Courage...

Politicians often declare themselves to be courageous leaders.  Saying you are courageous and being courageous are two different things.

I define courage as willingness to move toward the mess.  The courageous soldier runs toward the mess of battle; the courageous parent has the conversation with their drunk, underage son or daughter; the courageous business leader rejects profit for principle; and the courageous pastor leads a church to face the messiness of reality.

Courage is not picking an insignificant issue and making it a hill on which to die; courage keeps the main thing the main thing.  Courage is not overcoming fear; courage is moving toward your fear, recognizing a mess that must be confronted.  Courage is not following the cheers of the crowd; courage in action is often greeted with silence.

Courage means speaking the last ten percent.  How often do we stop just short of the plain truth that needs to be heard for fear of hurting people’s feelings?  Yet it is in the last ten percent that truth necessary for change emerges.

Why aren’t more people courageous?  We want people to like us, to approve of us.  To be courageous is to know disapproval will come.  If you lead, you cannot make everyone happy.  Courage means you must be dedicated to the mission.  You will incur losses, or as one leader called them, casualties. In church world, casualties are people who leave your church because they cannot accommodate the change required to fix the messiness.  If you are a leader who cares about people, it hurts to lose people you invest in and have done life with. 

Many leaders fear setting up a group who will fight and oppose them.  They believe if they appease instead of lead, these people will eventually drop their opposition.  This never happens.  Never.  When Churchill was in the darkest days of World War II, he faced opposition from members of his own party.  Churchill courageously stuck to his mission: defeat Nazi Germany in the face of internal opposition. 

Leaders face five common issues that require courage.  The first is the courage to address leaders or volunteers under them who are not performing, who are no longer effective, or who were bad hires.  Many leaders hope poor performers will improve over time.  They do not.  In my years of supervising and developing dozens of leaders, poor performers never get better on their own.  Often an employee is with an organization for years and has a constituency of his or her own.  You may need to build alliances and devise a strategy to help that person find a better setting to serve, but have the courage to move toward the messiness, not away from it.

The second common issue leaders face is to have the courage to define reality.  Many businesses and churches are in denial about their reality.  As Lyle Schaller famously said, many churches are perfectly positioned in the event time reverses and it becomes 1950 again.  I knew of one church that was frustrated by their inability to grow.  When I consulted with the pastor, I pointed out the obvious: They had a worship space for 400 and parking for 250.  Their average attendance was - you guessed it – 250.  Have the courage to define reality.

A third common issue leaders face is the courage to call for change.  Healthy organizations grow and change.  I do not run the family ranch the way my stepfather did.  In the twenty years since he ran things, the world changed.  We can’t just throw fertilizer and oil on the trees.  Now, we have to be much wiser about how to apply nutrients and sprays.  Leaders must have the courage to make the compelling case of why the organization can no longer stay where it is and must relocate to where it should be.

A fourth common issue that calls for courage is admitting your mistakes.  As Craig Groeschel says, “People would rather follow a leader who is always real, than a leader that is always right.”  Nobody gets it right all the time.  Be courageous enough to quickly own your mistakes.  Admit to your leadership you made a wrong hire.  Admit an initiative failed.  Admitting failure increases trust instead of diminishing it.

A final common issue that calls for courage is to hold to your mission, values, and vision when you are pressured to modify or abandon them.  People both inside and outside your organization will want to add to or take away from your mission.  It takes courage to face the opposition and say, “No.  We have agreed this is what we are committed to; this is what we value; this is our preferred vision of the future.”  Rick Warren said, “Never surrender your church to the whiners.”  I would modify that to say, “Never surrender your mission, values, and vision to someone else’s agenda.”

Without the courage of the leader, organizations do not thrive.  Maybe that is why God repeatedly says, “Do not be afraid and do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in me.”  Faith feeds courage.

Stupidity Versus Courage…

Google “Stupidity” and you will be rewarded with videos of people taking chances with their lives.  On a dare, people will hold a lit Roman Candle.  For a thrill, people will hang off a cliff, using only one hand.  To prove either their womanhood or their manhood, people will do stupid stunts, like chug a gallon of beer. 

Not all stupidity is recorded on video.  Stupidity can be telling your wife she looks fat in that dress.  Stupidity can be telling your boss he has no idea what he is talking about.  Stupidity can be letting your sixteen-year-old son have the keys to your truck and not giving him a time to come home.  Stupidity can be taunting an alligator who is immobile with a chunk of raw meat.

Stupidity can also be a failure to act.  More than once someone has told me, “I was so stupid to let her go.”  My unspoken pastoral response is usually, “Yep.”   You can be stupid because you see only through your own bias.  A man told me his Dad could have bought land at the beach for two dollars an acre in the 1930’s, but turned down the deal because he didn’t think it was good farm land. 

See the pattern?  Stupidity rises from responding to someone else’s agenda.  Stupidity happens when you fail to consider outcomes.  Stupidity is fed by passivity.  Ultimately, people do stupid things because their decisions are centered on themselves.

Courage, on the other hand, is less often the subject of videos.  Courage is seldom funny; maybe that’s why there are few videos of it.  Courage always begins with a cause.  It is less about proving yourself, and more about submitting yourself.  The solider who moves into the line of fire, the fireman who goes into the burning building, and the policeman who moves toward the shooter are deciding to offer their lives for the protection of others.  They all have a cause.

True courage rises out of a value, a belief.  A mother values her child, so she stays up without sleep to rock that child when he or she is sick.  A teacher values the lives of her students, so she puts herself between them and the gunman.  A pastor values the truth, so he preaches a message that may offend some people who need offending. 

To be courageous means if you lose, you know why you’ve lost and have decided it is worth it.  You run for office, knowing you probably won’t win, but knowing you will get to speak your convictions.  You turn down a business deal, knowing your company needs the money, but knowing also the deal requires you to sacrifice your integrity on the altar of profit.  Courage is not about winning; it is about being grounded.

Courage is not the absence of fear; it is being controlled by something or someone greater than fear.  You are afraid a conversation might lead to conflict; you push past the fear so you can speak a truth that needs to be known between you and another person.  You hate snakes; you realize you are the only one in the house who can get the snake out of your child’s room.  Your love propels your courage past your fear.

It is tempting to say the world needs courageous people more than ever.  I’m not sure that’s true.  What I do know is courageous people are the ones who change the world, and our world needs changing.

No wonder God says again and again, “Be strong and be of good courage.”  To follow Jesus means you will trust Jesus more than you trust your fears.  It is being controlled by the Spirit of God who will go before you and guide you.

Speak up.  Act.  Live knowing that he who is in you, is greater than he who in the world.  You can’t lose.

Braving the Wilderness:

Title:  Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone.

Author: Brene’ Brown.  Connections: University of Houston; Conference Speaker, Author of Daring Greatly. 

Summation: We all long to belong. 

Big Ideas:  The world is in spiritual crisis of dis-connection.  How to solve it: People are hard to hate close up, so move closer.  Speak truth to bullshit but be civil about it.  Hold hands with strangers.  Strong back, soft front, wild heart.

Value: Inspiration

Takeaways:

·        P. 5 – Take us with you into that story. 

·        P. 5 – Maya Angelou – “You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all.  The price is high.  The reward is great.”

·        P. 15 – “Sometimes the most dangerous thing for kids is the silence that allows them to construct their own stories – stories that almost always cast them as alone and unworthy of love and belonging.”

·        P. 25 – “I can confidently say that stories of pain and courage almost always include two things:  praying and cussing.  Sometimes at the exact same time.”  WCS:  preachers always need to remember this teaching on prayer.  It mirrors the Psalms and Job.

·        P. 33 – People want to be part of something – to experience real connection with others, but not at the cost of their authenticity, freedom or power.  WCS:  Do we think about groups in church this way?  Why not?

·        P. 37 – “True belonging is not passive.”  WCS: Words for relationship with Jesus and group life.

·        P. 38 - To brave the wilderness and stand alone in yourself requires:

o   Boundaries

o   Reliability

o   Accountability

o   Vault – a place to keep confidences

o   Integrity

o   Non-judgment

o   Generosity.

·        P. 40 – “True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”

·        P. 40 – True belonging is the paradox of being with and being alone.

·        P. 51 – The more we segment and sort ourselves into groups we identify with, the great our loneliness.

·        P. 56 – “Terrorism is time released fear.”

·        P. 59 – “Ideological bunkers protect us from everything except loneliness and disconnection.”

·        P. 68 – “Anger is a powerful catalyst but a life-sucking companion.”

·        P. 73 – “Successful dehumanizing … creates moral exclusion… Dehumanizing always starts with language, often followed by images.”  WCS: I’ve seen this in more theological debates than I care to admit.

·        P. 80 – “What is the conversation about and what is it really about?”

·        P. 83 – One of the most courageous things to say in an uncomfortable conversation is “Tell me more.”

·        P. 92-93 – A false dichotomy: If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.  WCS:  That’s why Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”

·        P. 107 – “If leaders really want people to show up, speak out, take chances and innovate, we have to create cultures where people feel safe – where their belonging is not threatened by speaking out and they are supported when they make the decision to brave the wilderness, stand along, and speak truth to bullshit.”  WCS: Does your leadership team feel safe to speak truth?

·        P. 121 – I’ve taught my kids that attending funerals is critically important and when you’re there, you show up.  You take part.  Every song.  Every prayer.

·        P. 122- In the age of YouTube, being there in person is so much more powerful.  WCS:  Why church attendance matters!

·        P. 135 – “The connection that we forge by judging and mocking others is not real connection… But the pain it causes is real pain.”

·        P. 136 – “Common enemy intimacy is counterfeit connection and the opposite of true belonging.”

·        P. 138 – “A woman in her mid-forties explained: ‘I can go to church and have the most amazing experience of spiritual connection.  I feel part of something that transcends difference.  I can also go to church and leave feeling enraged after my priest uses the homily for a platform to talk about politics and endorse candidates.  Those experiences are becoming more and more common.  At some point it won’t be worth going back.”  WCS:  PREACHERS, HAVE EARS AND LISTEN!

·        P. 144 – “It takes courage to open ourselves up to joy.”

·        P. 145 – “I can’t find a single example of courage that didn’t require vulnerability.”

·        P. 156 – “The key to joy is practicing gratitude.”

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