Middle School Ministry Moment #5

Leadership Principles

The following are a few notes that I took while watching a "Simply Junior High Video Podcast" by Kurt Johnston on the subject of leadership. Kurt is the middle school pastor at Saddleback Church in California.

For starters: Tune into “The Office” on NBC, watch Michael Scott & don’t do anything he does! Watch Michael Scott and then do the opposite of what he does.

Kurt said that if he had to boil leadership down to 3 words, he might use these 3 words to sum up leadership ...

*Leading Effectively – Simply the ability to do the right thing. Take all the opportunities that present themselves to you and decide what is most important. Say "yes" to the most important things and say "no" to the not so important things. Or to say it another way, say yes to the “God” things and no to the “good” things.

*Leading Efficiently – Simply doing things right. This includes paying attention to detail. In ministry effective leadership is managing people in the right way. doing things in the right way.

*Leading Ethically – Simply doing the right things in the right way properly. There are a lot of ways to get to the same end result. It's important how we arrive at those results. Questions to ponder, "Are you being honest? Are your motives pure? Are you being forthright with people? Are you using people to get what you want?"

Conclusion: Leadership is not easy but is can't be easier if we learn to lead effectively, efficiently and ethically.