Success for the generations

Posted on by marc ulrich

One of the most challenging parts of my role as a pastor is knowing when you’ve won.  I know most pastors will say they aren’t in competition. Not me, I’m a competitor. The problem is, is church life a competition? If so, how do you know when you’re winning? 

Our prayer maps throughout Merrillville. One of our ladies, Tanisha Washington highlighting where she has prayed over.
Our prayer maps throughout Merrillville. One of our ladies,
Tanisha Washington highlighting where she has prayed over.

As a church, our people have committed to driving down streets praying for justice, mercy, grace, and peace.  I realized something the other day as I drove through my community praying. I had the realization that I might be playing by the wrong set of rules. 

 What if winning looks like my nutrition journey instead of a game of football? 

I eat ‘clean’ 90% of the time.  As a family, we have primarily followed the paleo way of eating for the last six years.  I work out 4-5 days a week as well. I’m in a new season of lifting more weights and less cardio.  Can I get an amen?! I hate cardio! I’m using lifting as my cardio. 

When I started my adult workout journey twelve years ago, I ran all the time and lost weight quickly.  I could eat almost whatever I wanted and still lose weight as long as I ran.

I viewed succeeding in my nutrition journey as a game of the weight scale. Making sure that number went down each week was the only thing that mattered. 

Now I’m more concerned with healthy life choices that will allow me to live a long healthy time.  I am also concerned with the food that goes into my body. I’ve noticed some foods are better for me to eat.  I’ve seen eating patterns that are better for me to follow, as well. The goal now is for me to live a healthy life, not just reduce the number on the scale.  My goal now is to have more muscle mass and lower body fat percentage. 

What if we are playing by the wrong set of assumptions? 

How often do you review your quarterly reviews?  I love the concept of a twelve-week work year by Brian Moran.  His idea is about getting more done in twelve weeks than most people do in a year.

I’m an action-oriented leader.  I’d rather move forward and then plan, plan and plan some more. 

Last week, a 15-year-old girl challenged me.  She asked what our community should look like in ten years if RE.THINK Church is successful.  It was such a great challenge! At times, I’ve been so consumed with growing an audience and building my influence.  I play by the wrong set of rules. I’ve been thinking about success wrong. What if my success as a pastor isn’t about a larger church? 

What if winning as a pastor doesn’t mean my church seats are full? 

What if it means that crime rates in our community are lower?  What if it means sixteen-year-old boys aren’t murdered and graduation rates rise?  What if it means immigrants and refugees find help instead of hiding out of shame, businesses thrive and young people are safe?  What if it means racial tension is gone, even the diet racism?  What if it looks like people have found hope and true life in Jesus?  What if it looks like people finding their true potential that Jesus has for them? 

When I attempted to answer the 15-year old’s question last week, I felt so selfish and self-centered.  As a pastor, the above is what I’m going after now. My efforts aren’t to fill our church seats. My efforts are to change our community. 

This translates into positioning our church and our budget to accomplish our long term goal.  

We can fall into the trap of the shortsighted goals of monthly reviews and profit margins.  Let me echo the question to you. What does our community look like in ten years if YOUR COMPANY is successful?

Let’s start thinking and leading to impact and influence generations! 

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

Bears. Trains & You

Posted on by marc ulrich

Have you ever heard the story about two guys in the woods and a bear? The bear walks up to them and is clearly hungry.  The two guys look at each other and run. One of the guy’s motivation is to outrun the bear. The other guy’s motivation is to simply outrun the other guy.  Why? It’s pretty simple. Once the bear catches up with the other the guy trailing behind, he won’t pay attention to the other man who is still running because he’ll be eating. 🙂 

As I start this process of raising up leaders for our organization, I am sometimes tempted to lead out of the mindset of the man who just needed to outrun the other man in the woods.  Can you just outlast or outrun the others in your generation?

As younger generations start to emerge in more prominent positions of leadership, it’s easy to look down on them thinking there isn’t a lot of hope or that their generation is lost.  It’s an arrogance in our own thinking that young leaders can’t do things as well or better than we can simply because they accomplish things differently than we do.

I think it’s time to help train young leaders to outrun the “bears” around them, not just others in their generation.  

So how do we do that?  

I think young leaders could lead in amazing ways, probably even better than we can.  How do we set young leaders up for success?

I personally have 19 Habits that I bring any leader through.  This is something I started doing when I worked at a manufacturing plant assembling automotive parts.  I’ve used these 19 habits in both manufacturing and church settings.

When you envision a leader in your influence being successful, what helped that leader become successful?  What habits, attitude, or thought process helped them succeed?

If you lead others, I think it’s crucial that you plan ahead.  It’s so easy and tempting to simply live and work in the daily grind of life.  Things happen, but if we never take time to plan ahead, we’ll fail. Let’s look at the industrial revolution as an example.  Imagine if the inventors of the locomotive spend so much time, energy and resources into this invention that had the potential to change the world, and that’s it.  They never spend time thinking or planning for how the train would get from point A to point B. They had a well-oiled machine, but nowhere to go, because there wasn’t a method to transport the well-oiled machine.  

Take trains and railroads for example.  In the 1800’s, the railroad was the latest technology that changed the world, especially the United States.  

In the early stages, companies had to focus on the train itself.  Without a method to transport the train, it was pretty useless. So, the next thing they had to think about was the railroad.  This was the platform to transport the train from the east coast to the future destination. Once the train and railroad were developed, they needed a destination.  

Head West Young Man!  

That’s exactly what happened.  The railroads headed west. The way humanity moved at this point was on land by muscle, either human muscle or by a horse.  The invention of trains literally changed the world. Places like the Hamptons became destinations for the wealthy people to escape the city with more ease.  In 1869 on May 10th, our country was changed forever. The ability to head west from the east coast was made possible with ease upon the completion of the transcontinental railroad.  

Railroad companies spent time building trains, railroads and future destinations.  This process has transformed America in more ways I can explain in this blog. Suburbs became a reality due to the ease of commuting from work to home.  Vacation destinations, like the Hamptons, became a reality. Time zones were established based on the train schedules for arrivals and departures.

Leaders, as we develop other leaders and the processes we will use in our workplaces, schools and families, don’t expect instant results.  We might underestimate what the rewards of long-term faithful obedience in one direction could be. I’d encourage us to stay faithful in developing leaders and our processes. It’s so tempting to jump ship because we might not see the results we are hoping right away.  The reward for sticking to a plan is there. Don’t give up because you might not see the results right away.

Leaders, we need to spend time developing our product, our delivery systems, our future destinations and goals.  Helping develop young leaders is one great way to help that process take place. Empowering young leaders will carry our mission further and faster than we ever expected.  

As we develop young leaders and focus on the product, systems of development and future destination, we help our leaders outrun the “bears” they’ll face in the wild of the emerging economy and culture we live in today.  

Photo by Hans Veth on Unsplash


Professor Shoelace…

Posted on by marc ulrich

A few years ago our oldest son had an issue. A shoelace issue.  He learned to tie his shoes at a young age, but every time he went somewhere, his shoes kept untying.  I thought for sure I could teach him again how to tie his shoe. I sat him down, again and again, showing him “the correct way” to tie his shoes.  He never really got it, so I decided to do some research for him. I would help him out. I did a quick Google search and found thousands of entries on how to tie shoes properly.  I kept instructing Shad to double knot his shoes because that’s how I learned to live my life without having to tie my shoes every two seconds.

 

One Google search result intrigued my interest the most, Professor Shoelace.  He has a Youtube channel! That makes him official right? I quickly realized maybe I don’t know everything about tying my shoes like I thought I did.  At the time, I was running long distances training for a 25k race. I had issues all the time with my feet hurting through my longer runs. Professor Shoelace had tips about lacing and tying my shoes that would keep my feet from hurting.  

 

Professor Shoelace instructs people that if you need to double knot your shoes, then you’re not tying your shoes correctly. Shad and I were watching this video together and Shad laughed at me.  I felt attacked by the Professor.

 

Shad and I kept watching his Youtube channel and I kept learning new ways and methods to tie and lace my shoes.  

 

I quickly realized that I had minimal knowledge of how to tie my shoes.  I thought for sure I was going to be proven correct when I did the Google search.  I wasn’t really interested in learning to tie shoes. I was more interested in finding information that showed how right I was so I could show Shad how smart I was.  That’s not what happened.

 

I confused my ability to accomplish a task with reasonable success as knowing all there was to know about tying shoes.  The reality is that the world we live in is changing. Just because we can accomplish something, doesn’t mean we know all about that particular topic or issue.  

 

I believe we are on the verge of amazing potential in our culture, but potential doesn’t necessarily translate into improvement or success.  The definition of potential is having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future. So the question is, how do we evolve into something in the future that is great?  Teachability is the key to improvement.

 

Industries that have made America what it is today are changing.  They must change. Careers are changing. If we genuinely want to reach our full capacity of potential, I believe it starts with how teachable we can become and remain.   I have written about my thoughts in previous blog posts about how I think organizations can work among the different generations represented in our workplaces. We must realize why we do what we do.

 

I’m convinced that if we as leaders were to remain teachable, we’d reach our potential and inspire others around us to do the same.  There’s no shame in admitting when we are wrong or when we don’t know all the answers. In the organization I lead, we define teachability as the willingness and ability to relearn something we believed we already knew.  

 

I think the most effective way to become and remain teachable is when you teach others what you know.  At RE.THINK we have a mantra, “You don’t know jack until you teach a 3-year-old ____.”

 

No matter if that task is tying a shoe, potty training or disciplines like cleaning up after yourself or putting clean dishes away.  We might know something, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have to learn or relearn some things along the way. The most effective way to become and remain teachable is to teach someone who has less experience than you that same task.  

 

The culture we live in is changing around us. No longer can we simply say that we know something and never adjust to the changing climate around us.  We must remain flexible and teachable. I believe that will lead us to the best days ahead!

 

 

What are some areas of your job that you believe you know?  

 

What is one task that you could relearn to help you become and remain teachable?  

 

What are some of the changing climates of your job that if you relearned could help you become more effective as a leader?  

 

Photo by Reinhart Julian on Unsplash