Author: wes

Real Time Thoughts on Student Leadership

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Back in January, I blogged about the process I was walking through to create a student leadership team at my church. You can follow the progression by starting here.

As we kick off the new school year, I’ve opened up applications again, and here are a few thoughts that have been bouncing around my head. I hope they provide some thought and motivation for you to take a step in developing student leaders.

  1. Every kid who signed up in January, signed up again. I try not to base my value and worth on things like this because sometimes life or other transitions happen, but I’m excited the kids who started are planning to stick with it.
  2. Instead of going to kids whom I thought would benefit from what we’re doing, I encouraged our “alumni” to invite two people each. From there, we’ve added a couple more applicants, one of whom I’ve been hoping would join us. Side note, I wrestle with this concept. I think about how much an invitation to serve has meant to me over the course of my life, especially from adults who saw something in me. While at the same time, I’ve had kids to whom I’ve extended an invitation who only signed up out of obligation, and it did not end well. This is definitely a delicate balance, one which I haven’t completely figured out to this point.
  3. I went all online for the application this year. With inconsistencies tied to COVID, this was a great move, and something worth doing moving forward.
  4. I had one incoming 7th grader ask about joining us. In a normal year, our incoming 7th graders wouldn’t be promoted when applications are open, but that’s not the end of the world. I’m thrilled he wants to be part, and think he will make some good contributions down the road, but I ultimately decided January will be the on ramp for 7th graders, allowing them time to be part of the ministry. This may be too quick or too slow, but for the time, it’s what I’m sticking with.

What are you doing to develop student leaders?

Do you have a process for students to join in leadership? What does the process look like?

Or maybe you need to start somewhere. Let me challenge you to gather a few students who are interested in making a difference and equipping them to do so!

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Can Dissatisfaction Be a Good Thing?

As we feel ourselves getting comfortable, often dissatisfaction proves to be the nudge we need to get out of a rut.

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I’ve been reading through a John Maxwell’s “5 Levels of Leadership” with a group of friends. In this week’s reading, we came across a line I thought was interesting.

“Dissatisfaction is a good one word definition for motivation.”

John Maxwell, 5 Levels of Leadership

Maxwell’s words resonated with me. I want to always be getting better. Last week I talked about Routines and Ruts. I think dissatisfaction provides the traction to get out of ruts in our lives. As we feel ourselves getting comfortable, often dissatisfaction proves to be the nudge we need to get out of a rut.

But, in our discussion yesterday, a friend asked a great question as a followup: how do you stay healthy in the midst of dissatisfaction? In other words, if we are dissatisfied all the time, don’t we eventually become someone people avoid?

I think, as leaders, we have to celebrate the wins. We have to learn to enjoy the moment. But in balance with a healthy sense of dissatisfaction.

A football team (do you remember football?) plays one game per week. A single win does not make a successful season, but can instead lay the foundation for growth and progress.

In High School, I never once had a coach come in the day after a win and say “good job guys, let’s take the week off after that one.” Instead, we celebrated the win in the moment, but remained focused to progress and grow.

The same is true for us as leaders, especially in ministry. We may remain dissatisfied, but until we learn to celebrate the victories along the way, growth will evade us. If we are always dissatisfied, though, we become jaded and our leadership influence takes a hit.

So where do you land on this spectrum? Is there something you need to celebrate? Is there some dissatisfaction that needs to start brewing? Take a leadership step this week.

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Feeling Stuck? Break Out of Your Ruts

Routines open the doors for growth and progress. Ruts suck the life out of us, keeping us trapped in a predetermined path.

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What’s the difference between a routine and a rut?

Earlier this week, I shared about the rhythm of routines. You can read that post here.

If you’ve been reading 3QL posts for very long, you have probably picked up on a theme that’s running beneath the surface (and sometimes not even beneath). I’ve written previously about Routines vs Ruts, the Redundancy of Leadership, Redundancy (Again), and the Repetition Key, just to name a few.

Great leadership is not making a single decision in a single moment and moving on. Great leadership occurs with repetition over time. Great leaders put in the time to practice and develop and stretch their leadership muscles so those around them can practice and develop and stretch their leadership muscles.

That’s why I’m fascinated by routines. As I establish routines around me, it allows me to grow. But we know this in other parts of our life, right?

Exercise routines help us not lay in bed choosing what workout we are going to do.

Diet routines help us make healthy choices.

Driving routines help us make faster time.

Bed time routines help our children fall asleep faster. Hopefully.

So why not establish a few key leadership routines?

But the danger of a routine is it becomes a rut before we realize it. We lose the excitement. We lose the thrill. We start going through the motions. The routine becomes simply an item on our checklist that doesn’t receive the proper mental energy.

Routines open the doors for growth and progress. Ruts suck the life out of us, keeping us trapped in a predetermined path.

Why do you think people talk about “breaking ruts”, that’s because it takes intentional effort.

That intentional effort begins with naming the rut. Acknowledging it’s there and it’s not helping. Then, change the routine to break out of your rut.

What routines in your life have become ruts? What change do you need to make to break out of those ruts? A new routine? An alteration to the current routine?

Are you willing to make the change? Now go!

Embracing Solid Routines

I have a deep desire to develop leaders. But as I age, I never want to stop growing.

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Do you ever get ideas in your head and they just don’t go away?

I’m in an interesting spot in my life at the moment. I feel like I’m spending more time trying to decide the kind of person I want to be when I grow up. More specifically, I want to be someone who is always learning, always stretching, and always progressing. Not for the sake of knowledge, but for the sake of growth.

I have a deep desire to develop leaders. But as I age, I never want to stop growing. I want leaders around me to be challenged and inspired because of their interactions with me.

So, how do I accomplish that? I don’t have a solid answer, other than knowing I need to build some routines into my life.

For example, at the beginning of 2019 I started something called The Miracle Morning. It has helped me add structure to the beginning of my day, and is possibly one of my favorite parts of my day. It’s become a solid routine.

In 2019, I also set a goal to finish 36 books, with a healthy mix of audio and physical. I was able to accomplish that goal, but I actually never established a routine. To this day (I’m about halfway to my goal this year), reading is still not part of my routine.

But there’s a danger to routine. Routine, when we allow it to be done mindlessly, quickly becomes a rut. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Routines allow us to grow. So, what three routines in your life help you grow? How are you intentionally building those routines to set you up for the future?

If you want a refresher, I actually wrote about Routines vs Ruts two years ago. You can read those posts here, here, and here.

Stick around for Thursday, and I’ll talk some more about the dangers of routines turning into ruts.

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The Conductor

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I’m going to deviate today. Thank you for indulging me.

If you’ve been around here very long you know that I value very highly my farming heritage. I have shared close to 30 lessons from the farm along the way.

The reality is I was fortunate to not only have a father in the ag industry, but a heritage of it. Both sets of grandparents lived (and worked) agricultural lives.

That meant holidays were spent more often than not in the country. Summer trips at my grandparents were a staple of my childhood, and something that now I am incredibly grateful to have experienced.

One of my favorite memories, and one I couldn’t wait to share with my daughters as they grew older, was going to my paternal grandparents. Hot cocoa, grilling over charcoal, German shepherds, Louis L’Amour books, vintage couches, hot tubs, feeding cattle off the tailgates, and unwanted (and unwarranted) naps merely scratch the surface in summarizing my favorite memories at “the ranch”.

Except for the best memory. And that was the trains.

My granddad loved model trains. He loved them so much, in fact, that he had a “layout” that took up a two car garage. (Side note: I don’t know if “layout” is the right word, but it was basically the world created by his trains, complete with buildings, cars, mountains, carnivals, railyards, cattle, trucks, forrests, and rubber roads. This wasn’t a train running a circle around a tree. It was massive.)

And to any young boy growing up, trains are a magical experience. The roar of the engine running until the power stops. The aroma of electricity surging through the miniature machines (Yes, electricity has a smell, and it’s not toast). The sheer imagination of towns coming to life, and the hours on end that could be spent getting lost in a world so different from our own.

And there stood my granddad. The conductor. The orchestrator of it all. It never occurred to me that my granddad loved to play with trains. They were just there. He was the one in charge. But he was the one who loved to share the experience with me. It was a shared experience for us. It was one of the first things I showed my oldest the first time we visited his house. And something my girls still know about him.

The conductor passed away this week. As I sit and reflect on my memories of him, I’m humbled. I’m overcome with emotions. I’m heartbroken. I’m grateful.

He was not a perfect man. No one is. But he was my granddad. And he will be missed.

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