Lead Like Jesus

“How is it that other people, who seem to have their {bleep} together, don’t seem to notice that there is pain in the world, or if they do, they can manage. But me, I see nothing but pain in the world and can only deal with it by getting high and numbing myself?”

[Read more…] about How to Proclaim the Allegiance Gospel: A Story

A few years ago I had the unusual freedom to attend a Christmas Eve service I wasn’t leading. In fact, it wasn’t in my home church at all. I was visiting friends and family out of town and attended a large, well-known church in their area for Christmas Eve.

But it wasn’t a great experience, unfortunately. It was all I could do to make it through without surrendering my Christmas spirit.

[Read more…] about How (Not) to Preach on Christmas Eve

Reading, both widely and deeply, is a vital discipline for any leader. But reading is especially important for the Christian leader, because our way of leadership (following Jesus) isn’t just pragmatic. It’s a inherently theological pursuit that demands we reflect deeply on our relationships regularly.

We asked some of our team to give us a few favorite books from 2019, and we’ve got a list below, in no particular order. (Note: these aren’t necessarily books that were released this year, just books we happened to read this year.)

[Read more…] about Some of Our Favorite Books of 2019

One of our axioms at Gravity Leadership is that whatever God does THROUGH you he also does IN you. There is a holistic and organic connection between your work as a leader and the health and growth of your own soul. You can’t lead others through skill alone, in other words. To open space for others to encounter God’s transforming presence we must be open to that presence ourselves. [Read more…] about On Cultivating a Habit of Daily Prayer

In a previous post, we talked about two pitfalls of leadership: Top-down, hierarchical leadership and Bottom-up, flat leadership. Each exists in an imaginative construct on opposite ends of a binary. Each sees power as a zero-sum game, a scarce resource either to hoard or disown.

In this unhelpful paradigm, power is abusive. We must limit it (checks and balances in top-down leadership) or actively work to mitigate against it (no one is in charge in bottom-up leadership).

[Read more…] about Center-Out Leadership: A New Framework For the Church

One of the simplest instructions Jesus gave his disciples came during the last supper before his crucifixion:

“You are not to be like that.”

[Read more…] about 2 Ways We Get Leadership Wrong in the Church