Kenneth Olson.org

Starting 2012 Off Right

How was 2011 for you? Did it turn out as you expected? If you’re like most people, some things probably went well, other things maybe not so much.

If you walk upright and are human, the gravitational pull is to live by default rather than by design, to get sucked into making a living instead of living with meaning on purpose.

The New Year is a reminder to shake off apathy, inconsistency and the status quo, to make a decision you’re not going to stay where you are, that you’re going to go higher, to live deeper and maximize the gift of 2012.

One thing is for sure, the coming year won’t be a great year by accident or because you’re so good looking instead, because you live it on purpose! If you’re OK with what you’ve been experiencing in your life then keep doing what you’ve been doing…keep living life in the same way.

On the other hand, if you want something different and better, then you must do what you’ve never done. Recently I heard someone say that most people don’t lead their lives instead, they accept them. 

It’s so easy to fall into one of two sabotaging mindsets, the first one says, “I’ll never change” so we just accept our lot in life and try to make the best of it. The other says, “one day when all the planets are aligned and the moon is at three-quarter phase then my ship will come in and everything will work out for me”.

The truth is, both ways of thinking will handicap you and leave you limping along the road of life. I love the clarity in a statement the Apostle Paul made regarding how we should live in 1 Corinthians 9:24-26 he said, Run in such a way that you may win and then he says, I run in such a way, as not without aim. In other words, he has a definite aim and direction for his life. 

Here are five practical steps that will bring direction, passion and clarity to your life’s race and will position you for the best year ever!

1. Put Prayer First – Maybe you’ve heard it said, “all is well that ends well”. Not true, according to the Bible, “all is well that begins well.” Prayer is our means to dream and begin well (Matthew 6:33). It’s called the principle of the first. It says when you give God your first and best, God is then able to bless the rest – in every area of your life.

2. Have a Plan – Success is always intentional! You’ll never accidentally get out of debt, break an addiction, accomplish a goal or do something great. You need more than a dream or a goal; you also need a plan to daily take steps toward accomplishing your dream or goal. A goal without a plan is only half complete and a dream without a plan is just a wish. The Bible says it this way, “faith without corresponding actions is dead” (James 2:17).

3. Ruthlessly Prioritize – If you don’t prioritize and set your schedule, other things and other people will. Prioritization is the process of allocating your time. Why is that important? Because where you spend your time and focus your energy determines what you’ll accomplish and what dreams you’ll realize. In the end, all we have is time, it’s the currency of life, so invest it wisely and it will pay the dividends you desire.

4. Think Progress – Life is NOT about perfection, it’s about progress. Getting from where you are to where you want to be happens one step at a time. So don’t put off getting started. Ecclesiastes 11:4 says, He who observes the wind [and waits for all conditions to be favorable] will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap (AMP).  The victories and spoils of this life tend to go to those who start, keep moving and refuse to quit.

 

5. Persevere – Hebrews 12:1 states, let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us (AMP). Make a decision to never quit and commit to daily motivating yourself to that end. Don’t wait for someone else to motivate you, you must motivate you. In 2012 decide to not be your own worst enemy instead, start being your own best cheerleader; it will keep you strong, focused and resolute until you’re standing in your dreams!

 

Authentic Leadership

John Maxwell once made the statement, “everything rises and fall on leadership. It’s so simple, yet so true and applies to every area of life.

Leadership by its simplest definition is influence. If we’re not seeing and influencing those around us, then we’re just deceiving ourselves. A title, position or commanding communication skills do NOT equal influence. 

So what does? What gives us the right to call ourselves leaders? How do we influence?

For me, being an effective leader or influencer all begins with what you value and live, day in and day out.

1)    Value Spiritual Things – As followers of Jesus God didn’t call us to be the vine, instead, we’re to be a branch perpetually connected to the vine (Him). It’s from our consistent connection with Him that we receive courage, strength, creativity, wisdom and discernment to effectively lead.

2)    Commit To Character – Always remember your life, who you are, preaches louder than any words. Be determined to daily grow in the character and qualities of Christ. It’s who He is in and through us that has the greatest influencing potential. 

3)    Live Disciplined – If you don’t first lead yourself well, you won’t credibly lead those around you.

4)    Cultivate A Positive Attitude - people around you will either be attracted or repelled by your attitude. If you’re going to magnetize people to a common goal or vision, then your attitude better work for you, and not against you.

5)    Seek Clarity – People look to leaders for confidence and direction because they know the way. If you’re going to be in a position to lead, you must commit to learn, think, and pray to keep the vision clear and in view. If you don’t, then there’s no reason for them to follow you.

6)    Be Faithful – The temptation to quit, not follow through, not give it your all, not do the right thing is ever present. An effective leader becomes his or her own “best cheerleader”. They learn to recognize when they’re weary and flagging and take necessary steps to re-focus and re-energize themselves to full intensity and faithfulness to the vision.

Bring Into Focus

I don't know if it's a factor of age or what, but I've been in a season lately of re-thinking and redefining my life. Not only the "what", but also the "how" of my life. 

It's important to me that I be blindingly clear regarding my mission, sharply focused and undeniably effective at living and fulfilling my God-ordained mission.

So I love the quote I came across a great quote today by motivational speaker Anthony Robbins who once said One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.

The more you focus your life, the clearer you'll be regarding God's will, the more you'll enjoy life's journey and the more effective/productive you'll be.

Like focusing your camera before every shot, what area of your life do you need to frame and bring into focus?

Relevance Church Conference

I consider myself a fully committed life-time learner, so every opportunity I get to read, listen to CD's, podcasts and attend conferences, I do. I especially love to listen and learn from people who are veterans of their respective business field, ministry, leadership or life. 

So, I'm there whenever I get a chance to hear someone like Bill Hybels. He is no doubt one of the most influential leaders in the church today and leads one of the most influential churches in America. He is a compelling voice of wisdom, experience and balance to the generation that follows him.

Here are a few take home nuggets from his talk today at the Relevance Conference:

• Never get to the place where you are dangerously depleted spirit, soul and body. Do everything with your power to stay at a replenished level; it will cause you to make good decisions. Bad decisions are made in a depleted state.
• Take personal responsibility for your own replenishment levels.  
• Possess a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly strategy to replenish and re-charge yourself. John 15 - strive to live in the "abiding state"
• Know your own tell-tale signs that you are sinking into depletion (irritability, lack of laughter, see life as a grind, lack of creativity, tired....).
• Identify what inordinately depletes you. 
• Leaders clarify expectations
• The greatest leaders call something out of people, they inspire people to go beyond what they ordinarily would do without your leadership. 
• Leadership is getting the job done - moving people toward Christ-centered lives. 
• Questions a leader must ask him or herself often:  is my calling clear? is my passion hot? am I replenished? am I reading? am I meeting with the right people?am I hearing from God everyday? - that's leadership!

Random Thoughts on Being Focused

I'm convinced that everyday distractions are the greatest obstacles to fulfilling a dream, accomplishing a God-given mission or living a remarkable life. 

I've said before, we live in an age of distraction, a time when everyone including our kids suffer from the relentless barrage of information, activities, technology and culture. Much of it is good, yet it relentlessly competes for our time, energy and attention. 

It helps me to be reminded what I intentionally need to do to stay focused. Here are a few random thoughts/quotes on that issue. 

• Any person who has reach their potential in life and/or in God, has lived a focused life.  
• Don't mistake activity with productivity or accomplishment 
• It will take focus to become what God wants you to be.  
• You must become selective to be effective 
• Nothing is more potent than a focused life 
• Clear focus increases energy 
• Focused Christ-followers put God and His purposes first 
• Focused people make commitments, not excuses 
• Focused people don't meditate on difficulty, but the rewards 
• Focused people consider their strengths, not their weaknesses  

What Are You Daily Doing?

I've always been interested in the subject of human behavior, especially the things we do day after day, automated patterns of behavior or habits we all engage in. Whether you realize it or not they persistently and powerfully shape who we become and what we'll experience tomorrow.

Seth Godin, author of Permission Marketing once wrote he believes business leaders frequently look for quick fixes for their companies. He said, we need to stop shopping for lightning bolts. You don't win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training. There's no such thing as an overnight opera sensation. Great law firms or design companies don't spring up overnight...Every great company, every great brand, and every great career has been built in exactly the same way: bit by bit, step by step, little by little.

In other words, there's no "silver bullet solution". Success is not an overnight phenomena, instead it's slowly realized by what we repetitively do day in and day out. By the habit of daily praying, believing, working diligently, thinking positively, treating people right, doing the honorable thing when no one is watching, striving for excellence, and so on.

Such an important understanding to stay grounded in. It's these habitual and often unconscious behaviors that play a key role in success or failure, they literally determine where we'll be tomorrow. Whether we change or stay the same, whether we're prepared for an open door of opportunity, or remain in mediocrity? It all comes back to what repetitive thoughts, actions and behaivors you invest with every day.

Just something I'm thinking about.

How To Create Goals

Really enjoyed sharing this weekend on the power of God inspired goals. Ephesians 5:15-16 says, Live purposefully and worthily and accurately.....making the very most of the time (buying up each opportunity) (AMP) 

Creating a list of prayer-inspired goals represents the ability to live in such a way. It's power to create our future in advance. In an increasingly busy and distracting world, they remind us what's important and focus our lives on God's plan.

Here are a few steps to establishing effective goals and objectives for your life:

1) Begin with prayer - praying is seeing

2) Create goal categories - relationships, finances, physical, etc.

3) Get Ideas from others - check out this link to be inspired http://www.tedstake.com/?p=8

4) Be Specific - attached a timeframe, dollar amount, detail

5) Write down your goals - Habakuk 2:2

6) Involve others - for experience sake and accountability

7) Think big - a goal should require faith, absolute dependence of God for its fulfillment

8) Celebrate your wins along the way - enjoy and leverage your wins to build greater momentum to achieve the next goal.

Andy Stanley: Gaining & Sustaining Momentum

Here's a great post from Dave Ferguson's blog He outlined a few highpoints from a recent talk by Andy Stanley.

When we ask churches that are experiencing momentum, “Why?” they will often respond, “God is just blessing.”  Now that is a good answer, but that is not a helpful answer.  The follow-up question needs to be, “what is God blessing?”

Momentum:  Forward motion fueled by a series of wins.

What if there is a formula and commonality for momentum that God created.

3 COMPONENTS OF SUSTAINED MOMENTUM:  NEW, IMPROVED & IMPROVING

1. NEW

• New triggers momentum

• Anything new by definition, generates some kind of momentum

• The momentum can be positive or negative.

• Organizational momentum is often triggered by one of three things:

  • new leadership 

  • new direction 

  • new product

• Momentum is never triggered by tweaking something old.  It is triggered by introducing something new!

2. IMPROVED

• The new must be a noticeable improvement over the old.

• Ask, "is this a significant improvement over what we had before?"

• If you are in a situation where there is not enough money to do something new and improved, you are doing too many things.

3. IMPROVING

• Momentum is sustained through continuous improvement.

• Continuous improvement requires systematic evaluation.

• Continuous improvement requires unfiltered evaluation.

  • Evaluation must be rigorous and on-going and done by the people who helped create it.

APPLYING NEW & IMPROVED & IMPROVING

• NEW:  personnel, programming, season, series, look, venues.

• Look for ways to upgrade your presentation

• Visit other organizations

• Attend other churches

MOMENTUM STOPPERS

• Disengaged leaders

• Overactive management

• Complacency

• Complexity

• A breach of trust

A Few Things Well

As the pastor of a relatively new church, I'm always listening for God's direction regarding our next ministry step. I'm Constantly considering how we can most effectively focus our efforts to do a few things well.

Like anyone, I love lots of possiblities and options, whether it's at the ice cream shop, or solutions for solving a problem. It's easy to get caught up in information overload, become diluted and end up not doing anything or doing many things marginally well.

This is true for ministry, business or your personal life. What's important is to decide, commit and execute or follow through. To take spirit prompted and peace confirmed steps of faith that lead to a fuller experience of God's plan.

It's ok not to do everything everybody else is doing, however we should dial-in on what God is leading us to do. Few, but specific goals, objectives and dreams that can be done with passion, excellence and staying power, causing you to stand out in the marketplace, as an individual or ministry. Someone once said, If you're not remarkable, you're not memorable. 

So here are a few things we'll be focusing on at Authentic Life church in 2009: 

• Determine future development plans for existing or new facility  
• Develop and involve core leadership team
• Identify opportunities to become a more missional church
• Complete transition to our new brand and identity
• Create ways to communicate and execute our church mission
• Continue to raise our standard of ministry excellence
• Initiate small groups and youth ministry

• Implement church membership plan - help people connect and commit

Changing Culture

Recently, I was reading a blog by Phil Cooke and was inspired or maybe challenged is a better way to describe it, to think with a broader cultural context. I believe, as God's representatives, part of our mission is to present or communicate the Gospel in clear, credible, authentic ways that influence the culture and society around us. If Starbucks can completely change culture with a simple idea for a coffee shop, why can't we, with the greatest message the world will ever know?   

Here's what Phil wrote:

Brand expert Simon Williams says "Brands that influence culture sell more; culture is the new catalyst for growth."  The concept of changing culture is hot.  Look at Google - it's revolutionizing the way we work online - both personally and corporately.  There's also a rush for brands to be green and help the environment.  Those brands are getting a lot of buzz right now.  Right or wrong, the perception of impacting culture adds an important layer to your credibility.  The perception is that PC's are for bland business people, while Apple is for culture shapers and creators.  What are you doing to impact culture?  Whatever it is, you need to be talking about it.