Joe McKeever: On Leadership

Deacons: Protecting the Pastor's Blind Side

Sandra Bullock's new movie, "The Blind Side," has been the sleeper of the year. Word of mouth has kept movie-goers filling the theaters, earning a huge box-office for this story about a homeless kid taken in by a Christian family and who went on to become a football star.

The fascinating story carries a terrific message for life in a hundred ways. And for deacons in one specific way.

The movie opens with a slow motion depiction of a play that occurred perhaps twenty years ago in a game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants. Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann was hit from his left--the blind side for this right-hand-throwing QB--by Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Theismann never played football again.

According to people in the know, that devastating play changed the way football is played. Thereafter, as soon as the ball is snapped to the QB, the left tackle moves back to protect him on his blind side. If he is a lefty, it's the right tackle who protects him.

Sheltering and guarding the leader at his point of greatest vulnerability.

That is one of the chief roles of a deacon in today's church.

What I'd Like to Tell Your Church Leaders

We're supposing here.

Suppose your church assembled a group composed of the following people: the pastor and staff, the office staff, the deacons, Sunday School teachers, committee members, and program leaders. And suppose I have 30 minutes to say anything on my heart. We meet in a room ideal for that size a group with no electronic devices or amplifications. I set up my easel in front and begin.

Now, supposing I had the undivided attention of the group, I would begin by telling this from Scripture.

A few weeks before Moses retired from the scene and Joshua took over, not long before Joshua would lead God's people out of the wilderness into the Promised Land of Canaan, Moses had final words of preparation for them. The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy is the essence of what he shared, a recap of where they had been and what had happened in their recent past.

One thing in particular Moses felt he needed to impress on God's people as they were about to possess an incredible territory described as "a land of milk and honey." You and I would call this a warning, in fact.

"You are about to come into a land filled with everything you've ever wanted. You'll move into houses you did not build.
You'll harvest crops you didn't plant or cultivate.
You'll drink from wells you did not dig.
You'll gather grapes from vineyards and olives from groves you did not plant."

"You will eat and be satisfied for the first time in your memory. And when that happens...

Beware lest you forget the Lord."

Prosperity has a way of fogging up the spiritualities. Deadening the spirit. Dulling the memories. Derailing the well-intentioned.

Do not forget God. (Deuteronomy 6:12)

Do not desert God. (Deut. 6:14)

Do not test God. (Deut. 6:16)

Rather, be careful to obey Him. Do what is right in His sight.

And just in case anyone did not get that the first time, Moses repeated these words in Deuteronomy 8:12-14.

Leaders, your church is prosperous in a hundred ways. Your community is thriving. Personally, you are living at a higher standard than your grandparents ever dreamed of attaining. Furthermore, you do it with hardly a thought, as though this were the norm and anyone could do it if they worked as hard as you do.

You and I have forgotten how blessed we are.

Leaders, it's time once again for you to:

--renew your thankfulness to God for His abundant blessings upon you, your church, your community, and this nation.

--recommit yourself to be faithful with what He has given you.

--restructure your lives to practice the faith you say you believe. The old structures (like some ancient bridges in this country!) do not hold up forever, but must be constantly inspected and often replaced.

Now, let me admit to you my minor disappointment with what Moses said.

God's Leadership Development Plan 2

There must be as many ways to develop leadership abilities in others as there are stars in the sky, but most programs will come down to a few basics.

One of the most important and absolutely crucial elements in nurturing young leaders is exposure.

Expose the individual to the various tasks and jobs and careers open to him/her. Let the person try them on, work alongside a master craftsman for a few days, see how it feels.

Not everyone is called to every kind of work. Not everyone is called to be a leader of people, for that matter. But all in the Kingdom of God are called to work in the Lord's vineyard and are gifted by the Holy Spirit with a talent/ability/enablement for that kind of work. (See I Corinthians 12, especially verse 7.)

Finding it is the fun part. Matching the person up with the right assignment is one of the pleasurable aspects of leadership.

Exposure: show them what they could be doing.

God's Leadership Development Plan I

Who wants to be the leader?

Ask that in any classroom on the planet and two-thirds of the hands will go up. Every child in the class wants to be the leader.

The leader determines the direction. The leader walks out front. The leader becomes the role model for everyone else. The leader issues orders to the rest of the troops. The leader is well-known and highly visible. The leader gets interviewed by the media, shown on television and quoted by the paper. The leader receives the accolades when it's all over. The leader takes home the choice rewards.

It's fun being the leader.

Because he's the most visible, the leader also gets shot at first and most often. The leader gets criticized by outsiders and insiders alike. The leader is the first to be arrested and executed if the movement fails. The leader bears the blame. The leader was at fault. The leader has to keep up appearances even when he is hopelessly discouraged or lost at sea. It all falls on the shoulders of the leader.

You sure you want to be the leader?

At this very moment, a future president of the United States of America is in high school. He/she may know very well that this is their destiny or, more likely, not have a clue. Some future president is a toddler in diapers.

It's possible and even likely that the pastor-after-next who will be coming to lead your church is in middle school right now, without the slightest idea what lies ahead.

You hope someone is training these young people well. You hope they don't have things too easy, that they learn the lessons only hard work can teach. You want them to know the positive values of struggle, of overcoming obstacles, of reaching deep down inside and summoning inner strength.

You want them smart and strong and solid.

The question is: where do we get such leaders? And how do they get that way?

Here's how God did it.

Leadership Verities

Vision doesn't last and must constantly be renewed....

Over three centuries ago, a ship filled with travelers landed on the Northeast coast of America. In their first year, they established a town site. The second year, they elected a government. In the third year, the town government announced plans to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year, the citizens tried to impeach their elected leaders because building a road into the wilderness was a waste of public funds. Who needed to go there anyway?

Here we have people with the vision to see 3,000 miles across an ocean and overcome great obstacles, but within a short time, they could not see five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering spirit.

Leadership is all about vision and the ability to convey it to others....

John Sculley was running Pepsi when Apple Computer's Steve Jobs invited him to move to California in order to manage his struggling company. Sculley was faced with a real dilemma. Then Steve Jobs said, "John, do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want to change the world?" Sculley says, "That knocked the wind out of me."

Vision has a way of doing that.

Leadership knows the inspirational value of a great story....

The Burden of Leadership

An interviewer asked the celebrated Western author Louis L'Amour about discrepancies in some of his novels. "In one place, you'll have six bad guys getting killed, and later in the book, one of them is alive and shooting." L'Amour, who prided himself on accuracy of place ("if I say there is a rock in the road there, you can find a rock in that road") and led readers to believe his stories were authentic and true-to-life, answered, "The people who read my books don't care about that sort of thing."

In an old western movie I remember, the good guy is chasing the bad guys or vice versa. As they gallop across the plain, viewers can see the shadow of the film truck and the cameramen standing in back flash across the ground. In a more recent movie, Kirk Douglas runs up and hops on his horse and rides away. Just to the bottom right of the screen, though, we saw that he actually had jumped on something -- a step or stool or something -- and vaulted himself into the saddle.

Sloppy film-making and sloppy book-writing are ever with us, but I expect Mr. L'Amour is correct: few people care. We were not reading his books or watching those movies for educational purposes.

Some things don't matter.

It's a wise leader who knows what matters -- what is crucial and essential -- and what doesn't -- the things that are for cosmetic purposes or simply add-ons or for amusement.

Finding Leadership for the Small Church

I recognize that "small" is relative. In Texas, land of vast distances and megachurches, a congregation of 200 souls may rank as tiny indeed. In Nevada and Montana, a church of that number would be seen as one of the larger congregations.

One thing we know, small congregations fight a never-ending battle for money to pay the pastor a living wage, money to cover the regular bills plus invest in missions, and money to maintain a decent program. Leaders of small churches are forever looking for ways to be more effective with limited resources.

Decision-makers of such congregations might want to take a lesson from the owner of a major league baseball team situated in one of the smaller markets in this country.

Stu Sternberg is principal owner of the Tampa Bay Rays, Florida's American League baseball team. In the June 30, 2008, issue of "ESPN Magazine," Sternberg shares "8 things you should know about running a small-market baseball team."

In his article, we can find clues and insights here for a business or church being dwarfed by the big guys and having to get creative to stay competitive or effective.

1) Timing is everything.

Sternberg says there is no point in his team paying big bucks for a player he cannot afford to keep. So, what he does is watch for windows of opportunity, a moment when a quality player might be available for fewer dollars due to circumstances.

A small church may scrounge enough money to fund an ambitious program one time, but then what will it do? Better to prayerfully find the kinds of ministry suitable to their church, their mission field, their resources. Nothing is more important than seeking in prayer the will of the One who is the Sole Owner of your church.

2) Follow those Marlins.

Sizing Up Leaders

George Will says Barack Obama reminds him of Fred Astaire in that he's the coolest guy in the room and all eyes turn in his direction when he enters. But would you turn over your nuclear arsenal to Fred Astaire without knowing more about the character of the man? Nor with Obama.

My wife and I disagree about John Edwards.

When the news broke Friday about his affair with a woman who worked on his campaign and the baby who may or may not be his, Margaret commented that "all men are naturally that way." My first impulse was to utter, "Thanks a lot," but what I said was, "Edwards is beautiful to look at, fabulously wealthy, and was potentially the president of the United States. Don't you know a lot of women threw themselves at him."

If a certain percentage of women come on to pastors--and, as my seminary prof Dr. James Taylor warned in the mid-1960s, "It will happen to every one of you in this room," and he added, "Even you, McKeever," to laughter from the rest of the class--then you know that a guy like John Edwards has been in the crosshairs of many a woman.

That is not to make a judgement on the woman in the news said to be his paramour.

I found it overwhelmingly sad that every television news show felt an obligation to devote hours to a) a report on Edwards' affair, b) details on what had occurred, and c) speculation about how Elizabeth Edwards took the news and what this means for their family.

Welcome to the "National-Enquirer-ization" of our culture. Nothing is off limits; we no longer know any shame.

Oh, John Edwards is ashamed. But it's the media's constant hammering on what he did that strikes me as shameful. To my knowledge, at no time had he presented himself as beyond sin or without fault. We knew the man was fallible and capable of such sin, because--agreeing with my wife now--we're all that way, capable of the worst moral failures.

Evidently, some time recently, the Times-Picayune ran an editorial cartoon from Walt Handelsman, former cartoonist for the T-P and ever since with Newsday out of Long Island, in which he caricatured John McCain's twisted smile in some way. In going through all the newspapers I missed for nearly two weeks of vacation travel, I came across this letter to the editor from Tuesday, July 29.

"Walt Handelsman's caricature of a 'scowling' Sen. John McCain was a real thigh-slapper."

Leadership Lesson No. 57--"Leadership Has Secrets?"

The cover of TIME for July 21, 2008, pictures Nelson Mandela at age 90 beaming that sweet smile out to the world. The accompanying article is titled "The Secrets of Leadership: Eight lessons from one of history's icons."

"Secrets?" I thought. "Leadership has secrets? Hasn't John Maxwell unearthed them all and written a book on each?"

Inside, I turned to the cover article, eager to learn what secrets Mr. Mandela had discovered. It was a good interview, the writer made some excellent points, so much so that we want to repeat his eight principles here with an occasional comment or two of our own. While no deep-dark secrets were embedded in the article, readers will find Mandela's insights helpful.

You know who Nelson Mandela is, I'm confident. A political activist against South Africa's apartheid in the days when to speak out was to land in prison, Mandela was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. In 1990, the President of South Africa F. W. de Klerk released him, three years later the two men received the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1994, Mandela was elected president of the country. His autobiography is "Long Walk to Freedom." (Definition: 'apartheid' was extreme racial segregation based on white superiority.)

Over the decades, Mandela became a mature voice for reconciliation, reason, and unity. Today, he is a symbol of so much for everyone on the planet, but particularly for Africans no matter where in the world they or their descendants live.

1) Courage is not the absence of fear--it's inspiring others to move beyond it.

Leadership Lesson No. 56--"Moral Courage, True Leadership"

In his book on the Korean War, General Matthew Ridgway paid tribute to perhaps the 20th Century's pre-eminent American military leader, General George C. Marshall. He called him the greatest our country had seen since Washington. He quotes Marshall as calling for "moral courage," illustrated as "that time when an officer lays his commission on the line."

Peggy Noonan, in her biography "Ronald Reagan," wrote: "In a president, character is everything. A president doesn't have to be brilliant; Harry Truman wasn't brilliant, and he helped save Western Europe from Stalin. He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever... But you can't buy courage and decency; you can't rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring these things with him... A vision is worth little if a president doesn't have the character--the courage and heart--to see it through."

Everyone knows what courage is--when a person risks his life or safety in some noble cause. John Wayne said, "Courage is being scared to death--and saddling up anyway."

But what is moral courage?

My working definition is: "A firm spirit that does the right thing at great risk." In this case, you risk not bodily harm or your life but perhaps your reputation, success in your chosen field, or the support of friends and family.

My friend Bob was teaching in a Christian college, mind you, when he was informed by the dean and then the president that he should not be giving his Christian testimony to his students. Someone of another faith might be offended or feel discriminated against. Bob responded that he felt it was important for students to know who their professor is and to learn his world-view if they are to make sense of his teaching. Besides, he insisted, I thought we were a Christian school. They made sure Bob did not get tenure and eventually, God led him on to another institution.

Moral courage is standing up for the hard right against the easy wrong. Moral courage means refusing to stand idly by while others engage in wrong or hurtful acts.

Moral courage speaks truth to power.

Its opposite is cowardice in the name of getting along, silence in the face of cruelty and persecution, acquiescence in the cause of unity or personal advancement.

Leadership Lesson No.55--"Vision: Don't Leave Home Without It"

If you plan to lead, it might be a good idea to know where you're going. The folks coming along behind you would like to know where you plan to take them. That concept, that goal, that's your vision. Your vision is the answer to the question: when you get where you are going, what will it look like?

"Some men see things as they are and ask why; I see things that never were and ask why not."

That memorable line, often attributed to Robert F. Kennedy, actually belongs to the playwright, George Bernard Shaw from his "Back to Methuselah." The mixup resulted from Senator Ted Kennedy's quoting it about Robert at his funeral in 1968.

It's a great line. It's reminiscent of something from the famous 11th chapter of Hebrews. "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible." (11:3)

There is among us a breed of humanity who see things no one else sees, who hear music unheard by the human ear, who know things not revealed in the physical world. These are people of a faith-vision.

The writer of Hebrews gives numerous instances of people with faith-vision which enabled them to see what God wanted them to do, where He wanted them to go, how He wished them to live. By faith, Abraham went out "not knowing where he was going." (11:8) "By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land...for he was looking for a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God." (11:9-10)

"All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance...." (11:13)

"By faith (Moses) left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen." (11:27)

People of faith see things otherwise unseen. Faith vision.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 54--"Avoid the Disconnect Trap"

If you are foolish--and you do not want to be--you will see your spiritual leadership as one thing and the way you live your life in private as something entirely unrelated. In doing so, you will make a grievous mistake.

In his book, "See You at the Finish Line," Don Wilton, now pastor of Spartanburg's First Baptist Church, tells of an incident when he was a professor of preaching at our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The class was Preaching 101. Don would lecture about preaching, assign books to read and sermons to write, and at some point in the semester, the students each brought a short sermon to the class. Professor Don sat on the back row, listening to each one, making notes, trying to think of ways to correct, stimulate, and motivate these young prophets without overwhelming or devastating them. Not any easy task.

When Henry stood to preach to the class that day, no one had reason to expect they were going to hear anything other than the usual nervous stutterings of a 22-year-old trying to get his ministerial bearings. To the surprise of the class, Henry was eloquent. Don Wilton calls him "probably the most gifted young preacher I had ever heard." Soon the class was caught up in his message and was responding enthusiastically. When Henry sat down, his classmates erupted in verbal approval and encouragement.

Two days later, Henry came by the professor's office. He was concerned about the grade Don had awarded him for that sermon. "I got the impression in the class you thought I did a good job on the sermon," he said. "That's right. I did," said Don. "Well," Henry said, "I'm not asking for a high grade, but an F? And you gave me an F on the entire course. I don't understand that. I thought I might have made an A even."

Don said, "That's right. You have flunked this course and will have to take it over. You might not even graduate this May."

"But why?" the student insisted.

Don said, "Because you failed the most important part of the course. To explain, I'll need to tell you a story."

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 53--"Someone Has to Ride Drag"

I had started out the door of the church office headed for the parking lot. This was my day for making the rounds of hospitals in New Orleans, calling on church members who were patients. The kindergartners were just coming back from the playground and all fifteen stretched out along the sidewalk to the classroom door which their teacher was holding open. I recognized the very last child in line and spoke to her.

"Hi, Lauren." The five-year-old looked up at me in all seriousness and said, "I'm the leader."

I laughed. "But you're at the end of the line."

She said, "But I'm still the leader."

The teacher who was overhearing this called out, "We put a leader at each end."

I said, "Yeah, I've pastored churches like that. I'm trying to lead one way and someone at the rear is pulling them another way."

Driving toward the hospital, I re-thought that little conversation and realized the Lord had just sent me an important lesson about leadership: We need someone at the rear to help us lead from the front.

In cowboy lingo, someone has to ride drag. When the ranch hands were moving a herd to the railhead--I'm very current on all my old western movies--someone was designated to bring up the rear and make sure the herd moved along and that no stragglers were lost. It was a hot, dusty job, one no one wanted, and thus it usually went to the newest hand or the youngest.

A television program on the Grand Canyon spoke of the tours provided for visitors to this scenic wonder. The tourists ride mules down the trail, trusting their welfare into the hands of two guides. Ahead of them, one guide leads the way, while another brings up the rear. The job of the "rear guide" is to make sure no one is in trouble and that no one is left behind.

Watch the elongated, double-jointed fire truck make its way through the city on an emergency call. A driver in front steers the engine around corners and down streets. Because the truck is so long, with its ladder and equipment, the rear section of the vehicle also has a driver to maneuver around those same corners and through traffic.

In the church, no group fulfills this function better than the deacons. The pastor leads from the front, while the church's helpers, the diakonoi, lead from the rear.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 52--"Never Hesitate to Challenge People to Greatness."

Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, said recently, "If we were to get up a trip to Paris and really push it, we might get a half dozen students to go with us. However, if we announced a mission trip to Afghanistan and told the students they had to buy their own flak jackets, we'd have to turn some away. Today's students respond to a great challenge."

Abraham Lincoln attended church with a friend in Springfield. Afterwards, the friend asked the future president what he thought of the message. "It was all right," he said, "but it was not a great sermon." Asked what made him say that, Lincoln said, "The pastor said many fine things, but he did not ask us to do a great thing."

Joe Brown, long-time pastor of Charlotte's Hickory Grove Baptist Church, returned from a mission trip to a difficult area of the world and shared this experience with his congregation.

"At 'The Edge' they have an underground church.... They meet on different nights, and when they reach the number of 10 or 12, they split the church because it causes too much attention."

"They have a man.... He's not the pastor. He's not a teacher. He's an usher. He volunteers to go down into the center of the city, and he stands there. The members of his church will ride down there and he'll tell them where they're meeting and when they're meeting, because the telephone lines are monitored.... There was such a man in this city, and the government found out about him. They arrested him. He lost his job. When he lost his job, he lost his housing. He lost his medical benefits. He lost everything he had. He was beaten and put into prison."

"Another man stepped forward and took the job. And he was turned in, and he was beaten and put into prison and lost everything he had."

"Someone traveling with us looked at the house-church pastor and said, 'I suppose you have great difficulty in filling that job.'"

"He said, 'Oh no, we don't have difficulty in filling that job. We have a waiting list.'"

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 51--"Deal With Rebellion Quickly."

(I promised to end at 50 lessons, but these ideas just keep insisting on horning their way onto the list.)

One of the worst policies ever to afflict our judicial system is the one that grants leniency to first-offenders. This was his first time to beat his wife, so he gets sent home with only a warning. Pity the poor wife! The kid who broke into the candy store gets assigned to his parents' care and threatened with jail in the future because, after all, he's never been in trouble before. He congratulates himself on a successful prank.

What are we doing! We might as well hand out "get out of jail free" cards. Everyone gets one free pass, no matter what we do (almost), because, "This is his first time in trouble."

I want to scream when I read that line buried in the newspaper account of some law-breaker, "Hey! Now is the time to get across to him the enormity of what he has done."

No wonder we have such a problem with crime in America today. We're practically encouraging young law-breakers.

If we hope to teach them the error of their ways, it's far better to deal swiftly and strongly with first-offenders.

Now, take that same principle and apply it at work, whether "work" for you means the church or a business office or a crew at the plant. If you are the person in charge and a member of your team breaks a "law"--he or she goes against an accepted practice put there for the welfare of the group--if you intend to maintain your leadership role, you must deal with it quickly.

First, get the facts.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 50--"Don't Think of Yourself as a Leader; Think 'People-Helper.'"

1. Say 'we' a lot, not I, me, and mine.
2. Look for ways to help your team members do better and feel good about what they're doing.
3. Watch for anyone working in the wrong slot and try to find the right place for them.
4. Ask, 'How's it going?' a lot. Listen to the answers.
5. Give lots of little gifts to your team members. Thoughtful things that show how you value them.
6. Pray for them by name. Learn their family members' names and lift them up, too.
7. Ask 'If you had my job, what would you do?'
8. Find out who the workaholics are and see that they get proper rest and don't burn themselves out.
9. When you give public recognition, think the matter through in advance and make sure you leave out no one who should be mentioned.
10. Try to anticipate problems.
11. Walk the line between 'never let them see you sweat' and being transparent.
12. Pray with your people, even at odd times--at the end of break times, after a fun conference in the hallway, anytime. But not always. Don't be predictable, but do be spontaneous.
13. When you're talking with someone who has a problem, give them your undivided attention and do not let on that you have other places you need to be. Give them eye contact, listen closely, and be totally there for them.
14. Remember the five elements of good pastoral counseling: active listening, silent praying, gentle prodding, timely teaching, and Christlike acceptance. Let nothing shock you.
15. Be careful about too much hugging. Some would say that any is too much. (It was for good reason that the practice of 'holy kissing' died out in the early church.)

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 49--"Say 'No' a Lot."

This lesson is a companion to a previous on on keeping your focus. To keep your focus, you dedicate yourself to the task at hand and keep renewing that commitment.

The other aspect of staying true to the vision God has given you is to say 'no' a lot. You should plan on turning down requests that either conflict with that vision or detract from it. If it saps your energies from doing your primary work, say no to it.

Say 'no' to certain people.

"This will just take a few moments of your time." "You're the only one who can do this." "The Lord led me to ask you."

If you are strong and wise, you know how to look the speaker in the eye and say, "Thank you, but no. I won't be able to do that. I appreciate your asking."

If you are weak, even though you have neither the time nor the inclination, you will let the other person set your agenda for the next few days, and find yourself doing a job you have no business taking. You'll reproach yourself a hundred times. "Why did I say yes?" The answer is: you were too weak to say no.

However, if like most of us, you are somewhere between weak and strong, you're going to be needing a plan. My recommendation is that you learn to say, "Let me pray and about it and I'll call you back." You're stalling for time, yes, but you are planning to do precisely what you said: pray. And the Lord who values your time and sets your agenda will give you the strength to say no. If He doesn't, your wife will. Mine always does.

Warning: sometimes, the rejected person is going to be unhappy, but that's not your problem.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 48--"Your Attitude is Contagious; Keep it Positive."

When the second incident from a championship football game appeared on my consciousness, I knew it had to make this lineup.

In last Sunday night's Super Bowl game, the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots, who were being touted as perhaps the greatest team ever to play this game and were undefeated all year, a phenomenal feat. With less than 3 minutes left to play, the Patriots had scored and pulled ahead, 14-10. Now, the Giants would get the ball back. But with the clock winding down, would there be time enough?

On the sidelines, Michael Strahan, leader of the Giants' defensive squad that had harassed Patriots QB Tom Brady all evening long, kept spouting two numbers: "Seventeen" and "fourteen." That would be the final score, he was telling his teammates. He was confident his team's offense could score a touchdown and was doing everything he knew how to convince them of that, too.

When the game ended with the Giants on top by that very score, some who had heard Strahan pumping up his team credited him with a great deal of credit for the victory.

Faith is contagious. Unfortunately, so is doubt.

On Monday, January 7, of this year, the Ohio State Buckeyes played the LSU Tigers in our Superdome for the National Championship of college football. The next evening, after having read all our local sportswriters' raves about the great victory LSU pulled out, I went on the internet to the Columbus Dispatch, the newspaper for the Buckeyes city. I read a few sports columns and then a host of comments from disgruntled fans. That's where I learned something that stunned me, and to my mind at least, contributed to the Buckeyes' loss.

One year earlier, the Buckeyes had played Florida for the BCS championship and lost. Afterwards, sportswriters and columnists jumped on the Ohio State team for being outclassed in every way. "They had no business even going to that game," some said. Okay. Now, here's what happened.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 47--"Restrain Your Ego or You're in Trouble."

Jerry Clower, the country comedian from Mississippi who kept us in laughter for a generation as no one else could, was once accused of having a big ego. "Sure I have an ego," he would say. "Everyone needs an ego. If you don't have one, go out and get you one! You're going to be needing it!"

He was right, of course, so long as we bear in mind that by "ego" he meant a healthy self-respect. I spent a good deal of time with him and never saw any of the kind of ego we usually associate with "stars."

David N. Meyer wrote the 2007 biography of country musician Gram Parsons he called "Twenty Thousand Roads." It's a sad tale of a lot of talent combined with too much privilege and money topped off by endless drugs and booze. I read it only because I had remembered Emmylou Harris remarking how much she personally owed to Parsons for his contributions to her art.

Toward the end of the book, Meyer is commenting on the difficulty of researching such a story. There's no point in questioning the stars about what conversations and events. "For stars, nothing ever happened if it didn't happen to them. If you want the details of the valence of a recording studio, don't ask the guitar hero, ask the guitar tech."

If you are the pastor of a church or in the ministry in any way, you may not need this reminder. In a perfect world, all ministers would have sweet spirits and servant attitudes and would be generous, faithful, and honest. Alas, it's not a perfect world. Not even close.

When a pastor I know fell into sin--it was revealed that he had been a serial adulterer--and the public disgrace that accompanied that revelation, a former staff-member had an interesting insight into his character. "He let everyone put him on a pedestal. And man, he did love his pedestal."

It's not a good thing to say about our segment of the Christian church, but let a man pastor a great church (translation: congregations of thousands, budgets of millions, with public acclaim) and he will be idolized as more than he is by large numbers of people. If his ego is fragile and requires adulation, he will soon believe he is the greatest thing on the planet.

Some friends of mine moved across the street from Adrian and Joyce Rogers in Memphis. Dr. Adrian Rogers, now in Heaven, served the great Bellevue Baptist Church there for over 30 years and built an incredible record. He was on world-wide television and his books sold in huge numbers. One day, my friend Bob called to his wife, "Wanda, come quick! Dr. Rogers is taking his garbage cans out to the street!"

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 46--"Keep Your Focus On the Main Thing."

The news this weekend concerned Starbucks, America's favorite coffee shop over the last decade, the darling of investors, the standard of every startup business. They're closing a hundred shops across the country due to declining sales.

An industry expert analyzed the problem as Starbucks' forgetting their main line of business. He said, "You enter the store for a cup of coffee and you have to walk through the display of music CDs and then negotiate the displays of food. Eventually you get to the counter." Meanwhile, he pointed out, the coffee shop down the street run by some locals does nothing but what Starbucks started out doing and which made them successful. Their following the model which Starbucks established is making the competition successful.

Year ago, I read where someone saw this sign in a store window in Dothan, Alabama: "Going out of business because we forgot what we were in business for."

It's a common problem of churches too.

Even though Paul used the expression as his goal for himself, your church cannot be "all things to all people," no matter how hard it tries. And as its leader, neither can you.

You and your church would do well to analyze the community where the Father has assigned you, along with the special gifts and calling of yourself and your leaders, and out of that come up with the special focus of your ministry and your church.

I sat across the table from a group of senior adults at a local church which was declining in numbers, causing them a great deal of concern. My opinion is that the causes for this were many and their downturn was decades in the making. They wanted my advice and I gave it to them.

I don't think they cared for it.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 45--"Make Full Use of Your Greatest Resources"

You're not smart enough, strong enough, or godly enough to handle everything life is going to hurl at you. Part of growing up and growing deeper involves learning that lesson. Fortunately for us, however, our Lord knew it from the start and made provisions for our weaknesses.

What He did was to give us our two best friends for the living of these days: the Holy Spirit as our Guide and the Holy Bible as our Light.

Whether you pastor a church, run an office, or till a farm, you will frequently find yourself in situations beyond you, times when you need a wisdom more than yours, direction about choices facing you, and guidance for the labyrinth we call modern living.

The Holy Spirit. The Holy Bible. The Person of the Lord indwelling you and the Word of the Lord instructing you. It's an unbeatable combination.

In his biography of Thomas Wolfe, Andrew Turnbull tells how the famous writer's parents made the decision to marry. During only their second conversation, W. O. Wolfe proposed to Julia Westall. Protesting that she hardly knew the man, Julia suggested that they should open at random the book she was holding in her lap. They would let the book fall open, she said, then choose the middle paragraph on the right page, and let it speak to their situation.

Fortuitously or disastrously, depending on one's viewpoint, the book opened to a wedding ceremony which contained the words, "till death do us part." Three months later they were married.

We've all heard stories of people seeking God's wisdom who tried that approach with the Bible. "I just opened the Bible at random," they exclaim, "and my finger fell on that verse." Almost always the verse has a completely different meaning than the one in which the speaker used it, but, they were convinced God had sent divine guidance for their situation.

There's good news and bad news about such a methodology for finding God's direction. The good news is that a Sovereign God may decide to use it. Throughout Scripture, we find God dispensing His wisdom by a fleece on the ground, the shadow of an apostle, and the casting of lots. My personal objection to this was forever quietened when I found Psalm 115:3. "Our God is in the Heavens; He does whatever He pleases."

If He chooses to use a roll of the dice, whom am I to object?

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 44--"Train Your People to Be Faithful Followers"

This principle is a twin to the previous one on training your people to become leaders. The fact is that no one is a leader all the time in every situation. When the biggest corporate head in America goes to church, the pastor is the leader and he is a member of the flock. When he attends his club, someone else is the executive and he is a dues-paying member.

Sometimes we lead; sometimes we follow.

In their book, "Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?" Gareth Jones and Rob Goffee wondered what goes into making a good follower.

One aspect of that issue was to find out what leaders expect from members of their teams. They came up with four answers.

1) "I expect my people to speak up and tell me what they really think."

We get the impression from the inside tales of companies that failed scandalously such as Enron and WorldCom that this quality was missing in the executive offices. No one was telling Kenneth Lay or Bernie Evers that the company was in trouble, that his decisions were faulty, and that disaster was looming. They told the boss what he wanted to hear, and everyone paid dearly for this failure.

It takes courage. I've been there. The others in the room are either agreeing with the boss or keeping their mouths shut. And yet, you know that they all know the boss' plans are wrong. They're just not willing to lay their jobs on the line. Better to be quiet and still have a paycheck coming in. Enron's and WorldCom's executives kept their mouths shut and everyone lost their paychecks.

Bible students will recall that in Genesis 35, God changes Jacob's name to Israel. Not a lot is made of that at the time, but anyone knowing the origins of those names sees a powerful point. The name "Jacob"--which comes out to something like Ya-a-cov in Hebrew--literally means "a heel-holder," one who takes advantage of others, who gets a ride at their expense. "Israel," something like Yitz-rael in Hebrew, means "one who wrestles with God."

God was saying, "I would rather have you wrestling with me than taking advantage of your brother." And don't we appreciate that about our wonderful Lord!

It's a trait of a good leader that he welcomes dissent. Not dissension, but dissent. If you think I'm about to make a mistake, tell me. If I hear you and then overrule you, you've done your part. If I am wise, I will value you highly for what you did---unless you are the dissenter on everything I suggest. In that case, I might suggest you find another place to work.

2) "I expect you to do your job well."

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 43--"Train Your People to Become Leaders"

I once asked Pastor Mark Corts about his family. "I've never known such a group of overachievers. Your brother Tom is the president of Samford University; Paul is president of Wingate University. John Corts is the executive who runs the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. And you pastor one of the greatest Southern Baptist Churches in the country." (That would be Calvary Baptist in Winston-Salem. If you know these institutions, you will recognize that this conversation happened a few years back. Mark is in Heaven now, and his brothers have retired.)

Mark said, "And our sister is a missionary; don't leave her out."

I said, "You had to have incredible parents. Tell me about them. What did they do to bring this about?"

As I recall, Mark Corts said, "They were simple, salt-of-the-earth people. They gave us responsibilities and expected us to meet them. In our teens, we all held part-time jobs. They simply expected us to do well."

That probably was not the dramatic answer I was expecting. Surely, I had thought, the parents had a plan for raising bright high-achieving children. I could just see a sermon series or at least some great illustrations resulting from the insights from this son of such illustrious parents. But that's all I got.

Reflecting on that conversation, I realize now that Mr. and Mrs. Corts were doing something that was indeed every bit as dramatic as I had hoped: they were bringing up their children to be effective leaders. They did that by assigning them responsibilities that increased in size and scope as they grew, and by holding them accountable.

"Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?" is the title of a book by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones. They wanted to know why leaders were in such short supply, particularly since every strata of this society claims to place a high premium on leadership.

The writers came up with two answers. First, organizations say they want leaders but structure themselves so as to destroy budding leadership and to discourage initiative. They reward blind obedience and promote those who know how to play the corporate game.

The second reason there are so few leaders is that we simply do not know much about leadership and how to produce it.

We will grant the second point, but I'd like to comment on the first, that organizations and businesses often stifle leadership.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 42--"Take Your Lumps."

No one wants to hear you gripe about how unfairly the church members are treating you. You're the pastor, the leader, the one out front. Take the heat. Be a man.

The morning paper tells how the basketball coach at our largest state university is receiving jeers from the fans. His team has just lost its seventh consecutive game in the young season and they've been blown out in contests against weak opponents. The fact that he has taken his teams to the NCAA Final Four in previous years looks good in the history books, but does nothing--nil, nada--to placate the fans. They want a winner now.

That's how fans are. Ask any coach on the planet.

Is it unfair? Sure. Are they being unreasonable? Absolutely. Does that protect the coach's job? Not in the least.

The coach knew it would be like this when he signed on. When his teams were doing well, he was a hero and could do no wrong. Fans held up signs suggesting he run for governor. The trustees voted him a contract extension with a sizeable raise. Season-ticket holders called in to talk shows praising his decisions.

These days, that coach is experiencing the dark side of his profession: the fans can turn on you in a heartbeat.

At a community prayer breakfast, I spotted the head coach (at the time) of the New Orleans Saints, Jim Mora. I hastily sketched out a cartoon for him, I forget what it was, and presented it to him. While he was chuckling at it, I said, "Pastors understand what coaches go through. You give your all on Sunday and some people pick it apart during the week."

Mora said, "Yeah, but do they call in to the radio shows and criticize your sermons in the newspaper?" I had to admit they didn't.

Later I thought of an answer: "This is why they pay you the big bucks, coach."

Lately, I've been reading through Exodus and seeing again the trials of Moses as he tried to lead a vast multitude of impatient, unspiritual people from Egypt's slavery into Canaan's glories. Like the chorus of a bad tune, we keep finding this refrain: "And the congregation of Israel murmured against Moses in the wilderness."

Now, the first time that happened--that would be Exodus 14:10-12--Moses responded well. "Don't be afraid. Stand here and you will see the salvation of the Lord."

A few days later, the murmurs rose from the crowd again. "Oh, what's going to happen to us? It would have been better to have died in Egypt where at least we had food to eat! You've brought us out here to perish of starvation!" (Exodus 16:3)

They needed food; was that so hard for Moses to understand? The babies were crying, everyone was growing weak, people were falling out. And--as every leader learns sooner or later and usually the hard way--if you do not give them a legitimate means of registering their complaints, the people will meet in clusters and feed off one another's misery.

By this time, a tired Moses was losing his patience. "Who are we that you murmur against us? Your griping is not against us, but against the Lord!" Then he said, "Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your murmurings." That was the day God gave them the manna from Heaven.

Who are you, Moses, that they complain against you? You are the leader, sir. It's true you were drafted for this position and did not volunteer for it, but every leader of God's people since has been able to say the same thing. God calls His leaders; we don't run for the office. And having become the leader, we share in the glories and successes but we also bear the pain of the failures and needs.

It's the price of leadership.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 41--"Slough Off the Petty Stuff"

I would have said "Don't sweat the small stuff," but someone has already said it--and made a truckload of money from a best-selling book by that title. But, the point is the same.

Someone offended you. I'm not talking about an attack on your person on the one hand or an imaginary slight on the other, but a real one nevertheless. They overstepped their bounds and shot down a project you had been working on. When they did, it not only frustrated your efforts but saddled you with the work of cleaning up everything you had done.

Sound familiar?

I took a phone call from the assistant to a distinguished church leader, asking if I could set up a breakfast meeting the following Monday. This would be his first visit to our city and an opportunity for our pastors and other key leaders to meet him. I made some phone calls and e-mails, asked my helpers to assist in getting certain ones to the meeting, and worked with the marketing manager of a local hotel to set up the breakfast. She and I swapped e-mails, sending credit card information and contracts back and forth. Finally, everything was set.

Late the night before the event, a phone call informed me that the event had been moved to another location across town. One of my colleagues had inquired at the hotel about the breakfast with a desk clerk who had no information about it, but who told him there must have been a mistake, that they did not do such things. My friend panicked, lined up another site for the breakfast, and informed our distinguished guest and his party about the new location.

Apparently, it never occurred to him to check with anyone.

After recovering from this late-night phone call, I had some work to do. Since my files were at the office across town, I made a list from memory of everyone who had been invited to the breakfast. Early the next morning, I began calling each one to inform them of the change in plans. Then, I drove to the hotel just in case I had missed anyone. There in the lobby sat one of our pastors, waiting for the others. I sent him on his way, then stayed longer to make sure no one else came.

Since I had to be at a church across the river in mid-morning, I missed the breakfast and meeting the out-of-town guest.

Later, I learned heard that we had a good turnout, the breakfast was excellent, the meeting went well, and the guest made a positive impression.

The only one who was inconvenienced was me.

At this point, I had a choice to make. I could sulk and stroke my wounded pride, or get on with the day since nothing was lost. Everyone had had a great meeting, the guest had accomplished his purpose, and all was well.

I sloughed it off. No harm, no foul. No offense.

An hour later, I was teaching Paul's "Epistle to the Romans" at Oak Park Baptist Church and thoroughly enjoying myself.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 40 -- "Pray, pray, pray. I apologize for making it number 40."

I stood in the Christian bookstore thumbing through a volume on a subject I'd been researching. This looked like exactly what I wanted. "How to Help Your Child to Faith" contained 35 chapters, each directed toward parents on counseling and preparing their child for understanding the Christian faith and making his own commitment. What got me, however, was chapter 35.

The topic for that chapter was "Finally, all you can do is pray." I laid the book down in disgust and walked away.

"Finally" implies that prayer is the last thing to do. "All you can do is pray" clearly says that prayer is the least thing you can do. The last, the least. What's wrong with this picture?

What kind of philosophy of prayer is that? Think of it! As though to call on the Lord of Heaven and Earth to become involved in a situation involving a child you love dearly is some small thing to be lightly regarded.

If you need evidence of the fallen nature and sinful heart of man--even the best among us--consider the low regard we hold for prayer.

Confession time. I consider myself a person of prayer. Prayer is never far from my mind throughout the day, and after reading several chapters in the Bible each morning, I try to spend a good deal of time in prayer. And yet, I did the same thing I was criticizing that book's author for doing.

I forgot to emphasize the pre-eminence of prayer. Over the past six months, as I have added the occasional "leadership lesson" to this collection, only this week did it occur to me that prayer should have been featured more prominently and much sooner.

I deeply apologize. Since my son has taught me how to edit these blogs, I know how to go into the website and insert this article earlier, giving it a much higher number. The problem is that no one would see it way down there, since those were written and dispatched into cyberspace months ago. So, number 40 it will have to remain, at least for the time being.

A leader is a decision-maker and a people-influencer. A leader sets the direction, then stands out front and blazes the trail. His mantra is "follow me."

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 39--"Keep Good Records, a Journal Even."

"Pastor," the caller said, "I have a question, and I'm embarrassed to ask it."

Thinking I was about to do some telephone counseling, I donned my best pastoral manner and said, "Don't be. Tell me about it."

She said, "Well...sir...could you tell me when I got married?"

It turned out that I had performed the wedding for this woman and her estranged husband several years earlier and she was now needing to benefit from his insurance with the Veterans Administration.

And if that wasn't enough, she said, "It was either June 1, 1969, or July 8, 1970."

I said, "You don't even know the date?"

She had an excuse which I have long since forgotten.

After digging through the calendars of my pastoral ministry for previous years, I called her back. "You and Sam McFranklin were married on March 3, 1971." She thanked me and hung up.

I hope everything worked out for her, but have my doubts. Anyone who doesn't even remember her wedding date probably has a lot of other loose strings dangling in her life.

Let's hear it for keeping good records.

I sat in a meeting in which the pastoral team was divided, one man saying one thing, another contradicting him. As a result of the divided leadership, the entire church was split down the middle and serious consequences were looming.

On the surface it seemed to be a "one said/the other said" controversy with no obvious clear-cut resolution. Then one of the men volunteered something that settled the issue.

"Here are the minutes of the meetings," he said, as he opened a file and produced a stack of papers. "Furthermore," he said to the man across the table, "your wife is the clerk and took these minutes."

According to the minutes of the church business meetings, the first man was correct in his position and the man whose wife had taken the minutes was clearly mistaken. The matter was settled, or would have been if the plaintiff had been interested in the truth. Unfortunately, his primary interest involved getting his way, which moved the controversy to another plane altogether.

I was not then and am not now a judge, but had I been, the notes of the church business meetings would have been the smoking gun and would have ended the "trial."

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 38--"Recognition is Good; Just Don't Need It."

Let me tell you about a local fellow.

Drew Brees is the quarterback of the New Orleans Saints football team. After a great season last year, the team got off to an 0-4 start in 2007, but since have come back to even their record at 7-7. If they win the next two games, they'll end up at 9-7, only one game off last year's record with a slim possibility they will make the playoffs.

Even so, Drew Brees is having the best year of his career. Football fans will appreciate these numbers. Brees has not thrown an interception in the last 121 passes. He is on a pace to break the NFL record for the most completions in a season (he has 378 passes and needs 41 in the next two games to pass Oakland's Rich Gannon who had 418 completions in 2002). Brees has 25 touchdowns this year which means he will probably hold the Saints record in that department after this year.

But wait, it gets better. In the past 10 games--after the disastrous first 4 games--Brees has completed 71 percent of his passes. Last Sunday, against the Arizona Cardinals, certainly no pushover, he completed 26 of 30 passes, including the last 12 in a row. That is almost unheard of, and figures out to a completion rate of over 86 percent. Ask any football fan how impressive that is.

And yet, Brees was not selected for the Pro Bowl, professional football's all-star exhibition. It's the recognition from fans, coaches, and fellow players that you are at the top of your game. In fact, no one on the Saints received that honor this year. Dallas, meanwhile, is sending 11 players to the Pro Bowl.

If Brees is disappointed, you'd never know it. This man is the most even-tempered, the most mature, of any player we've ever had in these parts. His foundation helps underprivileged children in the New Orleans area and he can frequently be seen interacting with children and parents as he uses his fame, his influence, and his resources to make a lasting difference. If our works indicate our faith, as James says in the epistle that bears his name, Drew Brees is our brother in the Lord.

Recognition is good in almost all cases. Most people seem to like it, particularly when it comes from their peers. In the annual awards show of the motion picture industry--the Oscars--time and again, we hear movie stars who receive the golden statuette speak of how special it is to have been chosen for this honor "by my peers."

The only thing I recall from Psych 201, a course required of sophomores at my college a long time ago, is this incident. In a factory where hundreds of people were slaving away at menial jobs, someone walked back and replaced the light bulb above the head of one particular worker. There was nothing wrong with the old bulb; he just put in a new one. Immediately, the productivity of that worker went up. Evidently, someone knew he was back there and felt he was important. It's a great lesson.

The trick is to appreciate the appreciation without requiring it in order to do your best work. And to extend it to others without needing it yourself.

In the last "leadership lesson," the one dealing with humility, we encouraged readers to take down from the wall all those plaques of appreciation, recognition and achievement that seem to accumulate over the years. And yet, maybe not. There is something to be said for leaving them up. At least, leaving them where you alone can see them and be motivated by them.

After posting that essay on humility, as I was walking from my study, I noticed a plaque given by my seminary some 9 months after Katrina. The text says something about "distinguished service." Now, it was not hanging on the wall and never has been. It sits on a lower shelf of a bookcase in front of some reference books. So, why is it there? Why did I not relegate it to the drawer--or worse, to the dumpster--as I've been counseling readers to do?

The answer is that I'm of two minds on this subject.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 37--"Get Humble and Stay That Way."

Humility is not putting yourself down. It's seeing yourself as you really are. It's not thinking, "How small I am." It's not thinking of yourself at all.

What appears to some as humility may be inferiority. Think of the wallflower at the dance who pulls into her shell, makes eye contact with no one, and sits there moping, "No one likes me. No one wants to dance with me." The truth is, she's the most egotistical person in the hall. The belle of the ball, the young lady who is charming everyone by her dazzling smile and sunny personality, is the very opposite: she's not preoccupied with herself at all. She's thinking of others, and they are responding to her attention.

For some reason the ministry seems to attract more than its share of not-very-humble persons. I suppose it has to do with the fact that they are "performing." People are sitting in pews and looking up to them, and it goes to their heads. Poor things. If they only knew.

I've been in pastors offices where the walls were literally covered with plaques and framed certificates. The office was a shrine to the minister. I've seen ministers receive doctorates, then change every sign in the building to reflect their new status, and make sure the secretary never misses an opportunity to add his new title to his name.

Read a pastor's resume when you get a chance. Or an evangelist--they tend to be even worse. Notice the ones that are quick to cover themselves in the glory of large pastorates or successful revivals or books published or other awards. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

These are our spiritual leaders, the ones sent to teach character and integrity to the rest of us.

There are so many reasons to be humble and so many temptations not to.

Judging from his epistles, the Apostle Paul had to deal with the problem of arrogance and pride in the various churches where he served. In his letter to the church at Corinth, he took on those who were "arrogant in behalf of one against the other." Think of the way high school or colleges promote their football teams and put down their opponents; that's what was happening in Corinth.

Paul asks these boastful believers three questions:

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 36--"Speak Well But Don't Overtalk"

The number one tool in the leadership kit is words.

Opening our mouth, we utter sounds which others recognize as meaningful words and which we hope to have arranged in such a way as to inspire, instruct, and encourage, and once in a while rebuke. That's a pretty hefty order for something as simple as words, but we've all seen people do it. We remember Churchill's words in 1940 and Martin Luther King's words in 1963 and we thrill at the power of speech well-chosen and powerfully delivered.

I'd like to do that, we all think to ourselves. We imagine the effect of speaking just the right words and watching lives change before our eyes.

If the number one tool in the leader's kit is words, I daresay the number one failing of leaders, and especially the preacher-kind-of-leaders, is overtalking. It's not that we did not use some great words in our talks, our sermons or our prayers; it's that we surrounded those wonderful words with so many other words that we ended up devaluing their worth and weakening their impact.

Ask one of us preachers a question and 15 minutes later, we pause for breath and ask, "What was the question again?"

Shame on us.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 35--"Humor is Good; Don't Overdo It."

I was 27 years old with a new seminary degree and ready to take on the world. We had driven up from the bayou country of Louisiana to Greenville, Mississippi, to visit Emmanuel Baptist Church for a trial weekend. If we liked them and they liked us and if we all agreed God was "in this," then I would become their new pastor.

I had pastored two small churches before, but this was my first "trial weekend." Those are well named, incidentally, for they are trials for everyone concerned. That's why I did what I did that Sunday morning.

I told three jokes at the sermon time.

During the worship service, someone introduced Margaret and our small boys and presented me. I walked to the pulpit, smiled at the expectant congregation, and opened my mouth to speak. Up until then, I had done fine.

First. "This is my first time to preach in Mississippi. I'm delighted to be here, and particularly glad to see you're all wearing shoes."

Okay, not a joke, but I meant it as one. They actually laughed, which was all I wanted. They knew I was teasing them about the reputation for backwardness Mississippi has.

Second. "Preaching here today--and you and I looking each other over--reminds me of the country preacher who was in the same situation I'm in today. He looked out at the congregation and said, 'There is a powerful lot of wonderin' goin' on here today. You are wonderin' if I can preach, and I am wonderin' if you know good preachin' when you hear it!'"

Again, it got some laughter. It's not a knee-slapper, but a pleasant bit of humor. Up until now, I was okay. This was the time to move into the sermon. But I didn't. I had another joke, the best one yet.

Third. "Flip Wilson (African-American comedian everyone was familiar with in 1967) was portraying a Black preacher in this same situation on his television program. You know how the congregation answers the preacher in their churches. He looked out at the people and said, 'If I's called to be pastor of this church, this church is going to WALK!' The people called back, 'Let 'er walk, boy, let 'er walk!'"

"The preacher said, 'If I's called to be pastor of this church, this church is going to RUN!' They said, 'Let 'er run, boy, let 'er run!'"

"The preacher said, 'If I's called to be pastor of this church, this church is going to FLY!' They said, 'Let 'er fly, boy, let 'er fly.'"

"The preacher said, 'If this church is going to fly, it's going to take money!' They said, 'Let 'er walk, boy, let 'er walk.'"

(Hope I don't offend anyone by printing the joke in dialect, but that's how he said it and it's the only way to tell it. The teller has to raise his voice in the appropriate places to make it work, too.)

It is a funny story. They laughed, and finally I went into my sermon. Oddly, I have long ago forgotten what the sermon was about, but will never forget those three little jokes. The reason I remember is what happened afterward.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 34--"Be Careful About Preaching Your Convictions."

As a young minister, I would preach the value of people having the courage of their convictions. Nothing was more important, I would proclaim, than standing by the values you hold dear. I said that and believed it.

In time I met some church members with convictions that needed to be abandoned. Out of their steadfastness--some would say stubbornness--to their convictions, they were running their church into the ground and destroying its witness to the community.

That was the day I quit preaching about convictions as a positive trait.

Joanie's husband suggested I call her at home. She was upset about some fundraising thing the young people were doing for their summer mission trip. She felt it was out of place in the church.

Over the phone, I explained to Joanie my deep sensitivity to this very issue, and how the youth minister and I had gone over every aspect of their fundraiser to make sure it was done right. But nothing satisfied Joanie. She was dead-set against the program.

Finally, I pointed her to some biblical principles on the subject. "These are very important, Joanie," I said, and explained how we were in line with them. I thought I made a good case and was surely winning her over.

When I paused, Joanie said, "I don't know what the Bible says, but I know what I believe."

I said, "My friend, you have just ended the conversation. I thought the issue was about what the Bible teaches. If it's only about what you believe, then there's not a thing in the world I can do with that."

I can still hear the echo from many years ago of a couple in my church who were taking issue with me over something I was doing or preaching. Again, I tried to move the discussion to biblical principles. The wife stunned me by insisting, "But we have our convictions!"

I tried as gently as I knew how to remind her that God did not send us to preach our convictions, but the Word of Christ.

A man I know has a conviction that the length of a person's hair will determine his eternal destiny. He believes it as surely as I believe in the authority of the Scriptures.

I met a woman who believes that smoking one cigarette would send her soul to hell.

I met a man who believes he can live any way he chooses and never darken the door of a church and still go to Heaven because he belongs to a church of a particular denomination.

Convictions are not the same as truth. They may be, of course, and ideally should be. But we should never make the mistake of giving our convictions an equal place with God's Word. I think it's safe to say that Hitler and Stalin had their convictions. The Jehovah's Witnesses who came to my door this morning have theirs. The Mormons have theirs, the Catholics theirs, and yes, I have mine.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 33--"Expect Hardship."

You do yourself no favor when you go up against a great challenge and expect nothing but smooth sailing all the way.

The football team that prevails on a Saturday afternoon is the one with coaches and players who anticipate difficulties. Obviously, that includes preparing for the game strategy of the opposing team, but it also involves key players getting injured, the weather turning bad, and the ball taking the wrong bounce. "What will we do if this happens?"

What actually separates the average coach from his superior colleague, I'll leave to those more knowledgeable than me. But surely one key element is that the winning coach consistently out-plans--and this means he "out-expects"--his opponent.

Paul and Barnabas were at a crucial point. They had set out months ago on this, the first-of-its-kind missionary trek, to take the gospel to villages and cultures that had never heard of Jesus Christ. They journeyed to Cyprus out in the middle of the Mediterranean (that was Barnabas' familiar territory), then north to Asia Minor--Paul's stomping grounds--where they went from city to city spreading the word. Now, everything inside them said it was time to stop and return home.

"Let's do this," one said to the other. "Let's retrace our steps and revisit the disciples we've made on our journey. Let's offer them some encouragement and assist them in their organization."

I can hear the other saying, "And we need to prepare them for the hardships ahead. We have to tell them the unvarnished fact, that only through much tribulation do we enter the Kingdom." (My version of Acts 14:22)

Between here and Heaven expect a lot of obstacles.

No rose-colored glasses allowed in this Kingdom, friend. When you chose to follow Jesus Christ, you set yourself against the culture around you, the standards of the world, and the way of life of almost everyone you know. You had been floating downstream; now you are swimming upstream. Expect it to be hard.

That's important counsel for new believers, true, but it's a necessary reminder to veteran Christian workers who set out to do anything important in this world for God.

The winning strategy for a pastor, the spiritual coach if you will, has a familiar look to it: going into a stewardship campaign or a building program or an outreach emphasis or any of a hundred other new directions for his church, he sits down with his leadership to plan for every eventuality. Who will do what? What will our approach be? When will each segment be added? What kind of report system and accountability structure will we have? What will it cost and where will the money come from? What have we left out?

And then this one: What trouble can we expect and how can we prepare for it?

There's a certain naivete' that afflicts servants of the Lord, that goes like this: "If the Lord is in it, it cannot fail."

The only problem with that is that it assumes God gets everything He wants. And this would mean the present state of affairs in the world and in the church is exactly what God wants.

Who in his right mind believes that?

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 32--"Welcome Change; You Might as Well."

Ladies and gentlemen, buckle your seat belt.

The market you are working in, no matter the kind of business, enterprise, or ministry, is not static. It's always moving, always changing, ever metamorphosing into something else. Conditions change as members of the work force transition and as leaders come and go. New products and cutting edge ideas are introduced and everyone rushes to get them, master them, use them, and then improve on them.

I'm sure there was a time when you could start a business or a ministry and do pretty much the same thing for the next quarter-century and have everything turn out well. The buggy whip industry seems to have been static for many generations. Then in the 1890s someone invented the horseless carriage and within ten years, buggy whip magnates were laying off employees and trying to figure out how to crank their Model A Ford.

Outsiders have no idea how rapidly conditions in the church office have changed. Take my experience, for example. In the 1960s our church bulletin was produced by a mimeograph machine. The secretary--or usually, I--typed everything on a blue form using a manual typewriter. If we made a mistake, we slapped on a blue correction fluid, then waited for it to dry. Spill some on your hand and you would wear it for the next two days. Printing the bulletin on a mimeograph machine involved messy ink, alignment problems, paper jams, and folding machines. Electric typewriters were around, but expensive.

In the 1970s we got copiers--but nothing like the one in your church office today. These printed one copy at a time using a form made up of two pages, the back side which you peeled off and threw away, leaving you one good copy--which proceeded to curl up and turn yellow. The church bulletin was printed on an offset machine, usually by a commercial printing company in your town. And you mailed them out to the congregation on Thursday, expecting them to receive them by Saturday. They were addressed using metal plates and a huge machine called an addressograph. Ask any veteran secretary and watch her grimace.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 31--"Develop a Spine"

Perhaps the nicest guy ever to occupy the White House lived there only six months. After his March 1881 inauguration, James A. Garfield, our 20th president, was assassinated by Charles Guiteau, described in history books as a disappointed office seeker. Garfield died in September of that year. As for Guiteau, what he was, in the words of Andy Taylor referring to Barney Fife, was a nut.

In his book "Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield," Kenneth D. Ackerman has written the most readable account of an historical event you will ever find. Now, I'm a history student (history major in both college and seminary), so I'm accustomed to slogging through the most boring books in order to learn about someone from the distant past. This book, however, is a page turner, and I recommend it highly.

Something recorded on page 308 jumped out and caught my attention as demanding a place in our leadership lessons.

Garfield's nemesis, the bad guy in this story, was an egotistical senator from New York State named Roscoe Conkling. He was a dandy dresser who worked out to keep his body looking sharp in a day when to be stout was proof of a man's success. Conkling was a ladies' man who broke his marriage vows regularly, his wife's heart deeply, and other people's marriages thoughtlessly. And he was the power behind the political machine controlling New York politics. Nothing happened without his say-so.

In those days, one of the most powerful political offices a president could fill was the head of the U. S. Customs House in New York harbor. Almost all foreign shipments arrived in this country through that port, meaning this office collected untold millions of dollars in federal taxes. Thousands of people worked under the authority of the director, and in the days before civil service, New York City political bosses took care of their people by filling those lucrative jobs.

Furthermore, until Garfield came along, the head of that government bureau was always someone the boss of New York politics, in this case Roscoe Conkling, would approve. This was the price the president paid for receiving the support of Conkling's machine. Ackerman points out that this would be like the governor of Virginia being allowed to select the head of the CIA or the Secretary of Defense since their headquarters are located inside that state. Yet, that was happening and presidents had been caving in to Conkling's bullying tactics.

Ackerman tells the story of Garfield's repeated attempts to get along with Conkling, to give him what he asked for, to satisfy his demands which seemed to know no end, anything to avoid a showdown with the man. Reading the account, you keep waiting for the president to show some backbone and stand up to this tyrant.

Eventually Garfield did.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 30--"Be Kind to Your Predecessor; Someday You'll be One."

There's something about us preachers. Maybe it's in the DNA. It's one more indication of our fallen nature, as though we need more of those. Here's what we do.

In order to make myself look good, in order to impress you with my situation, in order to show you what a great job I've done at this church, I put someone else down.

The first time I saw it to know its true character, a preacher acquaintance had gone to pastor a downtown church in a huge city. He was always a let's-think-outside-the-box type, before anyone had ever thought to put it that way. He was an innovator, a motivator, a let's-get-'er-done type. And that's what he did at that church.

Within a year, he had that church packed to the rafters with people he had attracted by his unorthodox ways, captivating preaching, and bright personality. He was baptizing a thousand people a year when no one else on the planet was doing that. And he led that church to relocate, to get out of the concrete jungle where they owned no parking and to erect a great campus on the interstate where they would be visible to the world. He was a natural born fund-raiser and inspired his people to contribute millions of dollars--not one or two, but many millions--to pay for that vast acreage and the spacious state-of-the-art buildings. Everything he did was the biggest, the best, the brightest.

Most of us were understandably in awe of him.

When the invitations to speak in other places began to pour in, opportunities to tell the story of his church and how God had used him there, he saw this as an open door to help other pastors and churches to reach their communities. That's when most of the pastors of my generation learned about him. And it is fair to say that along with most everyone else who ever heard him, we sat in awe of his preaching and fell in love with his personality. He became a genuine star.

"When I arrived," he would tell his audiences, "that church was dead, dead, dead. There might have been 300 souls sitting in that cavern of a building, all of them waiting for the undertaker. They had not done anything for years."

Prior to his coming, the previous pastors had been status-quo types who could not see the vast opportunity God had placed before them. He didn't use the actual word, but we all knew those guys had been real losers.

He went on, "One day I asked the treasurer, 'What is this $60,000 doing in a savings account?' He said, 'It's for a rainy day.' I told him, 'Good lord, man! It's been raining for years!!'"

We all laughed. Great fun, good entertainment for the preacher crowd, sharp put-downs for the sightless leadership many of us in the audience were saddled with in our churches. It felt good to see someone go in to a dead church, weed out the do-nothings, and establish a mighty work of faith.

One day something occurred to me. With the nation-wide publicity this preacher brother is getting for the phenomenal work God has done through him in that city, with the acclaim that comes through resurrecting a dead church and building one that is attacking the very gates of hell, with all of us bowing before this preacher in our best "we're not worthy" manner, I wonder.

I wonder about his predecessor. Who is the pastor who served that church before him, back when it was "dead, dead, dead." And how is he feeling along about now? Is he still pastoring, or I found myself hoping, was he in his grave so he doesn't have to listen to this?

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 29--"Love the Church Or Go Into Some Other Line of Work"

My friend John was a flockless shepherd, a pastor lacking a congregation. It's an awkward place in life for a preacher to find himself. Like being a lover without a sweetheart, a physician with no one to help, a teacher with no pupils.

"I have to preach," he said to me. "Preaching is everything to me! Preaching is my passion."

I said, "That's not good, John. Preaching was never meant to be your passion. Jesus Christ is supposed to be your passion."

Give John credit; he heard that. "Wow," he said. "I feel like I've been hit in the face with a bucket of ice water. Thank you for bringing me back to reality."

Personally, I'm not sure the Lord calls anyone to preach, as the expression goes. He calls us into His service to do whatever He commands. That may indeed be to preach the gospel in pastoring or evangelism, but as with my situation, often the specifics change. After 42 years of pulpit ministry, I moved into administration and the pastoral care of pastors. I still preach, but irregularly and in churches everywhere. Yet, I'm still in the ministry, still wearing the uniform, still heeding the Master's commands.

We're supposed to love the Lord our God supremely, first of all and most of all. Everything else comes next. Including a deep love for His church.

Now, just as my friend John focused too intently on preaching and possibly put it ahead of his loyalty to Christ, some do that with the church.

I was listening on my car radio to Wallace, another pastor friend, who was making an evangelistic appeal. He said something like, "If you are lost, if you are seeking direction in life, you are carrying guilt over a life of rebellion and neglect, you want to find new meaning and forgiveness and purpose in life, my friend, you need a new relationship...." At this point, I knew what was coming. He would tell the listeners about Jesus Christ and salvation.

But I was wrong.

LEADERSHIP LESSON NO. 28--"Keep Renewing Your Commitment to Lead"

If we define leadership as "influencing others toward a certain goal," then the field is as wide as the universe and about as diverse and varied as the people in it.

New books on leadership come off the press at an alarming rate. Whatever else that indicates, it surely means people are trying to learn how to accomplish the assignments life has handed them. Pastors, if anyone on the planet, are called to be leaders. Pastors--and by that I mean all ministers, not just the preacher--stand out in front of small or large clusters of the Lord's people saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21)

Let's admit the obvious here: no one can read all those books, not and have a life. Don't even try. But from time to time, I encourage pastors to check a book out of the public (or church) library on this subject and read it. As with every other kind of book, he should read some of it to decide if he wants to read a lot of it. There's no point in wasting his time. Every book on leadership can teach something, even if it's how not to lead.

Lately, I have come to realize that what the Lord was doing in instructing His disciples over His three-year ministry was training leaders. He may have called them sheep, but He most certainly was not training them to be followers of anyone except Himself.

Scripture uses all kinds of metaphors and terminology to convey the idea that we are to be leaders of people in this world, for Jesus' sake. God told the Old Testament Jews that if they would obey Him, He would place them on top and not the bottom, He would make them the head and not the tail, and they would be the lenders and not borrowers. (Deuteronomy 28:13)

What could be clearer than that?

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 27--"Keep Restocking the Shelves"

I called the orthodontist's office yesterday morning. After spending two hours the day before in his chair getting a root canal and having him fiddle with my bridge, I thought I was all set. But I was having a little trouble and felt he ought to know about it. The receptionist said, "The doctor does not see patients today. He is in the office, though." She paused a moment and said, "Let me check." Half a minute later, she was back. "Can you come now?" I could and I did.

It was the first time I had seen this strange phenomenon. The orthodontist's waiting room was completely empty, yet all his office staff was present, busy throughout the various rooms. I said to one of his assistants, "So, what are you doing today?" "Restocking," she answered. "And cleaning."

In a lull, I asked the doctor, "So, what do you do on Wednesdays?" He said, "Paperwork. We clean the place and restock. Make sure we have all the supplies we will be needing." Then he said, "I try to go home early." Since he and his wife have two sons under the age of four, this sounded good.

My dentist--I keep lots of medical people employed: a dentist, an orthodontist, an internist, an ear-nose-and-throat doctor, and an ophthalmologist--takes Fridays off every week. His wife who is his receptionist and business manager says, "That's his day for continuing education."

Let's call it 'restocking'.

I've pastored a number of physicians over the years, and can recall hearing them complain about the schedules they keep and the lack of time to keep up with the latest developments in their field. One said, "The medical magazines pile up on my desk, but I don't have time to read them."

Not good. We need our doctors to be current with the developments in their specialty.

It takes time to restock. Planned, unhurried, peaceful time.

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 26--"Guard Your Integrity; No One Else Will."

Integrity is simply doing the right thing. It's being true to what you know to be right. It's not sinning against your own conscience.

The word 'integrity' comes from 'integer,' meaning 'a whole number.' The person with integrity is a whole human being, not divided or splintered by conflicting actions and beliefs.

Egil 'Bud' Krogh served in the Nixon White House in a number of capacities, but notably as the head of a group called "The Plumbers," created to stop the leaks of information from within the administration. He was not part of the group that broke into the Democratic National Committee's offices in 1972 in the infamous Watergate Break-in, but he was caught up in the matter when he lied to the Justice Department. Later, he confessed his wrong-doing and was sentenced to six months in prison. Recently, Krogh has written a book about the pressures of working in high profile political positions, under the title "Integrity."

Krogh advises those who serve high political figures that before giving a recommendation to the boss, they should ask themselves two questions: is this right? and, what will be the consequences of it?

It's not just in politics where the pressure to say what the boss wants to hear is so strong. In any high level business or religious enterprise, underlings find the temptations to please their bosses so overpowering they frequently find themselves in danger of compromising their convictions, and losing their souls, so to speak.

Recently, a veteran minister told a group of us of an occasion when he had been "bought and paid for" by strong church members. A powerful deacon in one church gave him monetary gifts and made sure that he received a new suit from a fashionable shop from time to time. Then, when the minister found himself crossways with that layman over some church issue, he was reluctant to oppose him. He had compromised himself by taking those presents.

"You cannot be a prophet to people from whom you take a profit," the minister advised his younger colleagues. "It's best to say 'no' to large, expensive gifts, particularly if you think they come with strings attached."

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 25--"Watch Your Reputation."

Warren Wiersbe says, "He who has the reputation of rising early may sleep til noon."

The difference in reputation and character is that the latter is what you really are; reputation is what people think you are. If you have to choose, go for character every time.

But reputation is important, make no mistake. Ask any business owner.

No matter what great service a business produces, if its reputation in the community is not a good one, the enterprise goes under. That's why companies go to such extremes to build positive reputations. They buy expensive media ads and have customers--or actors pretending to be such--tell of their great experience with this company. They pay big money to have their name on the stadium where football or baseball is played. They contribute to charity, but never secretly; they need the publicity. They're trying to build a good reputation.

When Houston's Enron Corporation went sour a few years back, one of the first things to happen was that the company's name was removed from the Astro's baseball stadium. The team could not afford for their image to be tied with a corrupt and bankrupt corporation.

Bible students will recall that even the Lord values His reputation.

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 24: "Finish Strong."

A pastor I know put in over 40 years of ministry. On the day of his retirement, the church celebrated in a big way and gave him a new automobile and many expressions of their thanks. A few days later, he announced he was leaving his wife. He divorced her, moved to another state and married a lady who had been his secretary. His abandoned wife was left in the town where they had served so many years to face the world and deal with the broken hearts and disappointed friends.

Anyone who spends Saturday afternoons watching football games has seen this happen. A team starts strong, moving the ball, scoring points, intimidating the opposition and impressing the fans. But after a quarter or two, they begin to fizzle. Either their first team grew tired or the reserves were unprepared or the other team figured out how to counter them. They lose the game which they had started so well.

No one gets credit on the scoreboard for having started well. It's how you finish that tells the story.

The fun thing about pulling in an Old Testament story--particularly one from II Chronicles--is that so few people are familiar with them. To many, they're hearing these tales for the first time. The account of King Asa is a perfect illustration for our point. It begins in II Chronicles chapter 14.

Asa reigned over the Southern Kingdom of Judah for a total of 41 years. In introducing him, the writer says rather ominously, "The land was undisturbed for ten years during his days." (14:2) He started right.

From the first, Asa earned the approval of the Lord by tearing down the pagan altars, fortifying his cities, and building up the military. He spoke words of faith and trust and seemed to have been a good man. He was humble. When he heard a good sermon, he obeyed it. In chapter 15, the prophet Azariah preached to the king and the nation about faithfulness. At the end, Asa responded to the altar call. "When Asa heard these words and the prophecy which Azariah spoke, he took courage and removed the abominable idols...and restored the altar of the Lord...."

Asa led the people to make a great sacrifice to the Lord and led them into a covenant of obedience to God. He put his wicked grandmother out of business, removing her from the exalted position of queen mother due to her idolatry.

For the first 35 years of Asa's reign, things went well. The enemies left the little nation alone and Asa was like a father to his people.

Then things went downhill.

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 23--"Set the Mood."

Whether you are the pastor of the church, a teacher in a classroom, the coach of a team, or the CEO of the company, you are responsible for the attitude in your organization. You control the thermostat, you establish the atmosphere.

In the home, it's the mom who does this better than anyone else. At church, the pastor is the mom.

By "mood" or "atmosphere," we're not talking about a flimsy, shallow, upbeat rah-rah pep talk which well-meaning but foolish would-be leaders sometimes attempt. Team members see through that in a heartbeat.

In the days and weeks before the Enron scandal broke and the giant company was discovered to be insolvent and its leadership arrested, CEO Kenneth Lay is reported to have been pumping up the employees with great words on what great shape the company was in financially. He urged them to buy more stock in the company. At the same time, according to the reports (this is not something I know personally), he was divesting himself of his stock.

As with everything else in life, great words without corresponding actions fall to the ground without achieving anything of significance. Empty words undermine the work being done and destroy the morale of the team.

The Bible says of the Prophet Samuel, that the Lord was with him and "let none of his words fall to the ground." (I Samuel 3:19)

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 22--"Be Transparent."

As a young minister, I was eager to learn how to present the gospel to people in one-on-one conversations and enrolled in every program I could find that promised to teach such skills. One in particular, I recall because of a tactic of introducing the presentation that smacked of manipulation.

They sent us out in teams of three, assigned to "take a poll" from door to door in a certain neighborhood. The form asked such questions as, "Which of these religious leaders do you know more about--Mohammed, Christ, or Krishna," and "What would you say is the biggest problem in the world today?" We knocked on doors, introduced ourselves, said we were doing a community survey, asked our questions, and wrote down what they said. Not that it mattered. The simple fact is we did not care how they answered the questions. All of the business about conducting a survey was just a lead-in to get to the point where we could ask, "In your opinion, how does a person get to Heaven?"

The plan called for the person to give a wrong answer, which we usually got. Anyone who has been around very long knows that the great majority of humans believes that being good, or at least more good than bad, is the ticket that opens Heaven's doors.

When they gave the wrong answer, we would ask for the privilege of taking a few minutes of their time to show them what the Bible says on this subject. That was actually why we came, and this is usually where the party at the door said "No, I don't think so," and sent us on our way.

That Saturday afternoon, before we left the church for our assignment, the leader took questions from his nervous pupils. Someone said, "What do we say if they ask us point blank what we're doing out here?" The leader said, "Tell them you're out sharing Jesus Christ with people. Be transparent. We have nothing to hide."

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 21--"Tell the Truth."

Nothing undermines the loyalty of your team members so much as them watching you lie to outsiders. They know better; they know you are stretching the truth or creating it from whole cloth, and to the extent you do that, you shrink in their eyes.

To our everlasting shame, perhaps no body of people on the planet plays fast and loose with the facts like preachers. You would think that we who deal with the Gospel Truth, whose Savior called Himself "The Truth," and who have as one of our basic tenets "Thou shalt not lie," that we of all people would hold to the facts as no one else. But it is not so.

In a conversation with a group of pastors about this, the stories flew, as each one thought of examples he had seen.

One said, "You get these flyers from preachers who want to come to your church. 'One of America's greatest evangelists!' it says. 'Pastor of some of the largest churches of our time.' And yet, you know the churches he has pastored and there's no way."

Another said, "And some of them report the hundreds of decisions that were made in their recent meetings. Why, Billy Graham would be hard-pressed to match those numbers. And if you check with the pastors where they held those meetings, they can't find all those converts."

"I had a preacher tell me that he actually did not know how many people attended his church on Sunday morning. He said they engaged in a bit of creative counting. He said it for a joke, but he was serious."

"I heard a staff member of one church say that when they counted the crowd on Sunday, they added 10 percent in the chance they had missed someone."

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE No. 20--"Watch the Money!"

Nothing will tempt the servant of God like the large amounts of money that flow into the coffers near the place where he labors. As the money comes into the offering plates--or through the mail or via bank drafts--his reasoning powers become tainted by those large numbers. He thinks to himself, "When I do well, the money comes in. When I do poorly, the money dries up. This is about me. The money is mine. I have earned it."

That, or some variation of it.

My family was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the late 1980s when Jim and Tammy Bakker of PTL fame (or infamy, depending on one's point of view) got in trouble and lost their multi-million-dollar ministry, with Jim serving a term in prison. Those who lived through that period may recall the sexual aspect of the downfall involving a young woman named Jessica Hahn. While that may have been the part of the story that caught the public fancy, it was the misuse of money which sent Jim Bakker to prison.

In most cases involving ministers, misuse of money does not end up with the man of God going to prison, but rather losing his ministry and his influence. The ongoing problem reminds me of the political corruption in my city of New Orleans--it is revealed so often, one would think the word would get out and the perpetrators would cease their lawbreaking; but it seems to go on and on, as though people are not paying attention and refusing to learn the law of nature which Paul pointed out to the Galatians a long time ago: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Galatians 6:7)

A pastor I know served as a trustee of one of our denomination's boards, requiring him to journey to a distant city a half dozen times a year for two days of committee meetings. On his return, he would turn in his expenses to that agency's business office, which would issue him a check a few days later. I served on the same board with him and followed the same practice. It was standard procedure. But then he did something else.

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 19--"Provide for Feedback"

Team members need a mechanism for telling you what they have found. Your co-workers must be allowed to tell you what's not working. Unless you arrange a method by which they can voice their gripes and get their suggestions before the proper personnel, the entire system is in jeopardy.

Without such a system, they will still gripe and belly-ache and criticize, but not to you. They'll do it behind your back and you will feel threatened and be tempted to respond harshly and it's all downhill from then on.

You can spare yourself a lot of grief by working out a system by which your church members, your employees, your team members can talk back to you.

The design engineers need to hear from the salesmen on the road who can tell them the customers' experience with the new gadget--what's working and what isn't.

At the end of one play and before the next one, the wide receiver must be able to tell the quarterback that he thinks he can beat the cornerback, that he's noticed something that fellow does which will allow him to outplay him. On the next play, the quarterback throws deep to the receiver who beats his man and scores.

The employees need a method for giving feedback to the foreman or the office supervisor.

The pastor needs to hear from his team members--the ministerial staff, the office staff, the custodial staff, everyone--as well as from the church members.

Make no mistake, if members of the team see something that isn't working, they're going to talk about it among themselves. But it does no good, and may even undermine what good they are doing, unless they are allowed to bring the criticism to the person who needs that information and can act on it.

I said to the church, "We've put a blank sheet of paper inside your bulletin handout today. Write down any question you have about how things are being done around here, or any suggestion you'd like to make. Next Sunday night, I'm going to take a half-hour in the evening service and respond to as many of your points as possible."

LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE NO. 18--Know When to be Soft, When Firm

When the Bible uses the word "comfort," the Greek word (a form of "paraklesis") is translated in two ways--sometimes as "comfort" and sometimes as "exhortation."

There are two ways of encouraging a fellow. Sometimes a pat on the back does it; at other times it takes a kick in the seat. It's a wise leader who knows which is required. It's an even wiser leader who then knows how to administer just the right dose of the required treatment.

The coach on the sidelines walks over to two players who just muffed a play. This is his team and he knows these young men, so he is well aware what it takes to motivate each one to give his best. To one, he walks over and puts his arm around him. "Bobby, you can do better than that. Come on, man. I believe in you." He walks over to the other one and yells, "Jason, what in sam hill do you think you're doing? That was absolutely the sorriest thing I've ever seen on a football field! Now, get back in there and show me why I shouldn't kick you off this team!"

Or something to that effect. Each coach has his own style.

I was checking out at the grocery store down the street and got in the slowest lane. When my turn came, I found out why. We had a trainee on the cash register and a veteran employee was showing her what to do. As the young woman, probably a teenager, rang up the first item, she held the key down too long and it registered that I was buying three of them. Now, the older lady was having to punch in the codes for reversing that action and clearing the printout. It was time-consuming.

I was working overtime not to be impatient, so I said, "Take your time. You're new, aren't you?" The teenager nodded, clearly embarrassed. The older woman said, "She's doing fine. She just has too heavy a touch on that key. I did it myself when I was new."

I said to the teenager, "You're blessed to have such a patient teacher. Not everyone is that good with new employees." She nodded in agreement, and the older woman smiled appreciatively.

I happen to have a little personal experience along that line.

Leadership Principle No. 17--Give Yourself Time to Think.

Historians analyzing the greatness of Abraham Lincoln are frequently perplexed as to how one who started so far back in the pack with few natural talents and attributes managed to win the race, securing his place in history as the greatest of all our presidents. What was there about him?

I'd like to suggest that one key factor, particularly in the younger Lincoln, was the quietness of the world in which he lived and what he did with it: he thought. He read a lesson, then mulled it over as he walked from one village to another or as he did his chores. He did not do what the average person would do, read something and check it off the list and go on to the next lesson. What he read lingered with him because he focused on it and thought about it. Some say Lincoln never went on to new book until he had mastered the content of the one he was studying.

Imagine jerking up someone from the 21st century and plopping them down in the middle of, say, 1825, when Mr. Lincoln was 16 years old. His first sensation would surely be of the overwhelming silence. No freeways with heavy traffic 24 hours a day, no planes filling the skies, no radio, no television, no phone, no trains, and very few factory whistles if any. To be sure, everyone else had the same amount of silence and the same absence of distractions from pure, deep thought as did Lincoln.

The difference is that Lincoln used the quietness wisely; he thought about things.

Blaise Pascal observed, "All the evils of life have fallen upon us because men will not sit alone quietly in a room."

Leadership Principle No. 16--Clean Up Your Act

Until a few days ago, the chairman of the board of trustees of Roger Williams University in Rhode Island was 80-year-old Ralph Papitto. In fact, this gentleman had served on that board for 40 years, and over the years had contributed some $7 million to the school. It's a private school, perhaps a religious institution since Mr. Williams was a Baptist and, if I remember my history, was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Providence which was the first of its kind in the new world.

The point being that, by all appearances, Mr. Papitto was a powerful man who was trying to do good with his life. And in a sense, in his own mind at least, he was untouchable. He had money and position and needed nothing from anyone, he thought.

One day a few weeks ago, the trustees received a complaint that the board was not diverse enough. No minorities sat on the board; it was all white men and a couple of white women.

Well sir, Mr. Papitto did not like outsiders telling him what to do with his school. He made some derogatory remark about the criticism and in the process used the N-word.

That's all he did. Used the N-word. And I don't mean "nuclear." I refer to the racial putdown, the well-known expression called the ugliest racial slur and the most inflammatory term in the English language in a couple of references I looked up.

After the board meeting, when three trustees took exception to what Papitto said and called for his resignation, they themselves were kicked off.

Leadership Principle No. 15--If You Are the Leader, Then Lead

If ever a time and situation cried out for leadership, New Orleans following the double disasters of Katrina and the flooding which followed was the place. To the puzzlement and frustration of most people, our mayor discovered that what he did best was talk. He made grandiose claims, issued reports, and pronounced major projects, none of which came to fruition. Because he was handsome and articulate, soon he was on all the televised news programs and being invited to speak at national forums. Around the country, a lot of people were impressed by this well-spoken leader. Only on the local level did we know the truth: he was a non-leader if ever one existed.

Watch the political scene in America these days and be amazed at the failure of leadership at every level of government. The typical scenario calls for elected officials and those running for their offices to engage costly polling operations to find out what the public wants. Then they package the results as their offering to the citizens. It's the very definition of non-leadership. That old line comes to mind: "There goes the crowd. I must rush to their front, because I am their leader!"

How many games would a football team win if they paused between every play to poll the team and take a vote? Or even worse, to poll the fans in the stadium and find a consensus? A perfect recipe for disaster.

How many battles would an army win if the officer polled his troops on the best course of action in every situation, then took a vote. No one would do much of anything.

How many gains will a business make if the boss asks the employees, "What should we do now?"

Leadership Principle No. 14--Keep Your People Informed

If you count on and need the support of the people you lead--and who doesn't--it is absolutely essential you keep them informed on situations and up-to-date on circumstances. They will be reluctant to make great sacrifices based merely on their allegiance to you.

Tell them what's going on.

This week, as I write, the president of the Baptist seminary in our city sent a letter to hundreds of the school's supporters across the country. In the single page missive he outlined the financial situation for the seminary and the post-Katrina recovery which is 90 percent complete. He pointed out what the American Association of Theological Schools estimates the typical year of seminary education to cost and laid that alongside what the six schools of our denomination spend per student, and finally, contrasted that with the much smaller figure for the New Orleans school.

"We're not fighting for our survival," he pointed out, but the day-to-day expenses of utilities and insurance have increased alarmingly and put the seminary in a difficult situation. He was asking for contributions to the general fund. The next day I wrote a nice check and sent to this outstanding school which has played such a key role in my own life and ministry.

Every denomination has its own way of operating, but a motto in Baptist life for many generations has been "tell the people." Dean Doster, past-executive of Louisiana Baptists, likes to say, "Baptists are down on what they're not up on." No doubt it's true of other religious groups also.

I believe that axiom and have the battle scars to prove it.

That's why I did what I did and how I got into trouble.

Leadership Principle No. 13--Keep Your Idealism, But Lose the Perfectionism

It sounds so right: "I expect nothing less than perfection from you. We have the highest standards in this church (or company or family)."

Many years ago, "Psychology Today" magazine ran an article titled "The Perfectionist's Script for Self-Defeat." It was one of the most practical and helpful things I had ever found.

Here's a woman on a diet. She has done well for two weeks now, avoiding the danger foods, eating only the prescribed meals. She has lost 7 pounds and can already feel the difference in her clothes. One day in a moment of weakness, she eats 3 potato chips. Just 3. But she is so overwhelmed by guilt and the knowledge that she has broken her diet, she gets discouraged about the diet and goes on a binge. By the end of the day she has consumed 3 bags of chips and a half-gallon of ice cream.

Anything wrong with eating 3 potato chips? Not at all. The problem was the impossible standard of perfection she erected for herself.

Leadership Principle No. 12--Know Yourself Inside and Out

Many years ago, when I was a young pastor and a seminarian, my wife and I caught the movie, "A Man for All Seasons," Robert Bolt's account of Thomas More in 16th century England. I was transfixed by Bolt's depiction of this man whose integrity and personal strength in the face of pressure from King Henry VIII stood him head and shoulders above his generation. After seeing the movie, I read everything I could find on St. Thomas More.

I didn't have to read very far before discovering More to be a far more complex figure than the play had made him out to be, one who would have had citizens who believe as my denomination does burned at the stake. That took the shine off his character for me. However, I love the movie so much I own it, and have bought the book containing Bolt's play. Memorable lines from the play have made many an apt illustration for my sermons over these decades.

In his introduction, Robert Bolt pays tribute to the chief characteristic of Thomas More that made him who he was. "As I wrote about him, (More) became for me a man with an adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where he began and left off, what area of hmself he could yield to the encroachments of his enemies, and what to the encroachments of those he loved."

He knew where he began and where he left off; what a fascinating way of putting it. Knowing himself so thoroughly, More was able to turn down all kinds of bribes and threats thrown his way to entice or coerce him to violate his own conscience. He ended up paying for this kind of steadfastness and integrity with his life.

The ancient Greeks made much of the importance of a person knowing himself. We don't hear much about it these days, which is a shame, because many a heartache and tragedy in life could have been avoided by a person truly knowing himself.

Here are some questions to help us know ourselves and to decide how well we do.

Leadership Principle No. 11--Be Tactful

It was the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. For the past several months, I had been the weekend clerk-typist for the Pullman Company, dispatching porters and conductors to various runs in and out of Birmingham, Alabama, and keeping up with the whereabouts of all sleeping cars in the state. It was a great job and usually so quiet I was able to get a lot of studying done for class. Mac Chandler, passenger agent for the Seaboard Railroad, had invited me to work for him that summer, taking ticket reservations over the phone in his downtown office. There were only three other people in the office, all of them veterans of that work, and professionals.

I wish I knew what Mr. Chandler had noticed. He was a quiet man who took in everything around him, while speaking little and, alas, chain-smoking. One morning he walked over to my desk and handed me a little booklet. "Joe," he said, "I thought you would enjoy this. It has some excellent points in it."

The booklet was entitled "Tact." Mr. Chandler was the personification of the virtue.

Today, I cannot recall a single point the booklet made. But I remember distinctly reading its pages, feeling "this is so right," and taking to heart its points. There's a line in the Proverbs about "a word fitly spoken" being like apples of gold in a silver setting, which I take to mean "of great value." (Proverbs 25:11)

Undoubtedly, I was just right for a great lesson on tact and Mr. Chandler's act in matching me up with the booklet was one of the most helpful things anyone has ever done for me.

Yesterday, as I write, our daily newspaper reported on two men of prominence. The first is featured on the front page as the recommended candidate to become president of a major university in our state. The other was president of a local department store chain and is described in his obituary. The contrast is worth noting.

Leadership Principle No. 10--Your Brother is Your Partner, Not a Competitor

Pastor Roy said to me, "I have it on good authority that Pastor Tom has come into my church on Sunday afternoons and nosed around, trying to find who visited our church that morning and if any of his members joined us."

We both called that taking insecurity to the next level.

There's a lot of insecurity in the ministry, unfortunately. Some pastors forget their assignment to take the gospel to the world and shrink their field of ministry to the neighborhood around their church. If someone else starts a church inside what they consider their territory, they resent it. If the new church prospers, they feel jealous. If they lose members to that church, they become deadly enemies.

I know from personal experience how it happens. You're leading a church that has been dying for years and you're looking for any signs of life and revival. Suddenly a family joins your church. The fact that they are moving their membership from another congregation in the same town matters very little. All that counts is that someone thought your church was attractive enough, that your ministries were important enough, and that your preaching was successful enough that they wanted to join you. Sometimes that is the only encouragement you get in a month.

Meanwhile, the pastor of the church that just lost that family may take the loss personally, depending on a lot of things. If his church is otherwise healthy and prospering, he will take it in stride. If he also is struggling to stay alive, an entire family jumping ship can be a death blow. If it turns out that you were guilty of enticing them in any way, the pastor understandably takes it personally and feels insulted.

Just so easily do neighboring pastors, even of the same denomination, become competitors.

Leadership Principle No. 9--Sometimes Leaders Must Follow; Do It Well

The year our church decided to spend two weeks constructing a new plant for Calvary Baptist Church of Matawan, New Jersey, our youth minister was in charge. Bryan Harris--now pastoring in Vallejo, California--was gifted with administrative abilities and experienced in leading construction teams, so we all followed his leadership. Within two weeks, a new sanctuary and educational building rose on that spot and everyone had the experience of a lifetime.

Two years later, when our church in Columbus, Mississippi, opted to erect our own educational building instead of contracting it out, we put Bryan in charge and the members all worked under his leadership.

The year we took our youth choir and some 20 adults to England for a two-week-mission of concerts and ministry, our minister of music Wilson Henderson was in charge. He was experienced at leading these trips and was close friends with David Beer, the British pastor who was our host in Tonbridge, England. Even though I was the pastor and technically his "superior," I took orders from Wilson.

Sometimes you are the leader, sometimes a follower. But no one is the leader in every situation. Whatever the occasion calls for, a faithful follower of Christ will want to set the example for those coming after you.

Leadership Principle No. 8--Remember Names, and Use Them

I've previously mentioned the lengthy conversation I had with C. C. Hope, Jr., some years ago when his wife was in surgery and we sat for hours in the waiting room of the Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. At the time, he was one of the three F.D.I.C. commissioners in Washington, D.C., and past president of the American Bankers' Association. I told him I had heard of him before becoming his pastor.

In the summer of 1986, when I announced our move from Mississippi to become pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charlotte, NC, a Starkville banker friend, John Mitchell, told me about Mr. Hope. He said, "You have a deacon in that church whom I really respect. C. C. Hope was president of the ABA. We had him down here to speak at a bankers' function. My wife had just broken her leg. The next time I saw him was five years later. He called me by name and asked about my wife, remembering that her leg was in a cast the last time he'd been here. I was stunned."

C. C. laughed when I told him that. "That's actually what did it for me," he said. "Remembering people's names."

Leadership Principle No. 7--Discipline yourself.

This morning as I write, while walking on the levee by the river, I chatted with a neighbor I've frequently seen but had never met. He has an unusual morning routine. Instead of walking a long distance up and down the levee, he has marked off 1,000 feet and goes back and forth. "I do eight laps," he said. "That's 16,000 feet. About 3 miles." I congratulated him. It's the same distance I get in each morning, and I know what an effort it can be sometimes.

The man said, "I've lost 70 pounds up here." I was impressed, and this time I really congratulated him. Losing 5 pounds can be difficult, but imagine losing seventy!

I thought of a woman I met in Nashville this Spring. In the cafeteria at the Lifeway building, I was chatting with and sketching a number of church secretaries in town for their annual conference where I was a speaker. Several women walking by called greetings to the ones at my table. The lady I was drawing said, "See the one in the purple sweater? She works in our office." I glanced at the cluster of ladies exiting the doors. The purple-clad was a large person and easy to spot.

"She has lost over a hundred pounds," the woman said. She added, "There's an interesting story behind it. She was desperate to lose weight and felt she couldn't do it by herself. So, she looked into having stomach-stapling surgery. When the doctors examined her, it turned out she had a heart condition, and they refused to do the surgery until she lost a lot of the weight she was carrying."

A classic Catch-22 situation: she cannot have surgery to lose weight until she loses weight to make the surgery safer.

"Anyway," said the secretary, "she put herself on a diet and has lost half the amount she needed to get rid of. And she's decided to skip the surgery. She discovered she's strong enough to control her appetite without the aid of the doctors or drastic surgery." I call that a wonderful discovery.

Self-control is one of the bigger issues in this life. There are many facets to it. Here are several.

Leadership Principle No. 6--Learn from your failures and go forward.

I invited Adam to lunch with me, planning to speak to him about his relationship to Christ. His wife Christa appeared to be an active Christian and their two daughters were full participants in our church's youth program. Perhaps Adam just needs a little encouragement, I thought.

After he agreed to meet me, I asked Adam to choose the restaurant. "How about Jimmy C's," he said, and had to tell me where it was. I was new to the New Orleans area and hardly knew one restaurant from another in this city noted for great eating. We would meet at noon on Thursday.

We greeted each other, were seated in a booth, and gave our orders to the waiter. I went straight to the subject on my mind. "Adam, can I ask you about your relationship to Jesus Christ?" He was friendly and open and did not mind at all telling me his thoughts. Somehow along the way, he had studied under humanist teachers and they had provided a steady diet of atheistic reading for his young vulnerable mind, and it was my assignment, it appeared, to try to counter some of that.

The waiter brought our lunch, I said a short blessing, and we dived in. That's when the young woman showed up at our table.

She was dressed--or not dressed would be closer to the truth--in a flimsy, see-through shortie pajama thing that showed far more of her than it ought. I would not have been more stunned than if she had walked down the aisle of my church dressed like that in the middle of my sermon. Glancing around the restaurant, I saw she had company. Other attractive young ladies were similarly unclad and were visiting at the tables and chatting with diners.

Adam and I had visited Jimmy C's on the day of their weekly lingerie show.

Leadership Principle No. 5--Know when to give in.

Two cars met on a narrow one-way bridge. One man leaned out of his window and yelled, "I never back up for fools!" The other called out, "I always do," as he reverses his automobile.

Question: which of those two men is the stronger? Obviously, the one who gave in to the other.

Here's another.

The interstate traffic was heavy, fast, and aggressive. This was no place for timid drivers if they wanted to survive. Suddenly, a speeding car cut in front of two others without giving a signal and almost clipped the bumpers of both vehicles. The two drivers were shocked, then frightened, and then enraged. One driver took out after the offender, the adrenalin of his anger fueling his determination not to let the culprit get by with such behavior. The second driver calmed himself down and reminded himself that his goal was to arrive safely at his destination, and most definitely not to get revenge, not to teach other drivers a lesson, and not to let his anger get him into trouble.

Now, which of those two drivers is the stronger man? Clearly, the one in control of his spirit.

How does that line go from Proverbs? "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city." (16:32) The point is made in the opposite way in Proverbs 25:28, "Like a city that is broken into and without walls, is a man who has no control over his spirit."

The little church had decided that the two leading women of the congregation would get together and select the new carpet for the auditorium. Eloise wanted a neutral color. She said, "We're still not sure what color they're going to paint the walls and we don't want to clash with that. And, this color will go well with the choir robes." Evelyn, however, had her heart set on a bright red. "We had red in our last church and it brightened up the place so much. I'm not going to budge on this. It has to be red."

Church fights and congregational splits have been built on differences as slight as this. But Eloise was determined not to let that happen. She said, "Let's do it your way, then. I'm sure red will be fine. It's not as if this were the most important matter in the world."

Good for Eloise.

Leadership Principle No. 4--Appreciate your support team.

I dropped by the governor's office before leaving town. He was a member of the church I'd been serving, and now that I had been called to another pastorate several hours away, I wanted to thank him for his encouragement and ask for an autographed picture. He was more than accommodating and effusive in his praise of my work.

Pulling out a poster-sized photo, the governor picked up a magic marker and wrote across the bottom, "To Joe McKeever--the greatest preacher in the world!" I thanked him and slipped out.

In the hallway, I bumped into an old friend who worked for the governor. I showed him the poster and said, "I can't hang that in my office! It's too 'over the top.'" He smiled and said, "Joe, he does that for every person who walks in the office. But the people who work for him are dying for a word of appreciation from him."

I've never forgotten that lesson.

Leadership Principle No. 3--Earn the Right to Lead

I'm thinking about two deacons, both warm-hearted effective men of God. It wasn't always that way.

"I don't want him on the deacons," I told the committee assigned to recommend the next group to be elected by the church. "Trust me on this. He has no business bearing this responsibility."

I hoped they would drop the matter there. The man in question, I'll call him Malachi, had been a deacon for several terms, was inactive at the moment and was being considered for re-election.

Pastors know things about church members few others do, as a rule, and yet we don't want to talk about these things in open forums. Or anywhere else, for that matter. (I once asked in a personnel committee meeting, "Can we speak in confidence here?" The chairman said, "Pastor, I wouldn't say anything in this room you don't want repeated." That was good advice.)

After the committee adjourned, one of the men followed me into my office. "I have to know,"he said. "What is this secret about Malachi that disqualifies him from serving as a deacon." When I hesitated, he said, "He's meant a lot to this church through the years. There may be something we can do for him."

I said, "He's being seen regularly at the casino, gambling. It appears he's going there every day and staying for hours."

The leader said, "You know this for a fact?" I told him of a certain church-member-in-name-only whom I bump into occasionally, who had told me this. "And you believe him?" I said, "Oh yes. He has his faults, but dishonesty is not one of them."

"Then, let's talk to him," he said. Talk to Malachi.

Leadership Principle No. 1--Delegation

I was the minister of evangelism at the FBC of Jackson, Mississippi, in my early 30s. That would be the early 1970s. My pastor, Larry Rohrman, was frequently invited to speak out of town and sometimes he would invite me along. I think he wanted a driver more than company. On one of those occasions, he said something that has stayed with me ever since.

"See that little church," he said as we traveled down a country highway. "In many cases the pastor of that little church can preach just as well as or better than the pastor of the big, growing church. But the difference is that he can't turn loose of jobs. He has to do everything himself. The other guy, however, puts people to work. He matches the right person to the right job and everyone wins. They get satisfaction from doing their job in the church, the work gets done, the pastor is freed up for other things, the church grows, and the Lord is honored."

Some pastors can delegate; some cannot. One pastor sees a task that needs doing and starts thinking of who has a gift or the aptitude or at least the willingness for this and he enlists them. The other pastor sees a job and does it. Both are godly, dedicated men of the Lord, but only the first is being fair to his people.

Along about the same time as that conversation with my pastor, I attended a national conference on church management in Atlanta. There were 700 of us packed into the auditorium of that downtown hotel. In the middle of the opening session, as our host was presenting the schedule of the week, a hotel employee approached the platform pushing a vacuum cleaner and proceeded to clean all around the speaker.

At first, the speaker ignored him. Then the employee said, "Sir, can you move over here and let me clean under your feet?"

Our leader was visibly perturbed. He said, "Buddy, could you do that some other time? We're trying to have a meeting here."

Leadership Principle No. 2--Followup.

(Note to pastors: Many years ago, a church member paid the fees for me to take a one-day Dale Carnegie Management Course. The one great lesson I've carried with me these 40 years is that "if you delegate a task, you may assume it will not get done unless you follow up on it." It's an invaluable lesson. I ran across the point being made this week in a book on the Battle of New Orleans, and feel it's worth passing on.

Bear in mind that the no. 1 principle of management (or leadership) is delegating--matching people up with the right jobs--and the no. 2 principle is following up on that assignment.

Toward the end of this, I'll drop in my own horror story on the matter of following up. Just because I learned it in a class in the late 1960s does not mean I would get smart and actually practice it. How does that line go--too late smart, too soon dead.

Let's call this: "What Andrew Jackson wished he had done" or "How Jackson Came Close to Losing the Battle of New Orleans.")

The best lessons we ever learn are the ones we got wrong and suffered from and thus determine not ever to let happen again. Which is to say, experience is the best teacher.

After General Andrew Jackson entered New Orleans late in 1814 and took charge of its defense, he toured the perimeters of the area, found the city to be exposed on all sides, and assigned officers to various tasks.

In his book on the Battle of New Orleans, "Patriotic Fire," Winston Groom writes: "...there were any number of bayous, streams, and canals that, left unguarded and unobstructed, could have allowed the British through. Jackson ordered all of these blocked by felled trees, with guards from the state militia posted to watch them." Then, Groom ominously adds, "Lack of diligent enforcement of this order proved to be his greatest mistake."

Here's what happened.

What Leadership Looks Like

Doris Voitier is about to receive one of this country's premier awards, the JFK Profile in Courage Award, given to only one or two persons a year for showing courage in the face of overwhelming odds.

Doris Voitier is the superintendent of the St. Bernard School System, in the parish just below New Orleans.

A few weeks after Katrina, when everyone was saying St. Bernard Parish was destroyed and most leaders were still shaking their heads and wondering what to do, Doris Voitier decided if St. Bernard were to get on its feet, the schools would have to be operating. Problem is, they were all flooded and ruined, every last one of them. So, she had a little talk with the FEMA people, found out they weren't going to do anything, and took matters into her own hands.

She took out a loan for $17 million and ordered 22 portable classrooms and 107 travel trailers for school employees, all of whom had lost their homes. Then she announced that school would reopen only 11 weeks after Katrina. Incidentally, she spent $22,000 for each trailer in contrast with the $60,000 which FEMA would eventually pay, according to all accounts.

Doris Voitier traveled to Baton Rouge and spent a day with the banks consolidating the various accounts her schools had. "We could sort it out later," she said. "Right now, we needed cash." She made sure the premiums were being paid on the health insurance for employees, and covered the payroll, all of which came to $1 million a month.

Voitier told a FEMA representative that she needed hot meals for her students. She was told that despite earlier assurances, FEMA would not be able to cover that, and that she should consider cold sandwiches or military MREs. "No," said the superintendent, "The children will have hot meals."

She hired a Chalmette restaurant owner to cook the meals on a barge in the Mississippi River and sent FEMA the bill for $27,000. After seven months of haggling, FEMA paid the bill.