Chuck Swindoll's Ten Lifetime Leadership Lessons

Chuck Swindoll, one of my heroes, was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at Catalyst recently. He brought a great message. He offered the following lessons he has learned from a lifetime of ministry (nearly 50 years). Every minister should learn from this man's life:

1. It’s lonely to lead. Leadership involves tough decisions. The tougher the decision, the lonelier it is.
2. It’s dangerous to succeed. I’m most concerned for those who aren’t even 30 and are very gifted and successful. Sometimes God uses someone right out of youth, but usually he uses leaders who have been crushed. (this is a word that got my attention...)
3. It’s hardest at home. No one ever told me this in Seminary.
4. It’s essential to be real. If there’s one realm where phoniness is common, it’s among leaders. Stay real.
5. It’s painful to obey. The Lord will direct you to do some things that won’t be your choice. Invariably you will give up what you want to do for the cross.
6. Brokenness and failure are necessary. (helps to explain the word crush!)
7. Attitude is more important than actions. Your family may not have told you: some of you are hard to be around. A bad attitude overshadows good actions.
8. Integrity eclipses image. Today we highlight image. But it’s what you’re doing behind the scenes that matters.
9. God’s way is better than my way.
10. Christlikeness begins and ends with humility.

Thanks Chuck Swindoll for ministering to me over the years!

Sunday Reflections

What a great spirit in worship on Sunday. Thanks for singing with your heart to our Lord.

I am so proud of you, Gateway, for your response to the challenge to sponsor a child through Compassion International. Compassion said the normal response is 3 to 5% of those who are in attendance will sponsor a child. We had one of the highest responses ever -- over 15%! That does not include those who were already sponsoring a child or those of you who sponsored a child online. It also doesn’t count the many of you who signed up yesterday to sponsor a child. You did awesome. Your generosity will make a difference in the lives of so many children. Thank you!

• Remember our Harvest Festival this Friday night. It’s a great time to invite a friend and neighbor. The kids are going to love it... even the adults love it.
• Thanks for praying for me this past week while I was on my spiritual retreat. I will share more with you in the near future about my time alone with God. But let me share for the moment that He has me very excited about His plans for Gateway. I believe we are going to see a fresh pouring out of His Spirit in our fellowship... so let's get ready for all the He has for us! Let's decide that we want to see those far from Christ to come to know Him as Lord and Savior!
• This Sunday we began a four Sunday series on Worship. Our worship team has been working diligently on this series. Jeremy Kingsley will lead in our first message. I always look forward to hearing Jeremy.
• Come with your hearts expectant on Sunday. I look forward to seeing you!

My Big Adventure – Learning the difference between Facts, Faith & Feelings

I’m a firm believer that every twelfth-grade guy needs a big adventure before he heads off to college. That’s why each spring I take some of Gateway’s twelfth-grade guys on a big adventure. This year we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cedar Point Amusement Park and the Dayton Airshow. The preceding years I have taken them to NYC to visit our church plant and tour the city. It’s always a great adventure!

Now imagine this. You are in the 12th grade, you are 17 years-old, and you get this crazy idea that to a teenager seems perfectly rational. You ask your mom and step-father if you can rent a plane so that you and your three best friends can fly from High Point, NC to Washington DC to “hang out.”

Now imagine that not only did your mom say yes, but the parents of your three best friends said yes. That means eight rational, sober, non-drug users, had a good nights sleep adults, made a conscience decision to let their four sons crawl into a four-seat Cessna 172 airplane and fly to the Nation’s Capital with a 17 year-old pilot who has had his license for only 5 months!

You are probably thinking – “Not in this life time!” Most parents wouldn’t even let their sons drive on such a trip.

Well, that was me back in 1971. I’m on the far left; then Doug, Jimmy and Mike.

The photo was taken early on the morning of December 29th, 1971. After doing the preflight of the plane, fuel check, weather check, filed the flight plan, we crawled into the plane. Before I started the engine, we had a prayer for a safe flight. I always did that. On this particular day, it was a really good thing that I had prayed.

So we were heading to our big adventure in DC. All the check points were exactly where they were supposed to be. It was a beautiful day with unlimited visibility. Little did I know that the big adventure would begin before we reached DC.

One of the guys asked, “So how are we getting from the airport to downtown DC?” “I have no idea, but something will work out.” was my confident response. There was a quiet moment in the plane. “So where are we spending the night?” “Well, I think we can stay with this girl I met last year at a flying event. I wrote her about us coming to Washington.” It got quiet again.

After convincing my friends that they can trust me, it suddenly hit me, I’m not really sure where I am! This was long before GPS. One of the guys asked “How much longer? I need to go to the bathroom.” After a really long pause, I finally said, “I’m not sure. I have to figure out where we are.” It was dead quiet.

This is when the lesson began in learning the difference between faith in facts or faith in feelings. A pilot has to trust his instruments, not his feelings, especially if you get disoriented. Your feelings can tell you one thing, while the plane is doing something completely different. The air had been very rough and I was attempting to find a smoother altitude for the guys. I was soon flying by feelings, not facts. I was focused on the rough air and not my navigational instruments. I was putting my trust in what I thought was the right course instead of keeping a trusting eye on the instrument panel.

For the safety of my three friends, I had to set aside my ego. I began looking for a place to land in order to get my bearings. How embarrassing! I noticed some pasture land that looked like it had a dirt air strip running in the middle. That was good enough for me. I had learned to fly at a very small airport, so landing on a small, short dirt field was second nature to me.

I checked for other airplane traffic and headed in for a landing, no sweat. There were also no buildings, no phones, no nothing. My three friends bailed out one side of the plane and went straight for a line of trees to answer the call of Mother Nature.

As I got out of the plane, I saw a guy in his car at the end of the field. I walked over to him and with all the confidence I could muster I asked, “Do you know which way Washington is?” Without judging, or at least not to my face, he said, “let me get my road map.” We studied the road map on the hood of his car along side of my flight map. “I see where I made a mistake. I know where I am now. Thanks!” With the four of us back in the plane and all of the cows off the runway, we took to the air with new confidence. We were only 20 minutes away from the airport I was looking for. Potomac Airfield (PG Airpark back then) was just southwest of Andrews Air Force Base and directly south of Washington.

I can only imagine the conversation that man had with his wife at dinner that night! I gave him something to talk about for the rest of his life. “Did I tell you about the time these four teenagers flying an airplane landed in a field and asked me how to get to DC?”

Twenty minutes later, we landed at Potomac Airfield. Okay, I found the airport, now I need to find a ride for the four of us. As I walked into the airport lounge, standing right in front of me was Mike Brooks. We both immediately recognized each other. Mike was my age and we had met a year ago at a flying event. He lived in the area and was hanging out at the airport. We talked for a moment. I asked him, “How far is it to downtown?” “About 20 or 30 minutes,” he said. So I made a deal with him. “I will take you up and let you fly my plane if you drive us to DC.” Done deal.

We ran around DC seeing the sights. It was awesome. We laughed and enjoyed every moment. Later that day I called my other friend – which I had met only once. She had already made arrangements for housing and was coming to pick us up near the Washington Monument. She had also made plans to get a group of her friends together, and they had a party for us! Way cool.

After the party we headed to another friend’s house to spend the night. Now get this, the only available bed for us was a king-size water bed. Image 4 teenage guys on a king-size water bed (or maybe you don’t want to imagine that). We laughed all night long.

We woke up early the next morning with bad news on the weather. There would be some strong winds and storms hitting the east coast, so we would have an even rougher ride home. No sweat.

Another recently made friend drove us back to the airport. We jumped into the plane and soon we were heading home.

The winds were tough. One of the guys was watching the interstate below us. He said, “Don, I think the cars are passing us.” “No way,” I said. But he was right. I called the weather station on my radio and discovered that we were flying into 50 knot headwind, but it was smooth air. So if you are flying 120 and heading into a headwind of 50, your ground speed is 70… so cars were passing us!

On the return trip home, I trusted my flight instruments completely. I set aside all my feelings. I made course corrections for crosswinds. After avoiding much of the thunderstorms, we landed safely at Midway Airport in High Point, NC. When the wheels touched the runway, we all began singing Handle’s Hallelujah chorus… awesome trip!

Everyday you have a choice. You can put your faith in the facts of God’s Word or you can put your faith in your feelings. Your feelings can be deceptive because of your ever-changing circumstances. Your feelings can be unreliable. Your feelings can contradict the truth of God’s Word. But your feelings do not negate the truth of God’s Word. Choose to put your FAITH in the FACTS of God’s Word. You will find that your FEELINGS will eventually catch up.

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path. Psalm 119:105

JESUS: “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.” John 14:21

Sunday’s Reflections – ReThink Compassion

Awesome day of worship.

• Cory and Judd do an excellent job in leading us into the presence of God each week.
• The choir blessed us today.
• Reggie Boan challenged us with his testimony of his personal involvement with Compassion International.

Of the 6.7 billion people that live on this planet:

1. 1.1 billion have little or no access to water
2. 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation
3. 1 billion people use 80% of the world’s resources
4. The USA accounts for 4.6% of the world’s population and we consume 33% of the world’s resources.
5. There are 2.2 billion children in the world
6. 1 billion children lives in poverty
7. 25,000 children die each day due to poverty

I challenged you to make a difference by considering:

1. Sponsoring a child through Compassion International – we will have packets next Sunday.
2. Become a Foster Parent – there are 443 foster children in Lexington and Richland Counties with only 207 foster homes to serve them.
3. Adopt a child in the United States or Internationally.
4. There are 143 million children that need to be adopted world-wide
5. There are 100,000 children in the United States waiting to be adopted.
   
   Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27 (NLT)

My First Leadership Lesson

In 1971, I was elected president of our service club in high school – the Junior Jaycees. We had formed the club a year earlier when I was a junior. Like most schools, “service club” was code for “party club.” The only service projects actually being done was cleaning up after the parties!

There was a gang of us in high school who did not drink plus we actually wanted to do service projects. So we formed a new club with a major rule. You could not use alcohol or drugs – at any time or at any place. Students responded.

Service clubs were limited to 50 students. We quickly had 50 students. Also, we were the only club that had a long waiting list of students who wanted in. Our club was soon the “cool” group to be part of. Athletes, preppies, band members, smart students… we attracted all kinds. We even accepted some of the nerds! (I think that is how I got in.) The teachers and school administration respected us and appreciated our stance.

Our nickname was the wombats. Why? I have no idea. A wombat is a small Australian bear that we assumed was vicious… but I don’t think so. I saw one while in Australia a few years ago – not too impressed.

There were times we had to confront guys in our group… we even had to remove a few. But for the most part, all the guys enjoyed the accountability and appreciated being a part of a safe group of guys.

There was one thing that did make us like all the other clubs, we had initiation week. We would choose our allotted students… then we would… well, let’s just say that we made sure they earned the right to be a part of our group. The last night of initiation week was on Friday. There were various names for this night… none that I can share. We were out most of the night. It was usually more talk than action. We would cover the guys in a bunch of yucky, smelly, homemade stuff… make them do stupid things… made them do things for us… but other than that it was pretty mild. We soon got bored of the pranks and just sat around a fire-pit and laughed.

The night was over and we headed home. As I pulled up to my house (remember this was long before cell phones) my mother was waiting at the door. She said, “One of your guys is hurt and is at the hospital. You need to get over there.” I could tell she was worried.

As I arrived at the ER I saw a dad that I knew. He came up to me and asked what happened. I said, “I’m totally in the dark, but I will find out.” He told me that his son had 3rd degree burns on his back. My heart sunk and my mind raced.

I talked to some of the guys who were in the waiting room. They told me that a few of our guys had taken three of the pledges to the lake. They decided to have their own little initiation separate from the rest of the group. They poured some really smelly, homemade concoction on the students and then had them get into the lake to wash off. When one of the students hit the water, he began to scream. “My back is burning! My back is burning!!”

They rushed him to the hospital. The physician found that he had 3rd degree burns about the size of a grapefruit on his back. It was not good. He would later have plastic surgery and a skin graft to repair the area.

The dad said, “Don, I don’t blame you because you were not there.” I said, “But I am responsible because I am the leader of the group. I will find out who did this and what they did.”

I got our guys together who were at the scene. I asked them what happen. Everyone told the same story. It seemed that one of the guys brought some stuff from home, he poured it on this one particular pledge. We later found out that he didn’t like the pledge and had singled him out. “Do you know what you put into it?” I asked. “No.” he said. “Well let’s go to your house and you show me.” When we went to his house, he began pulling out all this stuff he had put together… then he pulled out one container that I couldn’t believe. “This is Drano! You put this in?” “Yes,” he said. I could not believe it! I don’t remember all the names I called him, but somewhere in that process I said, “Don’t you know that Drano is activated with water?” The original Drano was made up of small crystals. You would put the crystals into a clogged drain then add water to active the solution. The smell was horrible. When the pledge got into the lake, the water activated the Drano and began burning him. The more he washed it off, the more it burned.

An ill-conceived, stupid, practical joke gone very bad. No charges were brought by the parents. They were very forgiving towards the club and me. They realized it was a single student who perpetrated the attack on their son. The conversation that would take place would be between the two sets of parents.

But our High School principal was a different story. He held me responsible and pulled the charter of our club for a year. I could appreciate his position, but I did try to convince him he should not punish an entire group because of one individual. In reality he was probably trying to avoid a lawsuit. He did the right thing in order to protect the school.

Funny thing though… we were stubborn. We decided to continue as a club just not at school and not school sponsored. The principal agreed that he could not stop us. We continued to do community projects. That next spring, the unofficial Junior Jaycees Wombats received the “Service Club of the Year” award by the High School Student Council.

Just a few years ago, I got a phone call. It was the guy who had been burned. He kept up with me over the years through mutual friends. He was in Columbia on business and wanted to visit. We had a great time together. We laughed about High School. We talked about our friends. We talked about his faith. And we talked about that fateful initiation night. He had made a decision to let it motivate him, not defeat him. “Let me see your scar,” I said. He didn’t hesitate. He pulled up his shirt and there it was. It was still the size of a grapefruit. He had more plastic surgery procedures, but it would always be a big, ugly scar.

Funny ending… he works as a fire prevention consultant! And he loves his job. I laugh every time I think about it.

So what did I learn? I learned that when you are the leader… you are responsible. I feel this even more as pastor of Gateway. I know that one day I will stand before a Holy God and give an account of my role as leader of this wonderful church. That’s why I must make sure we are asking ourselves the right question… are we fulfilling God’s purpose and plans for Gateway? In the end, that is all that matters.