Posts tagged live
WHY AND HOW YOUR CHURCH CAN AVOID BEING AN INSTITUTION

It’s usually sad when a person is institutionalized.

When your aging grandmother becomes too confused to take care of herself, her children institutionalize her.

When your elderly uncle becomes too weak to live alone, your cousins institutionalize him.

When a child with a physical or mental disability can’t function in normal society, he or she is institutionalized to keep them safe and help them survive.

Institutionalization is about protection, not propagation; guarding, not going; building a defense, not mounting an offense.

It’s often necessary for the weak—or the wayward; we institutionalize criminals, too. But when thriving enterprises become institutionalized, it’s never a positive sign of strength.

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WHAT IF YOUR SCARS COULD BRING HEALING?

A local radio DJ recovering from brain surgery spoke this week about a man he met in a store where he and his wife were shopping. “Look,” she said. “That guy has a head scar just like yours. Go talk to him.” The DJ discovered this stranger had undergone the same surgery as he had—by the same doctor in the same hospital. They had an immediate bond, and it started with their scars.

This is an extreme example, but it isn’t all that unusual. Get a group of men together, and they’re often showing off their scars. Each one is proof of their bravery or bravado: a cut hand, a bruised forehead, a gash on the leg. Sometimes the guys will just admit a clumsy fall or a foolish risk. The group gets a good laugh, and the bond between them grows stronger. Women, too, will compare the scars from their Caesarean sections or other surgeries, even if they don’t show them off. Describing their common scars brings them closer to each other.

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THREE WAYS TO DESTROY YOUR LEADERSHIP

If you’re interested in improving your leadership, there’s no shortage of resources to help. Most leaders have a shelf of such books, and many have spent good money attending seminars or classes that tell how to be a better leader.

But today I want to take a different angle. Recent public leadership failures have led me to think about how to DESTROY your leadership. Let me highlight just three of the many ways this can happen

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