Dare Great Things For Christ

For many people, making decisions is one of the hardest things about leadership. And yet it is something that every leader has to do all the time. Loving and serving our God doesn’t take away our responsibility to make good choices and to engage them with all the energy that we have. But if it’s so important then why do we have such a hard time doing it? St. Thomas Aquinas offers keen insight into how decisions are made and how love can turn a decision into a choice.

Amongst the great minds of western civilization, St. Thomas Aquinas holds a very special place. As a Catholic priest he united the depths of our faith with the real practical situations that people face every day. He does this in an amazing way when it comes to making decisions. And for all of us in the working world, we know how important this skill set is. In this first of a series, I try to open the wisdom of St. Thomas Aquinas to help us learn an essential skill for our leadership. How to ask for advice?

We all know that leadership is about vision and passion but sometimes we forget that if no one is following us we’re not leading anyone. In truth the test of a good leader includes their ability to engender their spirit in their followers. And few people were better at this than St. Paul. In many of his writings, especially his letters to Titus and Timothy, we have a valuable lesson of how a Christian passes their inner fire to their followers. A lesson our Christian leaders can use today.

By all accounts St. Paul checks all the boxes when it comes to being an effective leader. But of all of his many wonderful qualities, the strength that dominates his personality without a doubt is his perseverance in the face of adversity. St. Paul is someone who finishes what he starts. But many of us struggle to do the same. Burn out is a real thing and persevering in the face of adversity sometimes just isn’t worth it. What’s the secret to Paul’s outstanding sense of grit and how can we imitate him today?

If anyone were to survey the general American public, two things would stand out. First we would all be convinced that things need to be done, actions need to take place, decisions need to be enacted. And secondly, most of us would agree that it is really hard to do what we know we need to do. Even if we know what needs to be done it can be a very difficult task to start what we know we need to do. It was no different for St. Paul. Yet he gives us the secret of allowing Christ to help us start doing what we know needs to be done.

Sometimes we imagine saints to be people who have life all figured out. They seem to know and execute on God’s plan perfectly and therefore it can be hard for us to try and imitate them. The life of St. Paul, however, shows us something very different. Many times he did not know what to do and yet he still made decisions. How did a saint as great as St. Paul make decisions about God’s will? How did St. Paul know what to do? By looking at the scriptures we can learn value lessons to help us in our leadership as well.

Have you ever felt like you were in a box? Like no matter what you chose in life there were already predetermined outcomes and there’s nothing you could do that could change it? Few things will kill the heart and ability of a leader more quickly than fatalism. An attitude that says it’s not even worth trying because you won’t make any difference. Funny thing is, we’re not the first people to face fatalism. We’re not the first people to face the boxes that life presents to us. True leaders find a way to become creative anyway and Christian leaders become creative with Christ. Let’s look at St. Paul as an example.

Anyone who takes the time to study the life of St. Paul can’t help but admire than man’s endurance, energy, and determination in the service of Jesus Christ. Indeed his life seems so spectacular and his exploits so amazing that many people feel they can never imitate him. But a closer reading of his writings reveals his secret: God’s strength was revealed in his weakness. How did St. Paul leverage his weakness to allow Christ to reveal His strength and what does that mean for us as we try to follow Christ as leaders today.

Many Christians today feel intimidated. The culture around us is shifting and ideas and notions foreign to the Bible are gaining a cultural foothold. Many today feel a sense of loss or hopelessness in front of the situations. But is today’s situation for a Christian that much different than the one that was confronted by the Apostles? Was the world of St. Paul that much different from today’s world? Where did St. Paul gain his strength? What allowed him to lead? In this new series we explore his soul and the source of his leadership in Christ.

Most people today have an appreciation for leadership, but many people still have the question as to what the difference is between a wordly leader and a Christian leader. Of course there is no better place to find an answer to this question than by asking Jesus Himself. In his parables Jesus reveals many keen insights into how He view leadership. In this third of our three part series we’ll finish our exploration of the parables and the insights they give as to what is a genuinely spiritual leadership.

The life of Christians is governed by the truth contained in scripture. And this is especially true for leadership which is why it is so important for us to study the parables of Jesus. In the parables we hear that leadership comes from God and also receive valuable lessons about what to avoid in order to not allow our leadership to become too worldly and what to do in order to make our leadership as spiritual as possible. The parables of Jesus are as timely today as they were when he first spoke them.

The Gospel gives us many ways that Jesus addresses his Word to the people. Amongst the most popular are parables. These little stories or comparisons help us to understand the deeper messages Jesus is trying to convey. But do they have anything to say to us who are trying to lead? In this first of a three part series, we begin to unpack some of Jesus’ parables to find the specific message they have for us. And we begin by understanding that God is calling us to lead.

What difference is there between a Christian leader and a non-Christian leader? Does being a Christian impact leadership? Understanding the ways that it does is vital for us who are called by Christ to lead in our world today. One place we can look to see what it means to lead as a Christian is the life of the Virgin Mary. In this final segment of our thirteen part course on Mary’s leadership, we take a deeper look at what it means for her to rule as Queen of Heaven and Earth.

All of us need models for leadership. Amongst the many candidates the Virgin Mary certainly merits our special attention. Even though she held no office, did not run a company, and did not have a rank in the military, the mother of Jesus is believed by Christians to be the Queen of Heaven and Earth. But what makes her leadership so special? In this twelfth of a thirteen part series on the Virgin Mary, I look at her Assumption body and soul into heaven as an indicator as to what is greatest in her leadership: the fact that it was totally focused on love.

Our culture today is at a turning point in many ways. In general, we are deciding whether or not to allow our Christian faith to continue to inform and direct our cultural decisions. It seems very tempting to go the route of secularism. A neutrality with respect to faith, at least in public, in order to let religion be a purely private affair. But is this the way for Christian leaders? What value does our faith have in the public sphere? Surprisingly, the life of the Virgin Mary can help us find the way.

Let’s face it, leading other people is never an easy proposition. There are some really dark moments. If we are honest with ourselves there are times when we would rather quit – stop leading, stop trying to influence others. Bad things can happen in our lives and moments when it makes us think if it is really worth it. This is where our Christian faith can be of especial value to us. Our Lord led us through the cross. And He has graced His cross to be the power and the strength of those who lead in His name. The Virgin Mary shows us this in her own life.

Christian leaders follow Christ – even though it seems contradictory to say leaders follow – this is what makes our leadership special. It’s not about us. It’s about Him and the influence He gives to the world through us. The Virgin Mary demonstrates this admirable in her own life. She is Christ’s perfect servant by doing everything that she can to make Him known and loved. We can see this throughout his apostolic life but especially at two key moments.

Sometimes even the best leaders can forget that in the end leadership isn’t about them. If we are leading our people, it’s to lead them to something bigger than ourselves and sometimes we have to die to ourselves in order to bring people to something that will really be good for them. At Cana in Galilee the Virgin Mary triggers a series of events that will lead to our Lord’s crucifixion and death. She hastens the hour of its coming even though that means that she will have to say goodbye sooner. She teaches us how to lead even when that means saying goodbye.

Leading others is not easy. Sometimes our road is marked by sorrow and hardship. The same was true in the life of the Virgin Mary. Her role as mother of the Son of God was marked with sorrow. In particular when she was forced to flee into Egypt, taking her son with her Mary had to carry the sorrow of the persecution and death of the Holy Innocents, the children in Bethlehem who were killed by the king. Mary had to play her role as mother with a broken heart but she led all the same.

Anyone moved by the love of God wants to Dare Great Things For Christ! But ironically most of our time is spent by doing little things. When we look at the life of the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, we see that much of her life was spent doing little things. Does this mean she wasn’t a leader? Or in fact is leadership not best expressed by the way that we do the small things? The life of Jesus and Mary in Nazareth before the beginning of his missionary life is an example of leadership in the little things.

One of the reasons many Christians don’t feel comfortable assuming the role of leadership is that we think it makes us egotistical. Following, obeying, complying, and supporting seem much more consonant with Christianity. But why do so many of us equate those terms with a lack of leadership? By looking at the Virgin Mary as a model for leadership, we can see that a big part of being a leader is following God. Mary gave the very best of herself to Jesus and so she becomes the leadership model for all the followers of Christ.

Many gifted people struggle with the temptation to draw all the attention to themselves. The allure of leadership is that it puts us in positions of power and therefore esteem in the eyes of others. A leader who is Christian needs to resist this of course and dedicate themselves to really enhancing the lives of others around them as a servant. In this fourth of our thirteen part series on Mary, we look at how she lived as a servant leader as she visited her cousin, Elizabeth, in the hill country of Judea.

Something special about every act of leadership is that it makes us alone. The famous phrase, “it is lonely at the top” applies well to leader in every state. But is this just an accident? Or is it in fact a blessing? When Mary was chosen by God to be the Mother of God, she had to fill the task no one else could fill. But she embraced it as being chosen by God and therefore holding His hand into the great unknown that he would lead her. And so she becomes an example for Christian leaders in every age.

If we look to sacred scripture for examples of great leadership many names come to mind: St. Paul, St. Timothy, St. John, but what about the Virgin Mary? Doesn’t her life have anything to teach us about leadership? Independently of the various faith traditions out there what can we learn about leadership by looking at the life the bible presents us? I think we can learn a lot. In this second of a thirteen part series I want to peer into the leadership lessons of Mary’s early life and the solitude that made her strong.

Applying our Catholic faith to the demands of leadership today is a demanding and sometimes harrowing experience. We look around to see if someone has done it before - where our models could be found - and when we look for models we need look no further than the Virgin Mary to find the very best of them all. This could be surprising. What does Mary have to do with our modern situation? Our new twelve-part series will try to answer that very question. And so we begin by looking at the Virgin Mary as the inspiring figure that she is.

How did Jesus Christ form his apostles to be bold proclaimers of His word? One way was by sending them where they thought they could never go – into the darkness and into fearful places armed with nothing more than his word and the powers of His priesthood. And yet they were not alone. In fact he promised that he would be with them always. Doesn’t he do the same with us today? In this final segment of our ten part series we look at the way he formed his apostles to understand how he trains us for leadership today.

There’s a lot written about leadership today and one of the most popular themes is the question of how to motivate people to follow. It seems like pretty much everyone agrees that people like to follow winners. That doesn’t surprise me considering the fact that our Lord himself gave that lesson to his apostles. He is the ultimate victor and he sends his apostles forth to proclaim His victory. What does that mean for us practically today in our businesses and in our families? How can we make Christ’s victory present for the people we lead?

Being afraid is a normal response in front of things that are threatening to us. The problem is not that we have fear – the question is whether or not we’ll allow that fear to become a catalyst for something greater, for courage, or whether we will allow fear to paralyze us. When Christ formed his apostles he taught them to stare down there fears and he did this by facing everything before them. Christ led his leaders through the valleys that they would have to face themselves and he does so for us today as well.

It's lonely at the top. How many times have we made that statement about our own situation as a leader or had other people remind us about that truth? It almost makes us ask the question about whether Jesus ever felt lonely and it begs the question as to how he prepared his apostles for the solitude that would be a part of their life as a leader of the church. When we look back at hos Christ prepared the apostles, he showed them what to do with loneliness. He taught them to transform it into the seabed of communion.

There are many philosophies about leadership out there and some of them hold that failure is not an option. Many leaders in fact are afraid of making mistakes. However, when Jesus Christ formed his disciples to be apostles to the nations, to be bold proclaimers of his word, he welcomed their mistakes. The gospels famously recount many of the mistakes the apostles made while they were with Christ. What lesson does this teach us for our own lives? What is God trying to teach us by our mistakes? This is part six of our ten part series on how Christ made his leaders bold.

Anyone who has achieved any level of success in their life knows that much of their success is a result of hard work. And yet at the same time hard work is hard to do. Many people don’t see the importance of hard work in forming the character of a leader and yet when Christ formed his twelve apostles he shared the labors of evangelization with them. And he invited his apostles to embrace labor as a part of their life. How did this help form his apostles to be the bold leaders they would need to be and what role does hard work play in our life as leaders today.

It goes without saying that our culture today is facing a crisis of truth. Ideas and customs we once held dear are being questioned and our young people seem to be bereft of sure guides for what life is all about. But was it that much different at the time of Christ? And how did Jesus respond to the difficulty of the people of his day to embrace truth? When Jesus formed his twelve apostles he formed them as apostles of truth and sent them to teach the nations in his name. What impact does that have for us as leaders today?

Following the way of the Lord obviously is the right thing to do. It’s a good thing and should make us happy. Why then is it so often marked by difficulty? Why wouldn’t God make our path an easy one? If we go to the New Testament we see that actually it never was easy and when our Lord was forming his disciples to be bold proclaimers of his Word he formed them through challenge and difficulty. Learning how he did it with them then can make us better leaders now.

When it comes to making leaders nobody does it better than God himself. Studying what scripture tells us about how Jesus himself trained leaders is the ultimate pattern for how we can advance in leadership today. In this ten part series I want to study the elements that are essential to this leadership formation. Prominent amongst those many features is the fact that Jesus formed his apostles to live in a community. A veritable band of brothers. This was no accident but has great fruits for them and for us today.

When it comes to learning how to lead no one can teach us better than Christ. And for Christians who are trying to lead their world Christ is the ultimate and best reference point. So how did he do it? When he had his disciples to form in order to make them the leaders that he wanted them to be – how did he approach it? In this first of a ten part series we try to answer those questions. And let Jesus speak and form us as leaders today. Christian leadership is the way of every disciple – then and now.

A leader could have the best strategy in the world but if he’s unable to make a choice on how to implement it his strategy will be meaningless. And yet is precisely here that many of us struggle. Making a choice seems irrevocable and sometimes choosing one way in preference to another seems like closing the door on perfectly good opportunities. But then again not choosing is also a choice and it’s a choice that won’t bring us to where we need to go. How does our faith in God help us with this dilemma? How does it help us to be leaders who decide?

In the Gospel our Lord tells us to be as cunning as serpents and as simple as doves. What does it mean to be cunning as a serpent and how could our Lord possibly want us to be cunning? Anyone involved in leadership knows that leaders need to be strategic. They need to think ahead of the curve and find a plan for achieving the great things that they set out to do. Could this be what Christ meant? How do Christians live and thinks strategically at the service of their love?

The ability to cast an effective vision is much more than coming up with great ideas. Ideas require planning in order to be effective and planning requires choice and focus. But as we all know our choice and focus can sometimes be wrong. That’s because strategy itself depends upon our awareness. Being alert, being aware, and being attentive is the secret for making great plans. Let’s take a look at how this dovetails with our faith to help us lead everywhere in our lives.

One of the most important aspects to any leadership is your ability to have ideas. Casting a vision and showing where we want to go is essential to have anyone follow us. But what is the difference between having ideas and having good ideas? What makes a potential idea or a future vision something that is captivating and true? Our Christian faith helps us here – God will help us to be temperate, to not be afraid to prioritize, and to be open to the great things he wants to do through us.

The easiest way to get lost in doing anything is to not know what you are trying to do to begin with. Anytime we’re called to lead a project of any kind, our leadership begins with vision. But what if we can’t find a vision? Is there something deeper at the root of being able to cast a vision going forward? There is – we call it the power to dream. Dream is the power within a leader to reach forward to something which you do not yet possess and its roots lay in healing our ability to desire things.

All great leaders dare to dream but what do you do when the dreams have gone dry? Where does our power to come up with great ideas or great initiatives come from? In the Christian view of leadership, it comes from deep within our hearts made in the image and likeness of God. Which is why the redeeming power of Christ to heal us and our sense of ourselves is the key to unlocking our desire to dare great things for Christ. Journey with us as we explore self-acceptance and its power to change our lives.

There are a plethora of books and articles written about leadership today. But most of them focus on leadership as if it were an individual enterprise – almost like something the leader does in a vacuum. In fact, however, leadership requires leading others which means our relationship with others and ability to get them to join our cause is at the heart of what we’re doing. Does our faith in Christ give us an advantage here? How does a Christian leader form a team and motivate them to give the very best of themselves.

The key that determines the success of every great endeavor is whether or not we actually do it. Planning, scheming, dreaming, all of these things are fine but in the final analysis only doing a deed will get the deed done. But getting things done is hard. Things can arise that we did not plan energy can wane situations can change. It’s a good thing that God is on our side and leading out of a place of faith helps you to bend and not break.

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The same could be said about the road to failure. The difference between success and failure is often the ability to try. But this is exactly what is difficult for many of us. We can have the greatest intentions and the most noble aspirations but passing into action seems to be on of the hardest things to do. Does faith offer us any remedy? Does grace give us any advantage in taking the plunge of leadership?

All of us want to be influential in our lives. We want to be successful parents, great business leaders, powerful leaders in our community and we know that all of our influence flows from our actions and all of our actions flow from our intentions and desires. But intentions are not good enough. Great leaders know how to build on good intentions and make effective plans to really hit the mark. Our Catholic faith shows us this in many ways and our faith can provide a priceless tool as we fight for vision.

It seems self evident to say that all leadership begins with vision but that begs the question, “where does vision begin?” For many people finding a vision is a very difficult thing to do. In the face of so many problems and challenges how can we come up with good solutions. The truth be told God has a lot to do with healing our ability to dream. His grace in us repairs the fundamental structure of leadership by allowing us to recapture our ability to cast a vision.

Leadership has many definitions but all of them have one thing in common: people have to follow. Regardless of how good your idea is or how passionate you are about it, if you can’t bring other people along with you, you will not be able to lead successfully. But effectively sharing your vision and your passion is more than just a natural talent. It’s a skill that can be studied and harnessed. And what is more, it is an especial gift that Christ gives to the world through his Christian leaders.

Everybody who is successful knows that great ideas are only the beginning. You need a strategic plan, you need helpers along the journey, and you need the staying power of pure determination. Does our faith have anything to do with this? Does being a Christian give an advantage to leaders? Or is there any overlap between the faith and the demands of our practical life? We believe that there is and one of the best places to see it is in the beauty of grit.

Getting things done. How do I pass from ability to action? I may know what is right, I may know what I need to do, but actually doing it is a whole other thing. What’s more, sometimes the risks involved of actually doing something and putting my name to paper are quite daunting. What if I’m wrong? Can I afford to pay the consequences for my choices? Many people prefer to simply hide. How can my faith in God help me to pass from potential into action and make the difference I really want to make?

One of the hardest parts about leading is making choices. It seems that if you choose one thing, you can’t have another. And the perspective of missing out on something can make us afraid. How can we be sure that what we chose is really the best way? Would life be easier if we didn’t have to make those decisions at all? I find it fascinating that God forces us to make decisions. It’s almost like God isn’t afraid of making us choose. How can we as leaders make the best decisions? What’s the secret to choosing well?