aspiring for great things.  But carrying through our aspirations all the way to the end requires another set of skills.  It requires sacrifice, dedication, and just pure grit.  St. Paul embodied all of those qu...

Let’s face it, trying to accomplish things can be exhausting.  Acting upon decisions that we’ve made means spending valuable resource, our time and our energy in pursuit of them.  At first this experience can be euphoric, but soon it can turn into burn out.  We who are in leadership have engaged in lives that are dedicated to this type of action.  What are we supposed to do when we feel burn out?  What ...

One thing is for sure: to do anything, you have to start doing it.  A lot of people have ideas, ideas that can even change the world, but if they don’t start and actually make things happen nothing will ever get done.  The same held true for the lives of the saints like St. Paul.  He too had to face many obstacles, and he lived in constant uncertainty, and yet he started things anyway.  Starting is an a...

If there’s one thing anybody in charge of anything has in common with each other it’s that leaders of any kind need to know where they’re going.  So what do we do when we don’t know where we are going?  The situation can even be harder for Christian leaders who are trying to become instruments of God.  How do we do something that is entirely beyond our power?  St. Paul gives an example of how to walk in...

Vision is certainly one of the greatest challenges to leadership.  In many ways leaders are called to stare into the void where nothing seems possible and find a path forward.  Already this is a terrific blessing for our world, because it allows for innovation and success.  But God wants to do something even more with vision.  He wants His leaders to accomplish His will and to work His plan.  St. Paul t...

Christian leadership like anything else is an art and a science.  Of course, there are many things we can do to increase our influence and to use it at the service of God.  But foundationally there is something out of control in Christian leadership.  Namely, the fact that God will use us as He desires.  This requires that we learn a secret, the secret St. Paul knew so well and that he tells us about in...

When we follow Jesus in our daily life we are faced with many challenges.  Rising up to meet those challenges in accordance with his grace means that we will be making an impact changing the world around us.  Instead of letting the world take its own course we are leading it in His name.  Rising up to meet these challenges gives us a great opportunity to depend more on Jesus.  This is something St. Paul...

The life of St. Paul provides Christians with a wonderful example of what it means to lead in Jesus Christ.  In fact St. Paul had to face many of the same challenges we do.  In my book, Coached by Paul the Apostle, I try to lay out many of these insights into leadership and in this series of podcasts I try and develop those insights in greater depth starting with this particular session where I develop ...

As we bring this series of letters from St. Francis to a close I thought it fitting to finish with some letters in which the Saint references his own soul.  What were the spiritual lessons that he himself learned on his journey as a Christian engaged in the affairs of the world?  By looking at the themes that he evokes in letters about himself we can find lessons that we can apply to ourselves in our si...

One thing a Christian leader can be sure of is that they will be asked to carry the cross with Jesus.  But carrying a cross isn’t easy for anybody and few of us embrace it as we should.  St. Francis de Sales, and early master of the 1600’s, knew this very well and he wrote to the leaders of this world with encouragement to carry the cross that God gave them with Jesus.  But what does this mean for us to...

The letters written by St. Francis de Sales to persons in the world represent wonderful examples of the application of true spirituality to those living amidst the cares of this world.  All of us who carry the mantle of leadership in our families or in our businesses have to find ways to keep our spirituality alive and at the same time deal with the constant pressing needs around us.  In this third segm...

In his letter to Persons In The World, St. Francis de Sales writes admirable advice for those whose vocation it is to live in the world but not be of it.  For some Christians involving ourselves in the world is a distraction and others disparage the vocation of business as a temptation that could threaten one’s salvation.  But it was not so for St. Francis de Sales.  On the contrary, he encourages those...