Leading With Your Life

February 2011 – Ten men. Two hours. Twice a month.

I have the opportunity, make that the privilege, to meet regularly with a handful of men who are lights-out serious about following Christ.

Each of these men, leaders in their own right and circles of influence, have chiseled out a chunk of time in their very full lives for the expressed purpose of deepening their capacity and commitment to leading with their LIVES. Though our everyday lives look different, we share a common passion: to be rock-solid on the inside and dangerous for the Kingdom on the outside.

We study the Scriptures together. Share our journeys. Pray. Confess. Discuss. Probe.

Ponder. Reflect. Question. Dig. Celebrate progress.  Own failure.

And in the middle of all of this, we labor to figure out, in tangible terms, what it means to lead with our lives–our most important asset. We are all about the classroom AND the playing field.

One way that we do this is by creating what we call “single sentence statements”. These statements have become our shared lexicon of what it means to lead with our lives, not in theory, but in the everyday realities of life and leadership.

These statements have become a source of encouragement and inspiration to us. I relay them along with the hope they will be the same to you.

• I lead with my life when I allow God to move me from my agenda to His.
• I lead with my life when my intake is greater than my outpour.
• I lead with my life when my leadership flows from sabbath and solitude.
• I lead with my life when I set aside my preferences in order to meet the needs of another.
• I lead with my life when my service for God is not based on the applause of men.
• I lead with my life when I recognize that the power of Christ works best in my weakness.
• I lead with my life when I first sit in God’s presence before I act on His behalf.
• I lead with my life when I care more about my character than my credentials.
• I lead with my life when I embrace my leadership role as a stewardship not as an entitlement.
• I lead with my life when l care less and less about authority, and more and more about influence.
• I lead with my life when I refuse to let my work for Christ replace my communion with Christ.
• l lead with my life when I deal honestly with my past (its pain and its baggage) so that I might more fully give myself to the future.
• I lead with my life when God’s presence is the distinguishing mark of my leadership.

Lord, continue to shape my heart to be more like Yours, so that in every situation my leadership flows from a place of deep communion with You.