Pastors

Wonderfully Made

Jesus used a small-group strategy to shape a generation of leaders.

Leadership Journal July 30, 2007

Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve-designating them apostles-that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Character Check Is my sense of who I am larger than simply my role at work or at home?

In Business Terms People are not hired, paid, or rewarded for being balanced, whole human beings in their work environment. They’re rewarded for being highly specialized and for being on someone else’s agenda-the large company’s agenda, the law firm’s agenda, the client’s requirements. A lot of people lose touch with the “me” underneath all the performing.

Management expert Peter Drucker once told me that’s why people go to pubs. There, they discover what he calls the “third person.” The first person is the work person-the role you are at work. The second person is the role you are when you walk in your home. The third person is who you are when not confined by those other two roles. Perhaps the church equivalent of a pub is a small group. There, in a group setting, you’re able to be that person God designed you to be. You’re not circumscribed by your roles as sales vice-president or parent.

—Bob Buford

Something to Think About The monotony of life, if life is monotonous to you, is in you and not the world. – Phillips Brooks

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