Leaders have the opportunity to mentor future generations of leaders. This is such an important priority for pastors and spiritual leaders. Yet many abdicate this responsibility. Instead, they torment young, emerging leaders.
Sometimes I procrastinate. I postpone doing things that I know I need to do. And then I do something else. Perhaps you do this too.
While I’ve always been as old as the Ford Mustang (both were born in 1965), it seems significant that we have both been around for 5 decades. Personally, I cannot say that I feel “50”, however, since I’ve never felt this “age” before, I’m not sure I know what it actually feels like.
As I have reflected on this milestone, I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about my dad. When he died, I was 17 years old. By now, I’ve lived more of my life without my dad physically present in my life than I lived having him around.
At that point I started running and radically changed my diet. I dropped nearly 50 pounds and my wife told me I needed to stop losing weight and start gaining muscle. This idea was met with fear. My distant memories of the weight room in high school were filled with feeling small and being intimidated by others. Inside I felt like such a weakling.
Today my niece Ali Austin married Erik Schlagel in Farmington, New Mexico. It was a great privilege for me to be here with my daughter to celebrate! Ali is the first of all my nieces or nephews to get married.
Today as I was driving from Yakima to Bellevue my car reached a milestone. My 2000 Ford Explorer has now traveled over 200,000 miles. I’ve actually been anticipating this for several months. I’ve been curious to know when it would happen and if I would actually be the one driving at the time! I didn’t want to miss it. 200,000 miles seems like quite a distance traveled.
This past summer my wife and I had the opportunity to be in Washington, DC for the weekend remembrance of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 – fifty years ago.
If you want to see the intentional development of leaders within your ministry or organization, leadership development has to start with you!
If you are going to successfully plan for the future, there are three things you need to know.
Where you are now (here)
Where you are going (there)
How to get there from here
It’s my aim to blog for another 404 days in a row – although I’m prepared to schedule some of my posts in advance. It’s time to stop posting in the dark after midnight. It’s time to start falling asleep when we turn out the lights.
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