Limiting Travel for Greater Effectiveness

“The more important you are, the more you travel.” This may not be something we actually say out loud, but the example given by many important leaders (people we respect) can tell us that.  We can start to think that if we are important and if we are a good leader it is natural for us to be “on the road” constantly.  After all, we need to go and teach and speak, visit people, have lots of important meetings all over the place, attend conferences, lead gatherings, etc.  A good leader is gone more than they are home, right?  

No.  Not right!  Or certainly not always right.  

Snowy roads I got to drive on last night!

As I write this, I am, yes...traveling.  This time though, I'm traveling to be with my family at a time of need.  Still, it's travel.  I arrived in America last night right in the middle of a snow storm!  This weekend, many Americans will travel to be home with their families for the festival we call "Thanksgiving."  So, I'm thinking about travel and how much many leaders do it.

There are some big things we sacrifice when we travel a lot.  Some of those costs are worth it.  Others may be too great a price to pay.  We often sacrifice quality time with our family.  The more we are on the road and away, the less we are able to invest in our children and our marriages.  Not only do they miss us, but our wife or husband has to pick up the extra work that comes their way when we are gone.  This is okay sometimes, but when it happens too much, it can be difficult and lead to resentment against the person who is always gone.   

Another big thing we sacrifice is our ability to develop local friendships and relationships.  Over time this affects us in our personal lives and emotional health as well as in our ability to impact people around us in evangelism and discipleship.  Soon, we begin to tell stories of people we led to Christ and disciple a very long time ago, because we simply aren’t home enough to make the kind of relationships needed to do this.  We begin to be leaders who talk about something we don’t do very often ourselves.  That is a big sacrifice!  Maybe too big?

Another thing that too much travel does is it causes us to be less consistent in our routines, spiritual discipline habits, and in following through on what we have told people we would do.  By the time we get back from one trip and start to settle in to our routines, we are off again!  Sometimes this can cause us to spin in circles rather than making progress.  We have meetings and make action steps then forget to do what we said.  

When it comes to coaching and consistent mentoring, travel is a major issue that can decrease our influence and effectiveness.  When I'm traveling, I have a hard time setting aside time to regularly pray for those I am mentoring or coaching, I fail to communicate well with them, long gaps in my contact with them can take place, etc.  Im convinced that one of the greatest hindrances to effective coaching is when leaders travel too much.

A few years ago, my friend (and now our FM Intl Leader) Kevin Sutter told me he had a goal to cut his travel in half and double his influence.  That was a great goal but I wondered how he would do it…if he could do it.  He has!  I’ve watched him be very intentional in limiting his travel in really significant ways, but be faithful to be in quality contact with those he leads.  And his influence has grown.

Yes, its harder in our South Asian face to face culture.  Yes, its true that a visit to someone in their location can mean the world to them.  Yes, it is necessary that we attend many meetings that truly ARE important.  I just wanted to write though and say that it isn’t true that the leader who travels most is most important.  It isn’t true that the leader who chooses to stay home will be less effective and less influential.  Sometimes the right choice is to stay home!  Let’s give ourselves permission to do that.

Pressure- How do we respond?

“People are feeling pressure.” I hear this from other leaders from time to time.  Someone wrote me an email saying this yesterday. I confess, I don't really like hearing that said about me or about Frontier Missions or coaching, etc. It causes me to think more about this issue today.

Friendly accountability in discipleship and/or coaching relationships does create this dynamic of pressure sometimes.  So does having goals that we then track and then use to evaluate ourselves and our work. Is that bad?  Is it sometimes good to feel pressure? Or is pressure always a bad thing?  When is it bad? When is it good? 

This “pressure” comes from two sources- one internal (from within ourselves) and one external (from others).  We need to look at both.

I’ve definitely experienced the “pressure” people are referring to. Before I answer this for others, I have to look at my own life.  Below is a chart with some real examples from my own life as a person who is trying to fulfill God’s calling and vision and as I am making goals on my own or with a coach. The table shows both a healthy and an unhealthy response to some examples. 

Type of Pressure	Example	Healthy	Unhealthy
Internal- from ourselves	I didn’t complete my goals this month	Conviction – says I realize I didn’t do everything I committed to do. I’m sorry and want to do better with God’s and others help. I will try again.	Condemnation- says I should have done better, I'm a failure. I am going to stop making goals because I'm afraid to fail again.
Internal- from ourselves	I was busy, sad and tired, then got in a fight with my spouse,  so I didn’t do what I had said I would do in ministry this week.	Open & Transparent- I will own my areas of weakness and struggle and ask for help from God and others.  I recognize I must make some changes in myself and my life in order to move forward with my life & ministry goals.	Hiding and Blaming- I will pretend everything is okay in my life and hide my problems from others.  I will blame my lack of progress on others, on my situation, and on how hard the work is that I'm trying to do.
External- for Leader	Person on the team is not completing goals or making appropriate progress	I need to look at what I am expecting of them and whether or not those things are reasonable within their limited capacity and time. I may need to further equip,train or resource them in some area to see the results I'm hoping for.	They must be lazy and have a character issue. They need to work harder.  I never get good people on my team, just these problem people.  That is why our team isn’t seeing the results we wanted.
External- for Coach	Person I'm coaching is struggling repeatedly and not following through on commitments made	I will ask questions to understand why this is happening and see how serious they are about wanting to making changes to go forward.	I don’t like this person and they are not worth my time and effort. I will drop them and move on to “better” people who work harder.

I could go on with many more examples as a person, as a leader, trainer or coach and also things I’ve experienced from leaders as far as pressure. I'm sure you could add your own examples too!

It is natural to feel pressure both from within ourselves and from others when we are working toward a vision or goal.  Responding in healthy ways to that pressure is so important!

Some would say “Pressure is bad.  Get rid of the pressure!”  From my perspective, though that is one option, it is not the best option.  It may relieve the temporary discomfort one is feeling, but it doesn’t help us develop as leaders, disciples of Jesus and become the effective, powerful, fruitful people God created us to be or to fulfill the destiny He has for us.  

Instead, we need to learn how to embrace pressure in healthier ways.  We need to reach deeply into our relationship with God, to find our identity in Him, knowing that He loves us unconditionally, that we are His beloved in whom He is already well pleased.  Our performance doesn’t change how God feels about us or how much He loves us!  Because of this powerful truth, we are able to own our mistakes and weaknesses and look at them honestly and openly- first within ourselves and secondly with others.  We can admit that we haven’t done what we had hoped we would and we can ask for help in trying again.  We can admit we lack skill in a particular area, and ask someone more skilled to train and equip us.  We can stop blaming others for our lack of progress and we can refuse to give up on the God given vision He has assigned to us. 

Or, we can forget about God’s unconditional love, believe the lies the enemy wants to tell us and choose the easier path of less resistance.  We can resign ourselves to not having any goals or expectations on ourselves or others.  We can choose to never evaluate, never track what we are doing in light of our desired (and God’s desired) results.  We can make excuses and blame others and our circumstances when things do not move forward.

Believe me!  I’ve been deeply tempted to move into the second pathway and have sometimes gone there.  It's not healthy and its not God’s intention for us!

Lets grow up into maturity related to the feelings of pressure that come up when we are in friendly accountability relationships.  Lets let these “pressures” help us become healthier and stronger in our understanding of God’s love for us. Lets ask Him for the help and grace to respond to pressure with wisdom, grace and truth. 

The Lost- A Big Rock?

Steven Covey and others have used the powerful illustration in their leadership training of putting "big rocks" in to the "jar" of our lives.  This illustration basically says that as we manage our time and priorities we need to understand what the most important things are and schedule those first.  Then we must let other less important things come in around those greater priorities.  I've been familiar with this important principle for years and found it helpful as I plan and prioritize.  If you've never heard of this before, check it out. The link is at the bottom of this blog.  It's a great time management principle!

As I was coaching someone the other day, I noticed that he was prioritizing leadership meetings, travel, and many other obligations over spending time with the people he was trying to disciple. He was getting too busy with going here and there to have time to talk to those disciples about important issues and to really train them well so that they would be able to train others.  This was greatly affecting his effectiveness in seeing the release of a disciple making movement.

It led me to return to an important question in my own life.  Are "the Lost" a Big Rock for me?  Do I prioritize time, energy and space in my life to know lost people, to pray for them, to engage with them, to share my life, testimony and the gospel with them?  What do I live and model in relation to this?

It is so easy even when our declared End Vision is a Disciple Making Movement, to allow other priorities to crowd the Lost out of our lives!  We will never reach Lost people if we don't know them, make time for them, engage with them in relationship, and make Lost people a high priority in our schedules. If we are too busy going to meetings and trainings to talk about reaching the Lost and we don't have time to know and share Jesus with the Lost, something is wrong in our thinking and behavior.

Put the Big Rocks in first.  Time with Jesus, time with family, time for rest and exercise, and time for the Lost and the Saved who you are training to train others- these are my Big Rocks.  I must let the other many events and things of my life fall in around those top priorities.

As you think about your life and calendar this coming week, why not decide to spend time with the Lost and plan for it.  I'm going to.

*Covey's teaching on Putting in the Big Rocks First- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmV0gXpXwDU

Making Obedient Disciples- Are we willing to shake the dust off?

One of the most important keys to seeing the release of a Disciple Making Movement is the development of a norm for discipleship that includes accountability to practically obey the Word of God.  As we learn what His Word says, we must be committed to put actions to what we are understanding.  Without this, movements of disciples will never begin to multiply.

Jesus speaks about this principle when he tells the parable of the man who built his house on the rock as opposed to the man who built on the sand (Matt. 7:24).  The wise man is the one who hears and obeys.  Throughout the gospels we see that those who were truly Jesus' disciples practiced immediate obedience to His commands.  When Jesus called His first disciples- Peter, Andrew, James and John in Matt 4:18-22, it says that they "immediately" left their nets and followed Him.  He goes on to tell his disciples in Matt 16:24, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me."  Similarly, in Luke 14:24-35, He speaks of the cost of discipleship. Following Jesus and obedience to His commands must be a higher loyalty than to family, culture, community or possessions.  Jesus spoke these words to a community oriented, not individualistic culture.  In fact he said it so strongly that he even used the word hate when he described the degree to which we must be willing to put Jesus above any other loyalties, including family obligations.  When faced with the man who wanted to first bury his father, Jesus said "Let the dead bury the dead."  These are strong and serious words that we can not ignore as disciples and disciple makers!

In many of our disciple making and church planting efforts, we are faced with the struggle of loyalties.  The more contextual or insider this movement is, the more this is an issue. People want to become believers; they like Jesus, they have received blessings like healing or deliverance, and they are attracted to His love and goodness.  But they have a difficult time when it comes to following him in baptism, and struggle with the cost of that, the possible rejection from family, loss of inheritance, or other relationships that might be threatened by this. Sometimes we see that they want to continue to worship idols at festivals so they can stay a part of their family and community.

What do we as church planters and disciple makers do in these situations?  How much do we challenge them in these areas?  How much do we tolerate within the DNA of a fellowship or movement a mindset that says (perhaps indirectly) that it is okay to pick and choose which of Jesus' commands we will obey, rather than making a decision to follow and obey him in everything and always? 

We certainly don't want to cause persecution or cause people to be kicked out of their communities! In fact, we believe that if they can stay connected to their community and involved in it, the chance of the gospel spreading is much greater than if we extract or take them out of their community.  In our zeal to keep people in their own culture and community, however, we CAN NOT water down the critical decision we are calling people to make of fully laying down their lives and submitting to Jesus as Lord and King, of choosing to not just believe, but follow Him in everything, no matter what the cost.  If we allow a DNA of limited obedience to His Word to develop, if we allow a DNA of people becoming followers of Jesus but not having to count the cost and pick up the cross of obedience to His Ways and His Commands, we will not see movements that multiply. 

Lets not be afraid to challenge people with the truth.  Jesus wasn't.  He fed the multitudes and healed the sick, and many followed him.  He also spoke clearly about the reality of what it meant to be His disciple. He was not hesitant to do this.

If we are having a majority of the "believers" in our "movement" living in fear of community and choosing not to obey Jesus by not taking baptism, or not stopping idol worship, or not being willing to forgive their brother who has sinned against them, we need to examine the DNA we are developing.  We need to move back to a DNA that emphasizes Lordship, Obedience and Counting the Cost of what it means to become His disciple.  That may mean that some of our house churches dissolve, or that some people "fall away" who we had hoped would choose Jesus.  But if we never lay before them the challenge and truth of what it means to be His disciple, we are not actually doing them or ourselves any favors.  The Kingdom can not come  in that community and in their lives unless He is reigning in their lives as King.

In Luke 10, Jesus told his disciples when they went to the villages that if people didn't receive them and their message they should "shake the dust off their feet" and move on.  He didn't tell them to keep investing in people who refused to receive them, hoping that slowly they would change their minds.  This is hard because we love these people and so much want them to be saved!  Of course we do!  How much more does Jesus, their Creator!  Still, he instructed His disciples to do this. 

Jesus didn't make it easy to become His disciple.  He told them to count the cost.  We too must help people to count the cost and make a decision.  If they choose to whole-heartedly follow Christ, you may have found a person to disciple who will go on to make more radical Jesus followers, passing on a DNA of radical commitment within the movement.  If they decide not to commit to Christ fully, move on.  Being faced with the truth and depth of commitment needed is probably necessary. It may help them to move from being a "foolish" to a "wise" man who builds on the rock and who's faith will survive the storms and tests.  Don't feel bad or be afraid to move on.  Millions wait to hear His message.  God is preparing men and women of peace and radical disciples in that people group.  You will never find them if you "stay in the house" of those who aren't truly ready to commit to Christ too long.