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The Global Leadership Summit: Beginning Now

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The Global Leadership Summit is today and tomorrow. For those who aren’t familiar with it, here’s a brief description:

The Global Leadership Summit is a two-day, world-class leadership event experienced by more than 170,000 leaders around the world, representing 14,000 churches. This event is crafted to infuse vision, skill development and inspiration for the sake of the local church.

Speakers this year include Susan Cain (author of the great book The Power of Introverts), Jeffrey Immelt (president and CEO of GE), Patrick Lencioni, Carly Fiorina, Louie Giglio, Bill Hybels, and more.

This is the Summit’s twentieth year — a great milestone. I’m excited for the Summit every year because Bill Hybels and the Summit leaders actually understand leadership. Their thinking is in line with the best contemporary research and studies on leadership, and the Scriptures. This is, unfortunately, sometimes a rare thing in the church today.

So, it would be worth your while to follow along with the Summit online these next two days. Here are three chief ways to follow the Summit:

  1. The Summit Facebook page
  2. The WCA blog
  3. WCA on Twitter

Through those avenues you’ll also find links throughout the day to posts by some of the blogging team for the Summit, which are always a highlight.

I’ll also try to post a few thoughts or quotes if I can.

 

Is it Really the Case that People Don't Value that Which is Free?

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When I was at Desiring God and we were implementing the vision of posting everything online for free, this was a common objection.

I think the people who make this objection are very smart. Further, they have some good evidence for their thinking. For example, who hasn’t returned home from a conference with a huge pile of free books that they are not interested in and might actually just throw away? Or who doesn’t get annoyed by marketers trying to stick them with “free” stuff as they walk by.

And I have to say that one of the most annoying things to me is websites that try to promote their newsletter or other stuff by putting FREE in all caps, as if we are dogs programmed to salivate at any idea of “free” and as if we don’t have enough to do already. My question whenever I see that is always “who cares if it’s free; will it actually add value to my life?” Much of what is “free” actually takes value away from you by taking your time and creating hassle.

In other words, “free” is often a value vampire.

Of course, though, the problem here is that in these cases, we really aren’t dealing with free at all. We are dealing with low-value stuff that imposes a cost on us — the cost of time and hassle, all in the service of the marketers aims, not the recipient’s aims. By definition, that is not free. That’s called taking. It’s taking in the guise of “FREE.”

Back to something like abundantly free online sermons (like at Desiring God) or even the case of free books. The fact is, sometimes we do value free stuff — and sometimes we don’t.

You can’t just make a blanket statement that people don’t value free stuff, or that they do. Experience constantly contradicts this.

For example, think of your favorite TV show (if you have one). If it’s on one of the major networks, it is free to you. Does that make you value it less? For years my favorite show was Lost, and I didn’t value it less because of the fact that I didn’t have to pay to watch it. Likewise, just because I do pay for an episode of something now on iTunes doesn’t mean I am going to value it more. I value it based on how much I like it, not based on how much it cost me.

The biggest factor here of all, though, is the issue of salvation. Salvation is fully free (Romans 6:23). Does that make us value it less?

Of course, based on the behavior of some Christians, some people might actually argue that the answer is yes! But we know that can’t really be the case, for God would not set things up such that the way he grants the right to heaven is intrinsically flawed so as to make us devalue it.

I think the answer is this. People value free things when those free things meet immense needs or enable them to invest in things that matter. 

In the case of free online sermons, if a person simply has a consumer mentality, they might not be valuing those free sermons the way they should. But the free sermons aren’t there for such people. The sermons are there for the people who want to take what they learn from those sermons and invest it into their lives and into other people. 

Note that in these cases, the person is actually doing a lot of work. But the work is not to earn the right to the free items (in this case, sermons), but in learning from them, applying them, and living them out. That is very demanding, and causes people to value the sermons very much. (I’ve spoken to pastor after pastor, for example, that has remarked on how they use the sermons in their research as they are preparing for their own sermons.)

And that’s why making something free does not necessarily diminish its value. Sometimes, it actually enhances its value by enabling the person to focus on the real purpose of that which is free — namely, putting it to use.

Why distract people from that purpose by putting up additional barriers?

The Goal is Not to Show How Bright You Are By Shooting Holes in Ideas

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Anyone can do that.

Right?

Jim Collins nails the problems with this in his excellent book Beyond Entrepreneurship:

Most of us have been trained to do just the opposite [of acting on good ideas rather than spending hours deliberating on all the reasons they can’t work]. We’re well schooled in criticism, having learned that the way to show how smart we are is to cite all the reasons that something is a stupid idea or doomed to failure.

We’ve noticed many new MBAs, for example, are adept at finding all the flaws in a business idea, but they’re much less practiced at coming up with ways to make the idea work.

Many times we’ve stood facing a self-satisfied person who has just done a marvelous job of demolishing a new product idea during a discussion. Then we ask, “Yes, we know it’s an imperfect idea. But then no idea is perfect. So, now how do you intend to make this idea successful in spite of its flaws?”

Some people rise brilliantly to the challenge when they realize that the goal is no longer to show how bright they are by shooting holes in ideas.

But, alas, others do not. They’ve been trained too well in the ethos of criticism, and to build a great company, they’ll have to overcome this negative training.

How Should We Respond to Ann Coulter's Insensitive Article on the Ebola Doctor?

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In response to Ann Coulter’s article on the ebola doctor, “Ebola doc’s condition downgraded to idiotic,” one person on Facebook said “If you remain a fan of Ann Coulter after reading this, you are as pathetic as she is.”

I understand his strong reaction, and disagree very much with her article, but the fact that she was willing to state her views so clearly serves one vital purpose: it forces us to think hard about what the Scriptures teach and helps us refine our understanding of the truth.

Coulter argues that those who go off to the developing world to serve Christ forget “that the first rule of life on a riverbank is that any good that one attempts downstream is quickly overtaken by what happens upstream.” Hence, “if Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia.”

Further, “your country is like your family. We’re supposed to take care of our own first….Right there in Texas, near where Dr. Brantly left his wife and children to fly to Liberia and get Ebola, is one of the poorest counties in the nation, Zavala County — where he wouldn’t have risked making his wife a widow and his children fatherless.”

I think the best summary of Coulter’s point was made by a person on Facebook, who wrote: “Our neighbors start with those closest to us.”

Is that true?

Do Our Neighbors Really Start with those Closest to Us?

On the face of it, to say that our neighbors start with those closest to us sounds like common sense. But the surprise of the gospel is that in some sense Jesus was very much committed to countering that very notion in his teaching.

For example, Jesus himself left heaven and came to earth to save us. We were by no means his closest neighbors. We weren’t even in the same universe. Yet he came anyway. That is one of the things that makes the gospel so glorious. He didn’t have to come get us, yet he did.

Likewise, Jesus tells the parable of the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine (his closest neighbors) to go after the one (Luke 15:1-7). That is a risky thing to do! It is not at all about loving those closest more than those far away; if anything, those closest are actually put at risk.

And the parable of the Good Samaritan is about loving our enemies — whom most people at the time didn’t even regard as their neighbors at all. Though the issue wasn’t physical proximity, in Jesus’ day the common thinking was that people were decidedly not to love their enemies. That’s simply another form of the notion that our neighbors start with those closest to us — though with “closest” defined in relational terms rather than in terms of physical proximity. 

At the same time, the rich man in Luke 16 was condemned for failing to love the poor man who was right at his gate — not halfway around the world. And in one sense the Good Samaritan was indeed loving his closest neighbor after all, because he was serving a dying man he had come across right in front of him in the road.

How does this fit together?

Though it’s tough to figure out, I’d suggest something like this. When we encounter a need right in front of us, we are to meet it. In that sense, we are indeed to serve those closest first. But when it comes to meeting long-term needs (including relief of the poor in Africa), we are not commanded to always start with those most physically nearby. The issue becomes one of calling and gifting — where one can serve best — and making sure we don’t let the needs nearby become an excuse to keep us from meeting the sometimes much more challenging needs far away.

If the ebola doctor had passed by a man bleeding on the road on the way to serve in Africa, that indeed would have been a bad thing. But when faced with two large fields of great need (America and Liberia), it is right and appropriate to choose the one farther away.

Further, in relation to Coulter’s point that it would have had more impact for Dr. Brantly to serve people in America (and been less risky), the above passages show us that it is right to do this even if the people farther away are less influential and more risky to reach.

Which raises another issue, best summarized by a Facebook commenter as well: “If he went to Africa to try and help the sick, only to get sick himself, it does seem a little pointless.”

In other words, is what Dr. Brantly did pointless?

We’ve already seen that that can’t be true, based on the emphasis Jesus places on helping those who are indeed far away and even taking risks to do so. To this we could also add his insistence that we serve “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40).

But why wasn’t it wasteful for Dr. Brantly to go to Africa, only to catch ebola and have to be brought back at great expense?

Here’s another way to ask the question: Why does God commend taking risks to serve “the least of these”? And why does he commend that even when the whole attempt ends up costing way more than any results that we see?

Why does God operate this way?

I think the answer is: grace. God is a God of grace, and since grace is unmerited favor, it by definition cannot be clearly seen if the primary focus is on helping those who seem most influential. For then it looks like there are conditions — namely, how influential you are. To show manifestly and decisively that grace is grace — that is, without conditions of merit or influence or ability — God serves (and commands us to serve) those who seemingly have nothing to offer, even at great risk.

This, in turn, allows us to see those with seeming influence (in Coulter’s example, Hollywood power-brokers) in the right light as well — namely, as those who in fact do not have anything to offer of their own either, but rather who are just as dependent on God as those visibly in great need and without influence.

So God isn’t creating an us vs. them scenario where people of influence don’t matter but those of no influence do, or where people next door don’t matter but those 8,000 miles away do. Rather, he is doing exactly what it takes to make it clear that we are all equally and fully dependent on grace. 

That’s why we read “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:28-29).

Coulter’s Real Problem

In sum, the problem is not first of all Coulter’s pragmatic argument that helping influential people here in the U.S. is better because it will be more effective (as insensitive as that is).

The problem is that she is failing to recognize that when people like Dr. Brantly go help those who have nothing to offer in far away lands, it helps those of us in America as well. For it helps us see that we are all equally dependent on God’s grace. That’s the message America needs. It’s the message we all need to grasp to the core of our being, and something that can’t happen if we avoid helping the sick worldwide.

In this sense, then, Dr. Brantly’s going to Liberia is indeed far more influential for God’s kingdom than had he focused on helping turn Hollywood power-brokers to God. For it shows that God is not dependent on such power-brokers, and that those with influence in the world are not in any special category before him.

That’s the message of grace, it’s the message we all need to hear, and it’s exactly what Dr. Brantly has demonstrated in his life.

 

Distinguish Skeptics from Cynics

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This is so, so important. I don’t think there is any place for cynics on a high performing team (or in theology, to make what may seem to be an unlikely connection but which matters a lot). But there can be a place for skeptics.

The difference is that skeptics are genuine, and thus convincible. Scott Belsky, in Making Ideas Happen:

As you cultivate your team’s immune system, you will want to differentiate between skeptics and cynics. Cynics cling to their doubts and are often unwilling to move away from their convictions. By contrast, skeptics are willing to embrace something new — they are just wary and critical at first.

To expand on this a bit: the problem with the cynic is not that they will not move away from their convictions per se. People should not move away from convictions that are true. The problem with the cynic is that their convictions are false, because they stem from a false view of reality. A cynic is not guided by principles, but by themselves. They are “wise in their own eyes,” and that’s the reason they will not move away from their “convictions.”

A person whose convictions, on the other hand, are based on correct principles is something else altogether. Namely, a leader.

What's Best Next vs. The Four-Hour Workweek: My Interview at the Gospel Coalition

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In my interview today at The Gospel Coalition with Bethany Jenkins on What’s Best Next, I talk about why I wrote the book and how it ties in to productivity books like Getting Things Done and Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Workweek, as well as how it seeks to take books like John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life or David Platt’s Radical a step further.

This is something that is absolutely foundational to why I wrote the book and how I conceive of it, but which I haven’t talked about much in other interviews on the book.

Here’s an excerpt:

Why did you write this book?

[One of my chief reasons] is that I want to reshape the way we think about productivity altogether. Years ago I read Tim Ferriss’ very helpful book The 4-Hour Workweek. His book gives some of the best productivity tips of recent years, but he puts them toward the wrong purpose: minimizing the time you spend working so you can join the “new rich” and live however you want. (Its subtitle is: “Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich”.)

So I said to myself, “What if, instead of putting productivity within the context of joining the new rich, we put productivity within the context of fulfilling God’s vision for our lives?” That is a much more exciting thing, in my view, than joining the new rich and being able to do whatever you want. That’s why the first few sections of the book are about God’s vision for our lives and why we should care about productivity at all. I seek to show both what that vision is and that it is the most exciting and interesting way to live.

What do you mean by God’s vision for our lives?

God’s vision for our lives is that we glorify him by doing good for others radically, creatively, and abundantly. That’s simply the second greatest commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We love ourselves creatively and abundantly and, therefore, we are to love others creatively and abundantly as well. The energy and initiative that we put into advancing our own welfare we are to also put into advancing the welfare of others. We are to see our entire lives as avenues for doing good.

You don’t have to run to the hills or escape 9-5 to have a meaningful life. You can have the highest possible significance in your work right now — whatever you are doing — if you do it for the good of others and glory of God.

….

Read the whole thing.

 

 

How to Get Things Done in a Gospel-Driven Way: What's Best Next in 500 Words

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At the end of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done, I give a summary of the book in 500 words so that people can easily take away the core concept and a few key practices (and share them with others).

Here it is:

Gospel-Driven Productivity in a Nutshell

We need to look to God to define for us what productivity is, not simply the ambiguous concept of “what matters most.” For God is what matters most.

When we do this, we don’t enter a realm of spiritual weirdness, as we might fear. Good secular thinking remains relevant as a gift of God’s common grace. Neither do we enter a realm of over-spiritualization where the things we do every day don’t matter.

Instead, the things we do every day take on even greater significance because they are avenues through which we serve God and others. In fact, the gospel teaches us that the good of others is to be the main motive in all that we do and the chief criteria by which we determine “what’s best next.” This is not only right, but also the best way to be productive, as the best business thinkers are showing. More importantly, when we do this in God’s power and as an offering to him, he is glorified and shown to be great in the world.

In order to be most effective in this way in our current era of massive overload yet incredible opportunity, we need to do four things to stay on track and lead and manage our lives effectively:

  1. Define
  2. Architect
  3. Reduce
  4. Execute

The result of this is not only our own increased peace of mind and ability to get things done, but also the transformation of the world by the gospel because it is precisely in our everyday vocations that we take our faith into the world and the light of the gospel shines—both in what we say and in what we do (Matthew 5:16).

If You Only take 5 Productivity Practices Away from This Book

Learning and especially implementing productivity practices can be hard. It is easy to forget what we learned or forget how to apply it. One remedy is to keep coming back to this book (of course!). But to make this as simple as possible, if you can only take away 5 things from this book, they should be these:

  1. Foundation: Look to God, in Jesus Christ, for your purpose, security, and guidance in all of life.
  2. Purpose: Give your whole self to God (Romans 12:1-2), and then live for the good of others to his glory to show that he is great in the world.
  3. Guiding Principle: Love your neighbor as yourself. Treat others the way you want them to treat you. Be proactive in this and even make plans to do good.
  4. Core Strategy: Know what’s most important and put it first.
  5. Core Tactic: Plan your week, every week! Then, as things come up throughout the day, ask “is this what’s best next?” Then, either do that right away or, if you can’t, slot it in to your calendar or action list that you are confident you will refer back to at the right time.

PovertyCure App Now Available

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PovertyCure now as an app that makes their content easily available for your iPhone.

I love PovertyCure’s vision because they actually understand how to overcome poverty. It can be done — as long as we understand the correct principles (which most initiative so far haven’t). So I highly recommend checking out their site as well as their app.

Here’s their vision:

PovertyCure is an international coalition of over 250 partner organizations and 1 million individuals spanning 143 countries and counting. We produce films and educational resources advancing partnership-based solutions to poverty that challenge the status quo and champion the creative potential of the human person.

In our efforts to combat poverty worldwide, we too often fall into paternalistic, donor-recipient models that fail to distinguish short-term relief and long-term sustainable development. Oftentimes this approach can have tragic unintended consequences. Our call to solidarity with the poor means more than providing institutional assistance and aid. It demands a deeper view of the human person predicated on an appreciation for the creative capacity of each and every human person. Effective compassion situates those afflicted by poverty not as objects of our charity, but as subjects and protagonists of their own integral development. When we understand people as made in the image of God and endowed with his divine creative spark, it changes absolutely everything about how we understand poverty and development.

It’s time to shift our focus from aid to enterprise, from paternalism to partnerships, from poverty alleviation to real human flourishing.