One of my great friends and mentors used to always ask me; “What are you doing that will live on after you’re gone?”. That question has always bothered and challenged me. While I was on vacation I realized however that the legacy I’d been focused on for so long was more about people remembering me and something magnanimous that I had done. I  wanted people to remember me for having done something amazing or contributed to the church or missions in some significant way.

It felt like God was whispering to my heart that what mattered more was who I am not what I do. It seems so simple but I think I’ve been missing it. It’s honestly easier to relate to people on the basis of what you do because you can control that to a certain extent. Who you are is a much more complicated thing to show and can be miscommunicated more easily.

I’ve in no way got this figured out but life is starting to boil down to loving God, my family and others, receiving God’s acceptance of who I am and trying to faithfully use the gifts He’s given me to build His kingdom and not my own. Somebody let me know if you get that figured out. It still feels a long way off for me.

Mr. J,

It’s Adam Herod. Not sure if you’ll remember me or not. I was a sax player at Terry Sanford graduating in ****.

At any rate, it’s nice to see what you’re up to. I wanted to drop you a line to say thank you for the influence you and Mrs. J had on my life. I thought you’d like to know that music is now my profession and passion. I am a worship pastor here in Raleigh after spending time in Atlanta and Virginia Beach.

I’ve used a lot of things I learned from you in my musical journey. (especially the “if you’re going to make mistakes, make them big”) As a band director in churches, your passion for excellence helped me forge through to great sound even if it took some pushing and patience along the way.

I guess I say all this to say…thanks for pushing me. For always expecting more. For teaching me to appreciate the essence of music and how to savor amazing moments with people you love and labor with.

Whether you knew it or not, God used you in my life to begin a journey into what He had called me to become. I’d love to reconnect with you if possible.

I pray you, Mrs. J and your little one are doing well! Thank you again.

peace…

adam

Is there anyone in your life that you need to say thanks to?

I wanted to share something with you that I read before leaving for vacation. It’s called “A Jesus Manifesto” and it was written by Leonard Sweet & Frank Viola. Not the most obvious pairing on the planet, but a great testament to the truth that they’ve agreed to in this document. Here’s a taste of what they have to say:

What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.

I challenge you to take a few minutes and visit their site. Read the manifesto and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart. If you’re like me (and let’s hope you aren’t , expect to be confirmed, convicted, challenged and motivated. My prayer is that we would all embrace Him and make it our mission to make Him known.

I’m becoming convinced that one of my strengths moving forward will not be knowing all the information but knowing where to find information. I am building more relational capital by sharing information freely than I ever did by trying to keep my sources on lock down and appear smarter than I am. I have my former church to thank for that to a large degree. They helped open my heart even more to how to bless others.

There is a paradigm shift from being the guy (or gal) with all the answers to being the gal (or guy) who can steer someone to thought and on their own process to find answers. It’s one of the reasons I’m always linking to others. Sometimes it can get annoying if you turn into some one’s personal google, but people truly appreciate someone who knows where to find answers.

Do you share your knowledge freely? Any thoughts on how this applies to your world? I’d love to know your thoughts.

“Leadership happens out of the corner of your eye, in a place where you weren’t watching”.

It’s so true that the genesis of great leadership often goes unnoticed. One of the great challenges of leadership, in my opinion, is seeing that potential and developing it in others. To embrace their hope and help them pursue their dreams.

Seth says that everyone knows the “leadership tricks” but it’s really about creating an experience for your tribe. If that’s the case, and I believe for the most part it its, then leadership is about helping people connect. Helping them “care” about your cause. If your “cause” is getting people clean water like in the case of charitywater.org then make them feel the thirst of others and see clearly how they can make a viable change. If your cause is making people better bloggers then do what John Saddington (yes he gets 2 separate links. he’s the guy who started this tribe up.:-) does and constantly give people tools to do more and go farther.

One thing I’m noticing more and more about leadership is that it really cares about others. It reminds me of when the love chapter of the Bible says “love is not self-seeking”. The leaders I truly admire are like Tasmin Little. (mentioned on p.123) She cares more about getting classical music heard and appreciated then she does about the profit she’s losing from giving her CD away. Seth did the same thing by asking people to give away their audio copy of his book at the end. Or guys like Shawn Wood and Anne Jackson who used their influence in the last year to get people to buy shoes, sponsor children and provide clean drinking water for people in need. By caring more about the message than the bottom line, these people inspired me to find out more about their cause and to spread the word.

I wonder. How many people could we affect if they could see that we care more about their connection than our reputation? If they understood that your chief concern as a leader was seeing their dreams soar? I loved Seth’s last line about hope. “Without it, there is no future to work for.”

Where would we be as leaders if we oozed commitment and hope? Better yet, where would our “tribes” be? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Take on the challenge
Invest in the outcome
Marry yourself to the vision
Engage the process

One tough thing about being a leader is that part of you wants to look for the easy way out. Whether that means acquiescing to those who want to refuse change or settling for the status quo. That’s much easier to do. And frankly, there are a lot of people willing to settle there.

I’m not one of those guys. I want to see people move forward and the Church grow and innovate. My prayer is that more people will be willing to spend TIME on seeing change happen.

What ways do you take the TIME to build culture where you serve and lead?

btw…my friend Chris said I should say that I just came up with that acrostic so no one would think I stole it from a book.

One of my personal practices in this area is to deflect all the praise to God and accept criticism for myself. Not to be self deprecating, but to steer people to God in the good and to walk with them through the bad. I’m finding that continually refusing to embrace praise and pushing to embrace community is one way to deepen the bonds of friendship and also build the relational capital to help steer people’s hearts past minutia to what really matters.

When it’s all over, I doubt the Lord is going to ask me how well people resonated with me personally. I feel He’s much more likely to ask how much of my life I spent steering people to the only true hope in this world.

How do you steer people closer to Jesus and deeper into community?

Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:

Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

• grace gets bigger;
• Christ gets greater;
• his death gets more wonderful;
• his resurrection gets more astonishing;
• the work of the Spirit gets mightier;
• the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;
• its global extent gets wider;
• your own sin gets uglier;
• the devil gets more evil;
• the gospel’s roots in eternity go deeper;
• its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;
• and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Pray that it won’t. Read solid books on it. Sing about it. Tell someone about it who is ignorant or unsure about it.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel…. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

I don’t know about you, but these are all the things I want to see happen in my life. How’s the Gospel becoming “bigger” to you?

What I do find is that when I’m willing to strip away everything I take security in outside of Him; God is waiting to rip down the walls and make my adventure with Him bigger. One of the ways I’m doing this is by reading the Gospels. I’ve joined with Pete Wilson on his 28 day journey through Matthew and trying to take the time to ask God what He really wants to do in my heart and life.

This process of trying to become more like Him always leads to a tug of war for my heart. Am I really willing to step away from all the things that pull me from Him? Am I really willing to die so He can live? Am I really ready to live life always preferring others? Do I really want to be like Jesus?

It’s so easy to get caught up on the theories of how to do church. The right things to say. The right songs to sing and lose focus on the ultimate right in life:

To know Jesus. In the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection.

Anyone else down for getting back to basics? How do you make sure your faith is still focused?

But, some (if not most) of the people I’m called to serve in the local church setting don’t get it.

There’s even some that don’t like it.

Think it’s a waste of time.

Not interested in connecting over facebook/email/twitter.

Folks that in my social networking world wouldn’t be “cool”.

People who are just as much in need of life change and someone to love them where they are as all my connected friends. People who need friends and go about sharing life in a totally different way than I do.

I really would love it if everyone was like me and communicated and shared life in the same way. But then again, wouldn’t that make life boring?

I’m trying to figure this out because, at the end of the day, what matters to me is seeing people connected to and embraced by a God who loves them whether they’re “plugged in” or not.

How do you connect with “offline people”? You can talk about them freely because they’ll never read this anyway.