Tag: routine

Camp Survival Tip #1

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Summer is upon us. As I go through my summer, I thought today I would share a tip from a couple years ago. The tip comes from a very personal place, so before you click over, here’s a glimpse:

I have one simple rule for surviving camp. It’s a personal rule, and not one that I share. It does not affect other people. It does not make me a better leader. Quite the contrary: it’s a survival tip.


So, here’s my survival tip for camp: use the same shower each day and learn which way the knobs turn. Simple enough?


Years ago, early on in my camp ministry, I learned the painful lesson that the hot water doesn’t always turn the same way to shut off. Simply put, I changed showers one day and instead of turning off hot and cold, I turned the cold water off and cranked up the hot, resulting in a scalding.

If you want to see how I was saved from taking cold showers for a week, click here to keep reading!

Learn and Grow

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Short post today, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about mistakes and mishaps. I blog on this regularly, partly because it’s a fear of mine.

I fear mistakes. I fear a mistake means I’m not good enough. I fear a mistake means I’m not valuable.

Ultimately, I don’t fear failure. I fear surrendering to failure. Until I learn to reframe my fear, I will never be able to grow.

Great leaders know failure is part of life. So take that step today. Have that conversation that may not go your way. Learn from it and grow.

Defining Small Town & Leadership

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One of the things that fascinates me is listening to people talk about small towns. In Texas, we have our fair share of small towns. But here’s the tricky thing: not everyone shares the definition of a “small town.”

Don’t believe me, try it. If I were to walk up to people in my current town of 23,000 and ask if they think we are living in a small town, I think many would say yes.

If you ask me, my answer would be different. This is actually the second largest town I’ve ever lived in, and I grew up in a town of 500. And no, that’s not a typo–there are only two zeroes after that five.

So, which is right? Is 500 a small town, or is 23,000 a small town? Can they both be small towns? At 500 are you supposed to change it from town to village? Is 23,000 a small city? Is it a large town?

Here lies one of the biggest struggles I see in leadership time and again – a lack of shared definitions. We get in a room with a group of people and start talking about a subject, presuming agreement on basic terms, and realize (or sometimes don’t) we are talking apples and oranges.

Have you ever asked a group of people what “deep” means? Chances are in a group of five people, you’ll get six different answers (how’s that for deep?).

Or, how about the way you express emotions. I would say I’m more reserved and intense, but to some people that comes across as detached and angry. I have had times where I thought I was having a wonderful discussion with someone only to find out later our relationship was negatively affected because of our lack of shared definitions.

Learning to navigate the tricky waters of varied definitions provides a very difficult challenge for leadership. But until we get people on the same page, you will find very often the battles you face find their roots in this principle.

What struggles or battles are you facing because of a lack of shared definitions? What adjustments can you make to get on the same page moving forward? Are you willing to do it?

The Difficulty of Leadership

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Ministry is difficult. One of the challenging parts of ministry is how to cope with the reality that our spiritual lives and our relationships are often intertwined.

As a minister, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes when someone pushes away from church, I take it personally. I view it as a personal failure. I wonder if there’s a mistake I made in the relationship. Sometimes, I can point to something, sometimes I cannot.

So, how do you cope? How do you make that adjustment so you don’t take things personally? Honestly, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know if I have any answers–I’m still pretty new to this. So I lean on the wisdom of other people.

Yesterday I read a post by Carey Nieuwhof that hit home, and I wanted to share it with you. Carey has a 30+ year history in ministry, is a podcaster, blogger, and pastor. He has an uncanny ability to tackle the tough issues in truthful ways, regularly challenging me.

So, as I read his post yesterday, I couldn’t wait to share it today. Here’s a snippet from his post “7 People You Can’t Afford to Keep in Leadership“:

And as someone (or several people exit), the discussion at the leadership table will end up with someone saying:
Look, we can’t afford to lose people. 
Trust me, there’s always someone at the leadership table who thinks we can’t afford to lose anyone.
That’s simply not true.
There are a few kinds of people you can’t afford to keep.
In fact, sometimes the people you are most afraid of losing are the people you can’t afford to keep.
Here’s the strange paradox of leadership: some of the people you think you can’t afford to lose are the very people you can’t afford to keep.
So how do you know the difference?

I think you’ll be surprised by what follows, so give it a read!

Lessons from the Farm: Dirty Hands

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I have remarkably soft hands. Thankfully, most people don’t point this out on handshakes. But for some reason, I don’t have rough, cracked hands.

Part of that may be when I worked on the farm I preferred to wear gloves when possible. I hate having my hands covered in filth. It’s hard to explain. I wouldn’t say it’s a phobia or that it encroaches into the realm of OCD, but I was diligent in protecting my hands.

Have you ever tried to change the wheel bearing on a farm implement? Have you ever heard the term “grease monkey”? There’s a connection between the two. Changing a wheel bearing means one end result–grease gets everywhere.

One summer, my boss (okay, my dad) was literally out of the country, and we had a wheel bearing that needed to be changed. I knew how to change the bearing, but I hadn’t actually changed one before. So guess what? I got to have a great experience culminating in my being filthy. The thing about wheel grease is that it gets everywhere, and you have to use quite a bit to do the job correctly. 

As uncomfortable as it was to get dirty and filthy that day, the reality was the job needed to get done, and I was the one to do it.

Leadership is the same. There are undoubtedly leadership tasks that strike fear deep inside of you. Maybe you’ve been able to get by all this time without having to face that uncomfortable moment.

I have bad news for you: your day is coming. Before you know it, you are going to have to face that tough situation head on and get your hands filthy.

Your approach, however, determines your outcome. I could have moaned and complained all day about having to change that wheel bearing, but the job went much smoother when I just accepted the job and did it.

Whatever it is that you’re avoiding–a conversation, a situation, a person, a task–you get to choose your approach. Keep avoiding it and fearing it, and the monster grows. Face it head on and you never know what might happen. You may get your hands dirty and be excited about it.

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