Leading A Cultural Shift

Shifting the culture of anything, anybody, any church, any university, any organization, and/or any business can often be a difficult venture. How much culture has to play within all persons and entities both large and small gives us the reason for this being the case. Experts say that culture runs around 90% of what is done within a church, university, organization, and business. 90%! “What about managers, leaders, CEOs, and such?”, you might be wondering. The remaining 10% is given to the leaders of an entity to run things. I know what my fellow leaders out there are thinking, “Nope, you are wrong. You need to rework those numbers as I am doing much more leading than 10% of the time.” This can be a shocker to many but if you uncover the layers of where you lead you will see the numbers to be true.

Take this example into consideration: a church got a new pastor after many years with their former pastor. They were excited for this new pastor and were willing to make changes to grow the church. One change came in the form of financials. This side of church, or any non-profit, can be tricky as often times only a few are privy to the information, and many church and non-profit leaders do not have a background within the business accepts of the organization. This pastor had some experience and noticed that only one person counted the money, kept the books, wrote the checks, and was the treasurer. The pastor addressed the situation and said that another person needed to be involved in the process as a financial secretary to bring transparency to the financial situation of the church. At first this person was not so sure about this with an attitude of, “Don’t you trust me?”, being place before the pastor. The pastor assured them of trust but that it was the proper thing to do as it protected both the church and the person. This was a huge cultural shift for the church as it began a process that brought about significant changes to how things were run. It was an uncomfortable process at times, but once the pastor left the church was in a better place in terms of how they organized themselves and went about the decision making process. To the pastor adding a financial security was a small change, but that small change brought about a cultural shift that still impacts how the church views it’s role in the area it serves.

In this example the leader, the pastor, did little in terms of doing as the only thing they did was add a financial security, or about 10% of the work. The shift in the culture was immense however as it gave transparency where there had been none, it shifted the value system towards a more organized base instead of a chaotic one, and it gave a way for people to trust one another as they had a way to verify trust. Does this fly in the face of leaders wanting to make big changes in order to fix problems? Yes, but think about how big changes are made. Look at weight loss and personal fitness. If you want to lose 50 pounds you don’t do so overnight but by making changes to diet and exercise. The changes you often make are small compared to the task at hand, you cut certain things out of what you eat, you add in a gym membership, you walk the stairs instead of taking the elevator, etc. Over time you reach the goal and do what you can to stay in a healthier place. That is culture in a nut shell. To change the 90%, the culture, a leader has to focus on the 10%, the small changes, they can impact. This takes consistency, determination, and follow through on the part of the leader. As the saying goes, “Dream big, start small.”

This picture is of one person’s take on the elements needed for change, little something to chew on for you:

Relaunch

Well it’s been a few years since I have blogged on this site. 10 years to be exact and lots has gone on in that time. I met and married the love of my life, Julie. Julie and I moved to Texas. I graduated from Seminary twice with two Master degrees. We have two boys, Josiah-5 and Zeke-3. I started my career as an United Methodist pastor in the Texas Annual Conference. I have moved 8 times. I have visited 3 countries, and 14 new states. So like I said lots has gone on.

My idea for a relaunch has come in the last few days as a way to talk about what I have learned over my career in ministry, and how practical examples can be useful to others going through what I have gone through. In this blog I will be talking about leadership, culture, and ministry as well as how the three mix together. I hope that many will find this helpful and it will be a blessing to each person who reads it.

With that I will define some terms. Let’s start with leadership. A leader is a person, male or female, who takes on the role of being the one says “This is where we have been, this is where we are, and this is where we should go.” A saying goes, “If you think you are a leader, turn around and see if anybody is following you.” Leadership be its very nature is practical, as it is action oriented be that action something a person does, says, feels, or all three. Going further, for someone to lead the person has to know where they are going and have the ability to adapt and help others to adapt as needed along the way.

Next we look at ministry. Ministry is the calling of Jesus Christ to love God with all we have, love ourselves as God loves us, and to love others with the same love God has for us. It is taking care of others in a variety of ways. In Gospel of Matthew chapter 25, Jesus says ministry looks like feeding the hungry, giving something to drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming and sheltering the stranger, and visiting and tending to the sick and imprisoned. Food, water, shelter, clothing, and care for the sick, the basic needs of our lives are the areas Jesus focused on. It is about using what we have to help others, and in that way ministry is a practical as well.

Last we come to culture. Culture is the undercurrent of how a person, society, government, people group, family, church, business, school, or organization operates. It is what informs what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in terms of decision making, actions, behaviors, and speech. Some have suggested that anywhere between 80-90% of what runs things is culture. That is why culture is so important to understand, because it is the culture of a person or organization that you have to focus on if you or your organization want to change and grow.

Alright, this ends our time for this week. Stayed tuned for next week as I will continue to discuss the above and start to look at some examples of leadership, ministry, and culture. Hope you have a good week.

I took this picture of a labyrinth in a courtyard of St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa in 2016.

Lent-More than the stuff in your pockets!

Hello again my friend, a new month is upon us indeed! I hope that the marry month of March starts out grand for you, and that February was full of blessings YO! As many of you know this past week Lent started with Ash Wednesday and I went to services at an Anglican Church. It was very humbling as the Priest put the Ashes on my forehead and said, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." How powerful is that when you hear it? I hope it is as much as it was to me, God formed you and I out of dust and indeed our bodies shall return to dust once this life has ended. Sounds very morbid and I know many people will read that, then simply be like that is based on tired old tradition and does not apply to any of us now-a-days in our era of reason, post-modernism or whatever you want to call it but think about it for a second with me; put aside all else and if you want you can go back to it later but for now let us together look deep into what this Lenten Season is all about on this 1st Sunday within it?!

If you have kept reading I am glad and hope many do so. Some of us look at Lent and say Why do people give something up or fast from stuff during it? Well the origins of Lent go back to a time when it was a season (40 days based of the numbers significance throughout the Bible:Jesus' 40 days in the desert, Moses' 40 days on the mtn, etc.) for new believers or converts to learn much about Christianity and thus prepare for Easter Sunday, on which they would be Baptized. It was/is also a time when all those already followers of Jesus to remember to the chosen sacrifice, arrest, beatings, humility, death, and resurrection. If you and I look at our lives closely we can see the ways we have drifted away, and put this or that in front/in the way of our journey of faith. I am not trying to call you out, for I can see myself doing this drifting daily, and not saying your a bad person for this happening to you because the guilt is never what I am about in my writing; but I am saying that this season is about recognizing areas that need growth and bringing it into the light so that something can happen. When this occurs, this letting God be God business, truly amazing things come about in our lives. A professor of mine said it this way, "Growth and maturity in the emotional, physical, and all other parts of ourselves do not happen naturally. It is the same way in the Spiritual part of our life as well. We will never just wake up tomorrow and overnight become a Saint, it is a process by which when we will grow along the way." Regardless about what you think/feel about organized or any kind of religion, you can not hide the fact that you have a Spiritual accept of inside of you and I want to say that if you ignore it, all you are doing is hurting yourself and those you love the most in the long and short run. I love you to much to not tell you the truth, and would love to chat more about this or whatever else and promise to listen more than I speak: email wadepfloyd@gmail.com, facebook as Wade P Floyd, or leave a comment here if you would like for I always enjoy hearing about the impact this has positively or negitively.

Read this verse a few weeks ago when I was indeed struggling myself with not giving areas of my life over, holding onto situations, relationships and such in a manner that I would not let go/turn them over to God who wants to redeem and heal these and many other areas. May it be one that strikes you as well:
"O LORD, be gracious to us; we long for you. Be our strength every morning, our salvation in time of distress."(Isaiah 33:2)
-WP

Freedom Reigns

Sorry again for it being so long, but I promise to make it up and hopefully today's will be something that speaks to you as it has me. This past weekend I went on a leadership weekend with some awesome people, and spent time with the Lord, hung-out with these great folks, eat good food, and just all around had a grand time indeed! One night in particular got my attention when we worshiped the Lord with some good songs, and then a good friend of mine Laura handed something I had read before but was very good for the purpose of the weekend as well as the purpose of the life in ministry I have chosen. The handout is by Henri Nouwen, and is called: Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry. Now the overall message of this article is that many times in a ministry, and life stand point we try to go about it in the wrong order and get frustrated in the process which leads to burnout, and in some cases quitting what we have been called to because we are trying to do it ourselves so much that the weight on our shoulders gets to much to bare and peace out for its not what we signed up for. So to help with this Nouwen talks about how "Solitude", or time and space with the Lord away from all else to understand that out status as his beloved son, or daughter is the starting point of all else. I am going to save the community and ministry accepts of the article for other blogs, but lets go further into solitude.

Creating this space, this time of solitude is important for it is no surprise that we live in a busy world that has us go, go, go and stop only to sleep but even then there is things pulling at us to stay awake for the darkness/silence/loneliness scares us more than anything even as adults. How important is it? some ask because them feel they have "arrived" and don't need it, or feel that with everything else going on they simply don't have the time. To both I say, yes it is important for without it we will move through our days/lives not understand the reality that God loves us and all else matters little till that point makes sense to us and it is where we find freedom! Freedom from always trying to prove yourself, freedom from the pressure that pushes down, freedom from the lies that are whispered in our ears, FREEDOM! Now I'm not saying the responsibilities of life go away, or we run away from life but instead I and Nouwen are saying that they will not be the focus point; God and what he has to say about us/the life he has for us becomes not the most important thing, not the #1 on some list of things to do, but part of everything in our lives. Love this line from the handout, "That's where ministry starts, because your freedom is anchored in claiming your belovedness...When you discover your belovedness by God, you see the belovedness of other people and call that forth." When your life is 'anchored' in the facts of God's love, not only are you truly living but you are calling others to live as well; out of the pain into healing, out of death into life, out of the world into eternal life with Christ.

There is a song about this, that is kinda cheesy but still good and I like it. It is the title of this blog, Freedom Riegns by Jason Upton. Here is part of the song,
"Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom
Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom
If you're tired and you are, there is freedom
If you're tired and you are, there is freedom

Freedom Riegns in this place
Showers of mercy and grace
Falling on every face
There is freedom."
Very simple but very true. I leave you with a fav verse from Pauls letter to the Galatians, "Christ has set us FREE to live a FREE life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you."(5:1)
Hope ur day/week is great and seek God and his freedom will come indeed!
-WP

Trusting in the Truth

Greetings my friends I hope this day finds you well, and in whatever is going on this verse will speak to you as it spoke to me. "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."-Romans 15:13 Now before I go into this I will say again that I welcome and want to know what yall truly think about what is said in this blog, bad or good comments is no matter to me.

I was reading Psalm 18 this morning, and it is a great one written by King David after he had been delivered from King Saul who was out to kill him. The way he speaks and sings to God is amazing, listen to his heart cry out, "I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in who I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. The breakers of death rolled over me, and the torrents of oblivion made me afraid. The cords of Hell entangled me and the snares of death were set for me. I called upon the Lord in my distress and cried out to my God for help. He heard my voice from his heavenly dwelling; my cry of anguish came to his ears...The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God my Savior!...Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O Lord; I will sing praises to your name."(1-6,46,&49). In all of this Psalm the message comes to me of a God that shows up, one who cares for his children (that's all of us) and not only hears our prayers but does something about them; most of the time his answer is yes, no, or wait but all of the time his answer is right on. Now verse 49 is mentioned in Romans 15:9, and that is how I got from the Old to the New Testament. Paul mentions this verse in talking about how faith is to be spread and it is spread when his children (that's us again) worship him in a manner that others want to join in. Now this doesn't have to be someone standing on the street corner preaching, though I do say if that's you my hat is off, but many times its noticing that somebody truly has something great going on and than wanting to know what it is. This is how I came to faith in the Lord, I noticed that my life was missing something and saw people who did than I asked them how to get what they got; in the process the Lord came to me and I have been brought to the foot of the Cross many times since for needed adjustments.

So I came to the verse I wrote of in the first paragraph, and the words hit me deep indeed. Again it is Romans 15:13, "May the God of Hope fill you with all Joy and Peace as you Trust in him, so that you may overflow with Hope by the Power of the Holy Spirit." This time I capitalized the words that stick out to me: Hope, Joy, Peace, Trust, and Power. Let me put them in order: Out of Trusting God comes Joy and Peace, and his Power brings Hope to us which overflows to those who are hopeless. We live in a world full of pain and suffering, one that puts forth lies that are easy to believe in when things are hard because many times they seem true when they are not. Usually in these times we are somewhat out of it: tired, depressed, lonely, etc. We are all human and to fall for these is not bad but instead we need to see them as that, either we see it in ourselves or some other brother/sister/friend in Christ sees it for us and shows us what is really up. God's voice is one of truth, and he speaks to all of us in ways that we can understand; if we listen he will utter words that will be more powerful than any that has been heard by us on this Earth. Its still, its small but its real, and it will change your life as it changed mine and so many others. I live in near the Rocky Mountains, and as I looked at them yesterday as the sun was raising it was as if the Lord was showin' off a little bit; like he was saying, "Check it out, I made this and made it good just as I made you even better than anything else. My love for you is grander than these peaks, and more beautiful than these colors of sunrise is what I've done/what I am doing."

Jeremy Camp's song "There Will Be a Day" speaks to much of this, but one verse for sure does more than others, "Troubled soul don’t lose your heart, Cause joy and peace he brings. And the beauty that’s in store, Outweighs the hurt of life’s sting." So I say to all that we need to grab on to the truth of Christ (even if all we can do in our own strength is with our pinkie toe), trust that he will do what is right in all that he does and we need but follow his lead. As I've said to some but now to all, "BEE LEE DAT YO!!!"
much love and peace,
WP

Relationships

So I haven't written in a few days and wanted to but also keep it a little shorter as well (some have called me long winded, not sure why lol!) On a serious note I will tell yall what has been on my mind the last few days, and that is how we are made for relationships. Now when some read "relationships", they go right to thinking about dating or spouse thoughts and of course thats part of it but there is more...way more than that. Meaning that if we take a close look at our lives we see just how many relationships we have, almost everything that goes on envolves some sort of relationship: friendships, co-worker-ships, fellow student-ships, family (including parent-off-spring, siblings, cousins, etc.), heck even the relationship you have with your bank teller or grocery store cashier is something to be thought of in this discussion (I could go on all day about just how many relationships we are in but I think yall are smart enough get my point.)

There is a few that I would like to adresss in detail, and they are: between you and God, you and others, and last but the one that may get lost in the shuffle is the one between you and yourself. These three come out of the "Greatest Commandment" by Jesus, that says this from The Gospel of St. Mark 12:30-31 (emphasis mine), " 'And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'...'You shall love your neighbor as YOURSELF.' " So the first half talks about loving God with all you have, and the second have ties it together two-fold because in loving God you have to love his people a.k.a. "neighbors" also within that you have to love yourself for without which all else will be harder and in some cases will never come about at all. Now I don't mean loving yourself as in your worship yourself or whatever, but loving the real you; the one that looks you back in the mirror in the morning and the one who shows up in the quiet times. To love anything you have to get to know, so that is my goal for myself and you; to grow deeper in each of these three parts and see what comes out of it. Become a person who seeks after these meaningful relationships in life, but always remember that whatever your realtionship with yourself is, it will more than likely be how all other relationships go. I could go deeper with this but wanted to start more of a discussion on this because its more than what I think, its about stirring up the pot together and seeing what we come up with in the end. So whats your thoughts? You can ethier leave a comment or email me at wadepfloyd@gmail.com.

much peace and love of the Lord to you indeed,
WP

My friend the Fox!

Hello my friends, hope this finds you well on this lovely day indeed! So the other night I'm driving to get something to eat and I saw my friend: a beautiful Red Fox with a sweet action bushy tail. This is the 3rd time I have seen him pretty close to my apartment, and I just love most wild animals but have always had a thing for Fox's. For example: some have heard me say something like "your crazy/smart/clever/etc. like a FOX!", I do not race at all but love the Fox Racing logo and have a few clothing items from them, and just think its cool that like my friend here they know how to survive through weather, habitat and many other changes. At small group/little church the other night we talked about life and the "comfort zones" that we can sometimes get it in with school, work, ministry,etc. As we talked I thought about how when this happens we start trusting our basic human/animal instincts, and can very easily get into survival mode; which isn't totally bad because of course to survive is good but what is even better, and I dare say the best, is to live or be alive.

What I mean is this, when we are in the survival mode that happens life gets numb and tasks are done half way most of the time. In short, we have forgotten that life is meant to be lived and are just taking up space/time waiting on something that probably will never come. Not to say we shouldn't dream about a better life, or whatever but there is a big difference in wanting life to be better and doing nothing about it, and doing the best you can with what the day brings you and hoping tomorrow will be even better than today. One of my friends once prayed, "Lord let us see this day how you see it, and that is that you have made it good and we need but let you lead us through it." This speaks volumes to what is really going on: each day is a gift but we have the choice to open it or not, and after opening it to use whatever the gift is for good or not. That seems simple but daily living is that, the overall picture maybe and usually is very complex indeed but the process by which the 'strokes' isn't because, as someone wise once said, "We are all given 24 hours everyday, but what we do with it is our choice and can make all the difference in the world." Like my friend the fox, we can choose to get up and embrace the day and what comes in it or we can blame others for stuff and be bitter about life and stumble through the day with our heads down; to the latter I say look up and refocus on what is up ahead if it all seems bad now, it won't last and there is always hope that tomorrow will be better.

John 10:10 says this, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have have come that you may have life, and have it to the full." Jesus is the one speaking here, and the thief is anything in our lives that promises to fill us but does not. I know that I have moment, days, even weeks when I fall back on things that are comfortable with attitude, how I treat people, and on and on but what I and we need to do is see it as what it is, that it is killing, destroying, and stealing life from us. I think we all can agree that we want a full, better life and truly that is what we need to seek in all areas of life. We can't just have half of the answer on either side: we got to talk the talk, and we have got to walk the walk and they both have to line up with each other. One of my favorite movie genres is Westerns, mostly because my dad loves John Wayne and I have seen everyone of his movies but more it is that the stories are great and so many of them lived lives worthy of recount in our current age of just getting by. Of this genre Lonesome Dove is at the top of the list, and a line by Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae to his best friend Captain Woodrow F. Cal talking about this subject, "Call It Ain't Dieing I'm Talking 'Bout, ITS LIVIN'!" There are many other lines from the Bible, and from books/movies but my point is that we are meant to do great things in this life we have been so gracious given, and whatever that looks like for you go do it.

Remember my friend the Fox, and in the words of Winston Churhill/Galaxy Quest,
"Never give up, never surrender!"-WP