The leadership sin we can't afford to commit.

Meet Denae...

Sharing is fun. But sometimes I forget to do it.

There is a temptation... to sit in a perch on the hunt for success in our perspective ministries (big or small) when we should be on the ground walking with others. Discarding our proverbial leadership guns in exchange for generosity and grace. Those we walk beside participate. Watching, learning, and eventually partnering with us as they take their places in their own parts of the forest.

I have had the blessing to be mentored by a few people who've believed in me and who have helped me spread my wings in the shelter of their friendship and leadership.

Terrell Sanders
Rick Ryding
Mike Yaconelli
Mark Oestreicher
Tic Long
Jay Howver
Dan Haseltine
Bruce Nuffer
Kim Levings
Gary Sivewright
Joe Noonen
Dave Curtiss
Brett Rickey
Dave Ramsey
Kurt Johnston
Gary Hartke
James Diehl
Mary Rearick Paul
Hugo Magallanes
John Luzader
Lanny Donoho
Coy Lindsey

Each of these friends, whether they knew it or not, impacted and continue to impact my life deeply in some form of mentorship. They join dozens of others who have encouraged me with words of truth, healthy and constructive criticism, hugs of love, high fives of affirmation, the medicine of laughter, distraction from discouragement...and the list goes on.

Most of these friends were or are at the top of their organizations, the decision makers, educators, or visionary leaders. All of them sacrificed something to mentor me. Some of them changed the course of my life with one conversation. They may not even realize what they have done to change my course--or clear a path for me. Others have guided me over the years. Some are still to this day very active in mentoring me in positions of leadership--edifying and building me up from a place of powerlessness to a position of identity restoration and liberating freedom in Christ. Some of them will never now how they have helped me.

I always end up on my knees when I think about it. How on earth? Why me? Why can't every girl who steps into ministry be surrounded by such a great advocacy and mentorship?

Sadly, I know the answer.
There aren't enough people doing it.
It's a sin to hoard ministry that was meant to be shared.
Jesus modeled it.
He included men, women, different cultures, different races, different occupations and levels of socio-economic status.
How can we ignore it?

It's far too easy for us to become insular.
Forgive us...

The gift we give when we mentor and share our lives can't be measured.
Being with.
God knew it and called for it.
Immanuel, God with us--for us to embrace and to follow. We can be with others in this way--as we have the Presence of God living with us. We should look different as a result. Be different. Give different.

And grace shows up and takes the traditional and sometimes misinformed leadership super highways and paves onramps for us all, including me. Oftentimes, the conduits of grace are the pavers themselves, the people I mentioned above. I'm sure you have a few in your own life.

There have been many who didn't sit on their hands saying "yeah, that girl has potential" in their minds--leaving it in their inner dialog but never saying with their words or with their actions. There were many who took a chance on me and gave me their time and are still pouring into this life of mine.

I really want to join them. To find those who glisten with a tenacious call on their hearts. Men and women who have the Kingdom potential.

I think the first step is realizing that you have something to give. For a long time I felt like I couldn't mentor someone until I became good enough. What a hard measure to attain! We'll never be good enough. Christ is enough and because enough is enough, we don't need to worry about adding whatever good we can muster up to the equation. We have a rich dad. A God who has made us co-heirs in our adoption. A Creator who satisfies our souls. We have enough. We are enough in Christ.

It's more than an ideal, it's a choice to begin.
Will we wait for the clarion call of our children, who are oppressed and unable to serve or lead because we've hoarded so much that no visible path of succesion or partnership can be forged?

We begin.
We take time.
We enter their world.
We give them access to ours.
We make ourselves available.
We listen.
We offer advice.
We check-in on.
We make suggestions.
We train.
We share our best secrets.
We laugh.
We walk beside.
We become generous.
We sacrifice.
We trust.

We pray for.
We speak positively about.
We speak on behalf of.
We send out.
We let go.


I remember when Denae walked into my office. Small in stature, her bubbly personality made her seem like she was seven feet tall. She was a senior in high school. She had made an appointment to talk to me about what she was feeling.

"I feel like I want to explore youth ministry."

I've heard this before. So I did what any great youth minister would do. I handed her a textbook. It was called "This Way To Youth Ministry".

595 Pages.

"Read this. Then let me know what you're thinking and feeling."

One week later she came back. She had put sticky notes on nearly every page in the book.

Eyes wider than before, face beaming with curiosity, she said "I want more."

And Denae and I started a journey together. Four years of college and now as she is in grad school getting her masters degree. We have walked through education, she has volunteered in my ministry, she's been a leader at Centerfuge for years, we waded through relationship conversations, she's emailed her frustrations sometimes using all caps, we've Skyped, talked on the phone, texted, talked about how she's the only female M. Div student in her school, I remember the day she told me she had a passion for junior high--no one else seemed to want to do it--but it was bringing her to life. She is thriving. When I can't speak at an event, she is one of three people I recommend.

Watching her grow is changing me.
The greatest sin I could have committed would have been ignoring her call and her desire to learn.
All of us have done this at some point.
I realize that can't take every person who comes to us under our wing.
But we can connect every person who wants to learn and serve with someone who can help them.
If we can't mentor--then we must be connectors. 
Shifting priorities could mean multiplying the message of Jesus Christ.

The major lessons we should teach?
Servant leadership.
And how to communicate.
As those we mentor become more able to communicate they become more influential, persuasive, connective, and able to share Christ  and Kingdom purposes in creative and relevant ways. As they learn to serve they too become more selfless, missional, and able to partner with others in symbiotic relationships.

I realize that there are still many challenges that young people (and specifically women) face. There are restrictions of traditional age, culture, and gender roles that still thrive in the church. While, I'm not facing as many restrictions as I have in the past, I still feel the weight of them and want to be a part of changing the tide.

Denae recently spoke and exercised her leadership at a large youth missions event in South Florida.
I couldn't be more excited for her. She has mentored me just as much as I have mentored her.
Being with Denae...setting her free to be sent out into Kingdom possibility, is one of the joys of my life.

May mentoring be one of the joys of your life as you serve God and communicate the love and hope of Jesus to others.

Hello slow. Why we need margin each and every day.

This week has been a bit challenging. It's hard for me to acknowledge this feeling when my "challenging" isn't that challenging in comparison to others who face things far more painful and exhausting than I do. But there is something to identifying how we feel and why we feel that way--and there's nothing wrong with saying how we feel.

It makes space for others when we identify with humanity.
A divine hospitality happens when we open up.
I really believe that.

So it's been a rough week. Coy's younger brother was hit by a truck while riding his bicycle to work.
He could have died. If he had made the choice to skip his helmet that day, he would not have survived.We spent the week praying and wondering if we should rearrange our obligations and get on a plane to Ohio.

Coy stayed close to the phone just in case. Thankfully, he is on the road to recovery. In fact, he is at home with his parents now, healing and resting before he has surgery to fix some of the broken bones.

God is so good to watch over him.

In the meantime, spring is in the air. And that little scratch in my throat is back--just enough to be irritating.

Mya has had potty accidents all week. Weird because the child has not once in her 3.25 years of life has used the bed as her personal loo. I can count the times she "didn't make it" at school on one hand. Not sure what's going on with all of that lately.

Kirra has been a bit emotional and dramatic. She is six, telling everyone that she will be seven soon (even though she doesn't have her birthday until March). She is crazy about her best friend Mia and asks me every day about going to her house to play. She's been doing great in school--it's just the time before and after that gets a little nutso with whining and tiffs with her sister. I admit, there are those days when I'm ready to put them in bed at 6.

Coy had a giant tree (that was hanging over our garage) cut down over the weekend. He is managing three or four house projects while being super dad, campus pastor, sermonator, blog writer, and a myriad of other things. Nothing wrong with any of this--just hoping that our 1959 "jonila joy" of a home will begin to stop breaking so much so my man can get a moment to think straight.

We really have an exceptional life--nothing to complain about--but it's as busy as ever. And I see our selves needing to be even more intentional about Sabbath. Last weekend I had an entire day to catch up. Do laundry. Sit down. Read. Rest. I'm pretty sure side-effects live somewhere next to the fountain of youth.

A good friend messaged me to check-in, she wanted to make sure I was resting. I appreciate that about her. She knows the importance of rest and isn't willing to let a sister run around with her hair on fire for too long. I've actually been doing well, but the reminder was great timing to help me prepare for the summer and for the school year ahead.

I want to keep the main things the main things. In order to do that, we need to make room for that.

I reminded my ministry friends on tour this weekend that margin is the most important thing we can have in our lives next to Jesus.

If we don't have time carved out to withdraw...

• daily
• weekly
• monthly
• yearly

We'll miss the sweet moments of rest, refection, and restoration that we truly need to be shaped by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

I have some work to do.

• Emptying the inboxes.
• Delegating tasks.
• Focusing on relational ministry.
• Neighboring more and programming less.
• Quieting the calendar.
• Saying no or saying not now.
• Developing a vibrant prayer life.
• Begin moving. Run. Walk. Dance. Breathe.
• Sleeping
• Saying yes to bike riding, conversations, and a naps on our old couch.
• Making sure that our family time is set a part at the beginning of the year. Nothing touches it. It's sacred.

But we pitch a fit because "we've worked hard to change the youth pastors are lazy perception...will slowing down mean that we'll be labeled lazy again?"

I think not.

As we recharge, refuel, rest our lives pour out more of what we need most--Christlikeness and the fruits of the Spirit--these two things by themselves have enough power to revitalize and bring revival to any ministry. In fact, we may look much more busy because we'll be in peoples lives more. We won't be drained. We won't shy away from conversations. We won't choose the lazy train because we know that rest is coming!

Our job is to be available. As Christ was and is available to us. But even Jesus needed to withdraw. He retreated, he rested, he prayed.

When was the last time you had a day of rest?

Paper Pile Perspective: A theory on spilt milk and other liquid substances.

I told my friend as we prepared dinner at our house last night...

"I really need to clean up this paper pile".

It's been sitting on our kitchen counter for months.
You probably have a paper pile monster of your own.
Like me, you really want to get rid of it. You may
even trim it down sometimes.

But there are always a few things that just need to stay there
for whatever reason so they keep the pile structure a possibility.

And it grows.

With every sorting and pilfering through, it seems to grow, and become more overwhelming.
And I keep saying... "I've got to get around to sorting it all out."

Last night, just minutes after I told my friend that I needed to get that pile "under control" our daughter ensured that I would indeed get that pile under control.

By spilling a giant glass of thick dark grape juice on the countertop where the pile lived.
We caught it fast but the spill sprinted and spidered out to reach the pile, absorbing into and touching
every paper it could find.

In the quick clean up efforts I said, "It's ok! Mommy needed to do this anyway!"

I sped through the pile, sorting and tossing--but mostly tossing.

There were only a few things worth keeping and I realized something.

Life is much simpler than I make it sometimes.

How on God's green earth did I come to the conclusion that I would be a failure
in life if I didn't read and respond to every piece of mail or every correspondance from our children's schools? What made me think that having a pile meant having control?

It only took one mess to get to the bottom of it.
And I find myself thankful for life's messes because often it's the same messes
that lead us to swift change, a new discovery, or something as simple as a clean countertop.

I wonder how often we do the thing our grandparents cautioned us about? We spend our time cryin' over spilt milk when we could be getting some serious perspective or a nudge in the right direction?

I wonder how often we pity our mess when in fact there is growth in the mess and joy to be experienced.

His power is made perfect in our weakness...yet we cling to our ideas of power and order and wonder why we don't have peace.

So, let's have a party when a drink is spilt.

It'll give us a chance to clean house, to serve each other, to forgive, to be perfected in weakness, and it may teach us a great lesson in life. That we really don't need so much. And when so much piles up, what we really need to do is pour some grape juice on it and see what survives.

An updated model? Teaching young teenagers to articulate their faith stories.

One of our roles as youth leaders is to teach teenagers to abide and and depend on Jesus each day. We want them to move from crisis care (reaching out to God only when they are in crisis) to community with God, having a relationship that deepens over time and stretches through both the ups and downs of their day.

I'm thrilled when I seen teenagers growing in Christ. I see it. I affirm it I encourage it. And our team does the same. They see it. They affirm it. They encourage it.

Sometimes we see, affirm, and encourage in front of other teenagers when we tell their personal stories.

But the most effective way of sharing about their growth in Christ is when they share about their growth in Christ.

Somehow I forget this too quickly and let the gift of "telling" slip through the cracks. When, in fact, it is one of our greatest evangelistic resources.

So, to get back on track, we're going to start having students tell their stories--how God became more than a name to them--in front of their peers each week.

There are three things I was taught to say when preparing a testimony:

• Before I met Christ
• When I met Christ
• My life since I met Christ

I think this is a good working framework but for someone who is 11 years old, it may be a bit more difficult to articulate a "before" Christ life. When I met Christ can also pose problems to the teenager who has believed in Jesus since they were in pre-school. They feel like they don't have a story to tell because there wasn't a crisis moment or event. And life since Christ, for some, isn't always the best. Even though their lives have completely changed from the inside out, their daily life circumstances may not have.

I'm not saying that this format is bad. I'm just saying it presents some problems as I think about young teenagers telling other young teenagers about their own lives with Christ.

In the past, I've done a life-mapping seminar at youth worker conventions teaching youth workers how to deconstruct and understand their own development and how to encourage their students to do the same. A part of this map is a timeline of events from birth to present. And on that timeline, I instruct them to draw a symbol during the time when God became more than a name for them.

I like marking life with Christ like this.
Even if a teenager has been in church and has believed in God and said the prayer of salvation, there is probably a moment in their life when God became more than lessons learned but a person to be experienced and it changed things for them.

I am working on a new set of questions--starting with these:

• When did God become more than a name for you? Describe that moment when you met Jesus.
• How has your life changed or developed since that moment for experience?
• What keeps you growing in God? Name some things that help you grow in your faith.
• Who encourages you as you follow Christ? 
• What is a hope or dream that you have given to God?
• What would you say to your friends about what it's like to know Jesus?

What questions would you add? Developmentally, are there questions that need to be changed to fit? I'd love to hear from the student ministry nation on this.