Christian leaders should constantly be asking, “What does God say?” Read 2 Samuel 5:17-25.

Leaders constantly seek to know what resources they have available. They are constantly searching for and trying to attract competent people. They set target dates and check points, establish lines of communication, determine the evaluation process, create budgets and timelines and the list goes on and on. Every one of these activities is critical to effective leadership. Too often, however, even godly Christian leaders forget to ask, “What does God say?” David discovered the importance of this question when the Philistine army massed to challenge his right to rule as the new king over all of Israel. Read more »

Most of our leadership days contain victories and challenges. We praise God for the victories but on most days these are not victories that cause us to celebrate in an extraordinary way. It is the same with our challenges. We pray continually and consistently that God will give us wisdom to handle the challenges and that the challenges will not consume us or the people on our team but these are not the challenges that put a knot in our stomach or that put us on our face before the Lord totally dependent on His power to change the situation. But, every once in a while, the Lord favors every leader with the opportunity for the great victory or the overwhelming challenge that will require complete faith in God and use of everything we have learned as a leader, and revelation from God that we have not learned. Read 1 Samuel 17:1-58. Read more »

Leaders put a lid on their potential for growth and eliminate expanded leadership opportunities if they continually jump to conclusions before they know all the facts. Read 1 Samuel 1:9-17.

Eli was the Chief Priest at Shiloh. He happened to be in the temple when Hannah came to cry out to the Lord about her childless condition. Hannah was broken hearted and her body language showed total focus on communication with her God. It seems logical that most priests in the temple viewing an emotional outpouring might assume a person with great need was crying out to God. Eli assumed Hannah had been drinking! Read more »

“These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan (He did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience)…They were left to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the Lord’s commands which He had given their forefathers through Moses” (Judges 3:1-4). God desires the success of His people and will give the necessary resources to win and even teach, train and test His people. God also provides the leaders and leadership needed to help His people succeed. Effective leaders find a way to help their team win. Read Judges 3:1-33.

Othniel, the son of Caleb’s younger brother Kenaz, found his people surrounded by enemies from Mesopotamia. God put His Spirit on Othniel and he stepped forward, led the armies of Israel and prevailed. This victory led to 40 years of peace until the leader died. Read more »

The degree to which a Christian leader tolerates known sin in their own life or the operation of their team is the degree to which they separate themselves and their team from God’s grace and favor. Read Joshua 7:1-26.

I grew up with six siblings. My parents knew that what one of us did that they “viewed as good” would soon show up in the behavior of the others and what one of us got away with would soon affect the behavior of all seven. My mom seemed to have a “proverbial type” saying to fit every situation. One of those sayings was “One rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel.” In today’s world we don’t typically keep barrels of apples around the house so the saying could possibly be changed to “one apple, rotting in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator will cause all the other apples stored in that drawer to get soft spots and begin rotting.” (I do like my mom’s version better.) Read more »