Tuesday at 2:00pm with Russ

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

Greetings to you!

Each week I send out a short leadership blog that's called "Tuesday at 2:00pm". The purpose of this is simply to provide a brief thought on leadership that you can read and think about in just a few minutes. I send it out every week at 2:00pm (PST) and encourage you to make an appointment with yourself to pause and think about the thing I'm writing about.

Russ...

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"The way we gather matters. Gatherings consume our days and help determine the kind of world we live in, in both our intimate and public realms. Gathering - the conscious bringing together of people for a reason - shapes the way we think, feel, and make sense of our world." Priya Parker

What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

This month, I'm going to dive into a few quotes from Priya Parker, the author of the book, The Art of Gathering. I've been talking about this book for the past few months, and I thought I'd choose a couple of her quotes on the importance of gathering together just to encourage you to explore the book more deeply.

To read past quotes & thoughts.... CLICK HERE.

I've always understood the importance of bringing people together. I've been doing that my whole life: meetings, gala's, special dinners, celebrations, outreach events, leadership teams, church, young people, teams, sports events, community groups and on and on.

Much of my job is about connecting with people.

Parkers quote above is something that is just resonating with me: "The way we gather matters."

While much of my life has been about gathering people together, I wish I could say that most of my energy went into planning these gatherings.

Sadly, as I look back at the thousands of opportunities, I realize that I didn't always put my best work into it.

I remember one time as a brand new youth pastor, I probably had been on the job for 4 weeks. I was riding my motorcycle down the road, on the way to a youth group meeting, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. For the past 3 weeks, I had given them the 3 Bible Studies I had in my pocket, I had pulled out some games, and I had basically "winged it", and now, just a month into the job I realized that I needed to plan and prepare what would happen. I was just 21 years old and I remember thinking to myself, "I'm in trouble!".

I have not idea what I did that night, and I'm pretty sure no ones life was changed because of the words I shared, whatever they were.

I regret that I had a room full of a couple of hundred young people and I didn't think it important enough to prepare something for them that would minister to them and challenge them in their faith.

Gratefully I learned the importance of a team, I learned how to plan and prepare and I learned to prioritize my time and energy to fulfill the basic purpose of my job! Oh to have those opportunities back....

As we explore these quotes and thoughts this month, I want to challenge you to think about your NEXT GATHERING. Think about the next time you're going to bring people together around a purpose, and simply ask yourself some questions that bubble up through this conversation and let's see what happens along the way.

Think about a gathering you attended that impacted you, or created a moment to remember?

DEEPER STILL:

I do remember a gathering that was significant...

As a young youth pastor couple, Gina and I were invited to join about 15 other youth pastor couples for a "Ministering Together" retreat in Santa Barbara. This was back in the '80's, but we drove up to this retreat, really not understanding what it was all about.

We had to pay $100 out of our pockets, and the rest was a gift. This was a lot of money for us then, but when we walked into the small hotel, we were greeted warmly, we met a bunch of people just like us, there was a gift basket in our room, and then we spent 3 days together with the purpose being to bring renewal, energy, excitement and hope into our marriages, into our calling to youth ministry and into our walk with Jesus. It blew us away, and what we experienced was intentionality to purpose that made a huge impact. We attended that retreat for the next few years and grew in relationship with others and looked forward to those days together. I thank Ridge and Robanne Burns for their vision, and Westmont College for their investment into our lives all those years ago.

Here are 5 reasons why we don't make Gatherings a priority:

  • We're running too fast, too hard. We have no margin to plan, prepare, think, and execute. We run from one thing to the next.

  • We think we have to do it by ourselves. We don't rely on other people, we don't invite others in, we don't allow others to use their strengths.

  • We don't have any extra money available. We think money can solve the issue, and because we don't have extra funds, we don't do anything special.

  • We count on obligation rather than expectation. People are often required to attend a meeting/gathering, so why put the extra effort in. They have to be here.

  • We think we're really good at meetings/gatherings so we don't do more. The reality is we might not be as good as we think we are!

We'll explore this more in the coming weeks, but if you have a story about a GREAT GATHERING your experienced or a DISASTER GATHERING you experienced, either as the leader or a participant, please share that with me.

What elements of a gathering are most important for you? What are the basic things that bring value to you?

 

Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:

Source: www.leadermundial.org