| Monday Morning Email
is sponsored by Fred Bock Music Company 
and remember:
This is the final month for
MME offerings from Pine Lake Music.
including new choral releases and other
music ministry resources.
Check back each week
through December for new
MME specials found only at:
www.pinelakemusic.com/MME |
|
Your email address will never be rented, traded, or sold. | 
Check these special pages |
|
If you are a registered subscriber to this site, and have logged in, you should see one or more special MME offers below. |
| Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
Philippians 4:6 PRAYER God with us, Immanuel, who are we to come before you? And yet, you come to us as a child—sweet, innocent, non-threatening. You have opened the gates that separated us from God. You enter, our King of Glory, having conquered all that needed to be conquered. Our hearts are overwhelmed as we prepare to celebrate your birth. Grant us a complete focus on the CHRIST of Christmas. In your most precious name, Amen.
Prayers for today - Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS)This Leadership Tools edition of MME is presented in the following format:
Strengthening the connections with people we serve Systems
Developing and maintaining healthy systems for leading groups
Balance
Strategies for spiritual, physical and mental centering Quotes
Words of wisdom and encouragement
WELCOME
After 40 years of music ministry work and being married to a church musician, I still appreciate this joyful time of year. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany are not just names on our liturgical calendar, they are seasons of our holy life in the community of faith. Yes, it is frantic as you strive to keep up with the rapid pace and the multitude of activities. All the preparation that goes into the Thanksgiving, Advent and Christmas Eve services, concerts, and other events are especially demanding, stressful, and extremely draining for the church musician. It takes enormous energy on our part to insure that everything is the best it can be. It is, however, a blessing to know that we have provided programs that have given joy to others.
It is important to remember the spiritual significance of this beginning of the church year. It is also the time ends the calendar year. And this celebration time of Christmas that follows the penitent, expectant time of Advent and leads to the festival of Epiphany. It is important to not let the demands and stress of producing wonderful musical gifts for the churches we serve to overshadow the need for our own spiritual journey.
Be present in the significance of this holy time and be open for God to use you and empower you. The following are thoughts for looking over the year past to learn, to celebrate and to build momentum for the year to come.
Review • Learn • Plan
Make a list of all your core values. Make another list of what you value about your job. Compare these lists to see if there is tension between those values. See how many align. Put a star by the items on each list that you value most.
Review all of your activities in 2007. Develop categories for your activities such as:
• Primary Job Functions
• Family Activities
• Recreation and Exercise
• Personal Skill Building and Reflection
• Spiritual Nurture
Review your calendar for each month of the year. Put a score for each of your categories for the amount of time you devoted to each category. I suggest that you use a percent of the total time. Total each month to be sure that you end up with 100%. Don’t make this a major time consuming activity. Just look over the month and guess at the time you spent on each category.
Once you have done this, combine the months to get a total for the year. Look at the amount of time you spent on the top item and then see if this is consistent with your core values. If you spent way too much time doing something that is not consistent, then make a short list of what you want to do differently in 2008. Share this list with two people that you trust and who will inspire you to be accountable for this change
When you make your goal for 2008, have these facts handy to help you remember how to allot your time in the future. Your thinking dictates your results. It’s not the other way around. If you feel like circumstances prevent you being in charge of your life and your time, then get a personal coach to assist you in personal strategies for success. Successful leaders are always learning and top leaders have a coach.
Building Your Support Teams
Do you have a professional support group? If you don’t, I suggest forming one. Napoleon Hill studied many famous leaders and developed his theory of success. Most of the leaders he studied had a Mastermind Group. This concept has been proven over the years in many ways. It’s not just corporate executives that need this concept – it’s any leader that wants to me more effective.
Form a group of 3 to 5 people who are good thinkers, successful, and people you would like to emulate. Choose people that you perceive are more skilled at something than you believe you are. Choose to be with people that can teach you something. Invite the group to meet with you in a quiet place.
Here’s the strategy: each person takes a turn sharing a problem to solve to a strategy to develop. The entire group responds with their best thoughts. Each person has a turn and experiences the dynamics of group thinking to solve an individual problem. Be open to new ideas and be helpful of others.
Agree to meet as frequently as it makes sense for your schedules. Don’t meet too frequently and don’t space out the sessions too far apart. Be aware of what builds energy within the group.
Build and maintain important relationship both within your church and outside of it. Do not let all of your relationships be in the place where you work. Be intentional about building relationship outside of your community of faith.
Spend some time reflecting on meetings over the past year. Evaluate the processes used in those meetings for making decisions. Has each meeting been effective? Could some of them have been more effective? Define which of the meetings would have been more productive if you changed one or more of the following elements:
- Intentional identification of desired outcomes
- Having the right people present
- Having the proper amount of items to deal with in the time available
- Better decision-making tools
- Improved follow-through with assigned tasks
- Unity of purpose
Commit to learning at least one new leadership tool for your systems. One tool might be a tool for sorting concepts and identifying the best option. One tool could be effectively energizing team members to take on assignments with passion. Another tool is developing a way to challenge group thinking that you feel is unproductive and will bring conflict and unhappiness to the church.
Make a file for keeping track of leadership tools for leading groups and review that file monthly for reviewing known concepts and for identifying new skills needed.
******************* I once heard from a ministers’ wife who identified the church as “The Black Hole.” I realized that The Black Hole is a place where one can disappear and never be found. I later learned that The Black Hole is negative energy and negative gravity. It is a place that tears matter apart! With that information, I realized the significance of that statement! The church is an environment that can not only eat up all of your available time, but also a place that can be destructive. Strive to set boundaries to care for yourself. There is a series of books on boundaries by Townsend and Cloud. You can find them in any bookstore.
Another possibility is to make a “Balanced Scorecard” to measure balance in your schedule. You want balance at work and in your life as a whole. It will not happen if you do not plan for it to happen. If you don’t work enough, the quality of your results will not measure up. However, if you work too much, the quality of your work my not improve in proportion to the effort given. Strive for balance in work and at home. Strive for balance with work, play, devotional time and rest. Know what you want for like and plan for the results you want.
Take time annually to plan your goals. Plan goals for your church and don’t forget to plan goals for your personal life as well. You have read this thought before: “Allow your thinking to dictate your results.” It’s not the other way, so don’t start your year without clear goals for your work and for your like.
Enjoy your work.
Enjoy your home.
Enjoy your life.
May the peace of Christ be with you as you end this year and plan for the year to come.QUOTES
We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves. Francis J. Braceland
Concentrate on finding your goal, then concentrate on reaching it. Michael Friedsam
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. Abigail Adams
Take the first step in faith.
You don't have to see
the whole staircase,
just take the first step. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
CONCLUSION Be the leader God has called and equipped for ministry. You have been given a duty that will be your delight as it is fulfilled. Proceed to accomplish that vision now. You do not have to know every step of your process. Keep God's vision for transformation in mind and God will bless your journey. Be willing to be transformed and God will use you to transform others. Please send me your questions on leaders issues, confilct management, planning for success and building high performance teams. This leadership tools edition of MME is designed to address your problems and give strategies for success. Please send me your requests and I will give you resources for action. ******************* 
CHOIRFEST 2008
The Huntsville Choral Festival
April 3-6, 2008
First Baptist Church
Huntsville, Alabama
Are fortunate enough to have already registered for ChoirFest 2008--under the direction of Anton Armstrong? Space is nearly full. There are a very few seats remaining, so if you and some of your choir people are interested in taking advantage of this event, you had best hurry! You can find full information at this web site: www.choirfest.com So, a word to the wise is worthy of consideration: "Act now, or you will miss out!" ******************* © 2007 Creator Magazine |
|
|
|