50 Leadership And Quotes On Coaching Extreme Talent From John Calipari Part 1

Like many of you I always take a book(s) with me while on vacation.  Because I lead some very talented young people at INJOY Stewardship Solutions, I was excited to jump into John Calipari’s Success Is The Only Option: The Art Of Coaching Extreme Talent last week.  As head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team, few know as much as Coach Cal about recruiting, developing, and building a team out of the nation’s top young talent.
I could not wait to read this and I was not disappointed.  It is a must read for any leader.  You can pick up your copy HERE or the image to the left.  There are so many insights it is going to take several posts to pass them along to you.
Before reading make sure you check out these lessons from Coach Cal’s previous book 35 Leadership Quotes From John Calipari’s Book Players First.
The following are 50 Leadership And Quotes On Coaching Extreme Talent From John Calipari Part 1:  These will take 5-10 minutes to read, days to process, and a lifetime to implement.

1. “My job is to serve their aspirations, not their egos.”
2. “My best players, without exception, have been among my most intelligent players.”
3. “I don’t recruit anyone who I believe is inherently selfish.”
4. “One way I get them to commit to team basketball – selfless basketball – is by making them understand it is in their self-interest to do so.”
5. “When you are leading and working with extremely talented individuals – no matter the profession – you have to think differently.  You have to think in an extreme sense.”
6. “Human gifts and resources are unevenly distributed.”
7. “If you’re truly thankful, you sleep better, live longer, are more productive, have better relationships, and on and on and on.”
8. “If basketball is drudgery to you and I get that sense, I’m moving on.  I’m running as fast as I can in the other direction.”
9. “When extreme intelligence is matched with extreme physical talent, you get superstars and possible future Hall of Famers.”
10. “Players with curious minds need less motivation to be continuous learners.  They need less of a push.  They’re in that mode.”
11. “There are business that make a point of recruiting college athletes, and I understand why.  The best of them have a calm under pressure that is rare.”
12. “Recruiting is always, in part, a risk.”
13. “I want boldness and what I call swagger – a strong self-confidence that edges up to but does not cross the line into arrogance.”
14. “In any business, opportunity attracts talent.”
15. “If you walk in a gym and you’re the most talented one there, you’re in the wrong gym.  If you walk into a gym and you look at the talent and say, ‘Wow!’ you’re in the right place.”
16. “Talent attracts talent.  The best want to be among their peers.”
17. “Nothing can screw up a potentially high-performing team more surely than adding the wrong person to the mix.”
18. “Refusing to accept blame and shifting it to others is about the worst trait you can have on a team or in any work environment.”
19. “People who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes.”
20. “I think it would be almost impossible to be a bad human being and a truly good teammate.”
21. “When things go bad, a gifted player – and by gifted I mean in both talent and approach to the game – will adjust and pivot.”
22. “People talk about one-and-done.  How about one day and done?  What challenge did I take on today?  What did I accomplish?  What was the most important thing I got done?”
23. “True joy comes from being a giver.”
24. “My job is to push each of these players through his comfort zone.”
25. “The key for all of them is to build from strengths while also developing new parts of their games.  I don’t want them to try things in games they are not capable of, but once they’ve developed some proficiency, you can’t be scared to do it in a game.”
26. “I never leave a player on the bench as punishment, but it’s only fair to keep the kids out there who are doing more.”
27. “I believe in stating our intentions publicly.  Say them out loud, and hold a player accountable for what you believe he can achieve.”
28. “Be wary of early success – the kind that comes to talented people just because they are blessed with more resources…As the competition gets more intense and the stakes get higher, it will become more difficult for them and they will have to build more capacity.”
29. “Coach your best players harder.”
30. “There are just two kinds of basketball players: winning ones and losing ones.”
31. “Play in the present, because it goes by really quick,”
32. “People in their twenties now stay in one job for less than three years, and estimates are that they will have between fifteen and twenty jobs over the course of a lifetime.”
33. “I’m constantly looking forward, not back, and our program reflects that.”
34. “Connect with at least one person each day who has nothing to do with your work life.”
35. “The bigger a guy like (golfer Jordan) Spieth gets, the more he needs someone in his circle to keep him honest – and he is smart enough to seek that out…The moment that no one can talk to Jordan Spieth is the moment he begins to decline as a golfer.”
36. “Don’t play just to finish somewhere near the top and collect a paycheck.  Play to win.”
37. “When you share credit, you’re not giving something up, you’re gaining.”
38. “Keeping it real will never harm an athlete, as long as it’s done with a caring heart.”
39. “However well we’re playing, we can always get better.  In addition, I’ve got to make sure we are not succeeding on physical talent alone – or even on effort.  The higher the level you reach, the more important it is to also be technically proficient.”
40. “One of the main points my players have to understand is that success should make them even more self-critical.  What can they do to take it up to the next level?  That’s what world-class athletes do.”
41. “If you know about it, you can fix it.”
42. “Never make the mistake of thinking that by making people uncomfortable – meaning you want more from them – you are making them unhappy.”
43. “Coaching, like any form of leadership, is not so much knowledge based as it is wisdom based.”
44. “The sad fact is that if you want to perform at the highest level, if you want to achieve anything in life, you’d better be able to stand up to criticism.”
45. “It’s my role as a leader to take responsibility when we don’t play well.  I will never blame a player.  When we play well and we win, I give the players all the credit.”
46. “Specific praise counts for more because it shows that you thought deeply about a person’s contributions.”
47. “Praise doesn’t cost you anything, so why wouldn’t you give it?”
48. “If you want a certain behavior, you must reward that behavior in real time and evaluations.”
49. “The predominant voice on the practice floor and in the film room is mine, and I don’t want it to sound the same way all the time.  I think that’s important for any leader.  Change it up when you can.”
50. “We want to play with ferocity, so that’s how we practice.”

What is one lesson from Coach Calipari you can use TODAY to make you a better leader?  And do not forget to check back later this week for more lessons from Success Is The Only Option: The Art Of Coaching Extreme Talent.

Click HERE or on the image to the left and as a free gift for subscribing to this site, you can receive my new Ebook 1269 Leadership Quotes: Timeless Truths From 2016’s Top Christian Leadership Conferences.  Featured are the Johnny Hunt Mens Conference, ReThink Leadership, Orange and Leadercast Conferences among others.  If applied, these insights will make you an exponentially better leader.  Enjoy!!!

5 Biggest Mistakes Pastors Make on Sundays

5 Biggest Mistakes Pastors Make on Sundays (and how to avoid them)

by Charles Stone

For pastors, Sunday can be the most draining day of the week. Intense people interaction, teaching or preaching, seeing our critics, trying to remember names, and attempting to put our own problems aside to listen to other peoples’ problems add up to a stress-filled day. The very day we want to be at our best requires more from us than any other day. As a result, we can easily make one or more of the 5 biggest mistakes pastors make on Sundays. Evaluate this list to find out how many you make. I follow the list with some suggestions on how to avoid them.

5 Biggest Mistakes Pastors Make on Sundays

1. Failure to recognize allostatic load.
   • This term describes the wear and tear on our body from chronic stress. Our bodies have limits. Yet, when we are under stress for long periods of time, our bodies suffer. Prolonged stress causes sustained high levels of the stress hormone cortisol which, along with an overabundance of other neurotransmitters and hormones, can cause heart problems, weight gain, impaired immunity, decreased memory due to brain cell atrophy, and diminished brain functioning. If we don’t manage our stress during the week, we will limit our ability to function at our best on Sundays.
2. Too much emotional labor.
   • Psychologists call the emotional work necessary for any job emotional labor. It’s the effort required to put on a public face when we interact with others. Unless you’re a grump or you hole up in your office until right before the Sunday service, your role requires considerable emotional labor as you interact with people on Sundays. However, when we surface act too much, put on a fake smile, we’ll quickly use up the energy stores God gave us for the day.
3. People pleasing.
   • I based my third book, People Pleasing Pastors: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Approval Motivated Leadership, on extensive research of over 2000 pastors. I discovered that over 70%  of pastors self-assessed themselves as being affected in some way by people pleasing. As humans, we have a basic drive to be liked. Rejection actually physically hurts because social pain registers in the same part of our brains as does physical pain. On Sunday when we get sucked into trying to make everybody happy (by saying yes too much and/or saying what people want to hear) we will quickly get drained.
4. The sacrifice syndrome.
   • Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, authors of Resonant Leadership, coined a concept called power stress to describe a kind of stress unique to leaders. “Power stress is part of the experience that results from the exercise of influence and sense of responsibility felt in leadership positions.” McKee and Boyatzis explain that when the demands of leadership get so high and leaders fail to manage it, they risk becoming trapped in what they call the Sacrifice Syndrome. Sometimes we leaders feel so overly responsible for the success of our churches that we get caught in a vicious cycle of unhealthy sacrifice for others that leads to burnout. And often that weight drains us on Sundays.
5. Continuous partial attention (CPA).
   •  Linda Stone, author and consultant, developed this phrase to describe the mental trap we easily fall into when we constantly scan our surroundings to look for the best opportunities upon which to focus our attention. It happens when we ‘skim,’ and pay attention, only partially. When this happens to you, you won’t focus on the most important tasks at hand and will get further behind on mission critical issues. Then, you must rush to get the important things done which in turn contributes to chronic stress. On Sundays when we are listening to someone and we try to scan the crowd to see who else may want to talk to us (CPA), our energy stores get burned up faster than if we paid full attention to one person.

So what can we do to avoid these Sunday traps? I’m still learning to wisely manage myself on Sundays, but I’ve found that 4 practices help me avoid those 5 mistakes.

1. Exercise on Sunday morning.
   • For years research has shown that exercise benefits our body. But recent research has discovered that it benefits our brains as well. When we exercise it causes our brains to release a protein called brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which has been called the Miracle-Gro for the brain. It encourages new neuronal growth and protects brain cells from stress. Exercise also releases pain dampening neurotransmitters, endorphins, which trigger positive feelings in our bodies, similar to what morphine does. On Sunday mornings I usually exercise 30 minutes about two hours before our service begins. This positive mood benefit can last a few hours.
2. Statio.
   • Statio describes a Christian monastic practice that we might call a mini-transition between events of the day. It’s a moment between moments when we pause from once task before going to the next. It allows us to break our hurry, obtain closure from the prior task, and prepare our hearts and minds for what comes next. Leaders who practice this can turn down their body’s fight-flight system (the sympathetic nervous system) and engage the rest and digest system (the parasympathetic system) which makes us calmer. Try to practice this between tasks and interactions with people on Sunday mornings. When I remember to do it, my racing mind calms down. Read this post by Daniel Schroeder to learn more about statio.
3. Adequate sleep the night before.
   • “When we don’t get enough sleep, we rob our brains of important neural functions because the brain is actually very active during sleep. Although the brain never really shuts down, it’s only truly at rest during non-REM sleep, which accounts for only 20 percent of our normal sleep cycle. During the other 80 percent, sleep helps the brain encode, strengthen, stabilize, and consolidate our memories from the day. Our brain replays what we have learned during the day  to make our memories stick. Sleep also plays an important role in learning.” (from Brain-Savvy Leaders: The Science of Significant Ministry by Charles Stone (Kindle Locations 1671-1675). I can’t overestimate the benefits of getting a good night’s sleep the night before. It works wonders in my ability to be at my best on Sundays.
4. Strategic use of caffeine.
   • Yep, I wrote caffeine. Moderate use of caffeine brings several benefits including blocking the sleep neurotransmitter adenosine (that’s the mechanism behind caffeine as a waker upper), increased energy, and a better mood. You can read my post here about caffeine.

Sunday is great day because it reminds us that Jesus rose from the dead. Yet, it’s also a draining day. Consider applying one or two of these pointers this Sunday and see if it helps you be your best.
What has helped you be your best on Sundays?
Related posts:

• A Simple Way to Reduce Stress
• 4 Subtle Signs of Stress

10 Things An Effective Church Vision Must Do

An effective church vision has been described as many things.  Bill Hybels calls vision “a picture of the future that produces passion and puts people in it.”  Others say it is a picture of a preferred future.  I say vision is what you see, feel and hear on Sunday compounded over time.
Regardless of what definition resonates most with you, there are 10 Things An Effective Church Vision Must Do:

1. An Effective Church Vision has to paint a very clear picture of the future.
2. An Effective Church Vision must be measurable:
3. An Effective Church Vision unites generations and multiple constituents around Kingdom purposes.
4. An Effective Church Vision places short-term strategies into long-term perspective.
5. An Effective Church Vision rings with clarity of future direction .  It must take the church somewhere.
6. An Effective Church Vision is memorable.  Hearers should be able to repeat the primary elements.
7. An Effective Church Vision is inspiring.  It excites and enthuses the hearer!
8. An Effective Church Vision is ambitious.  It involves faith, courage and risk.  It’s so big than unless God is in it, it’s not happening!
9. An Effective Church Vision is relevant to those the church has reached and has been called by God to reach.
10. An Effective Church Vision is translated into measurable strategies.

Does your church’s vision do this?  If not, allow me to give you 9 statements on the subject of vision Austin Stone Community Church’s pastor Matt Carter gave at 2015 Velocity Conference which will help you:

1. Step 1 in casting vision is to make sure your people love Jesus more than they love the vision you are casting.
2. Make sure your vision is God’s vision.
3. If God doesn’t build the vision, He will tear it down.
4. Cast first to your church those visions you absolutely know are the Lord’s.
5. There’s all kind of vision in this Book.  Just open it up and your people will follow.
6. Make sure your vision is biblical.  You want to make sure you can defend the vision biblically.
7. When your vision is a biblical vision, the people arguing with it are not arguing with you.  They are arguing with God.
8. Make sure you are passionate about the vision.
9. Let’s be pastors who cast vision that are worth people giving their life for.

Click HERE or on the image to the left and as a free gift for subscribing to this site, you can receive my new Ebook 1269 Leadership Quotes: Timeless Truths From 2016’s Top Christian Leadership Conferences.  Featured are the Johnny Hunt Mens Conference, ReThink Leadership, Orange and Leadercast Conferences among others.  If applied, these insights will make you an exponentially better leader.  Enjoy!!!

Christianity Has Lost A Great Leader And Dear Friend

Today I received a heartbreaking email from one of staff of Northshore Christian Church in the Seattle area.  Rob Cizek, the church’s beloved executive pastor pictured on the left, passed away unexpectedly on Monday, December 5th.  His impact was significant and he will be deeply missed.
I first got connected with Rob approximately six years ago.  He was one of the very first people who noticed the content I was providing and immediately became a champion of it.  Because of his example, I learned about generosity and the power of spreading quality Christian content.  Rob used his platform, particularly his Twitter account, to point people towards my site and countless others.  He did not have to do this.  I was a complete nobody.  But Rob was always a picture of generosity.  In fact, at the time of this writing, if you look back at his last 25 Twitter posts, 22 place the spotlight on another Christian leader.  Because of this, he became a fixture on my annual Top 30 Christian Leaders You Should Follow On Twitter lists.
The first time I met Rob in person was at the Orange Conference.  I was sitting on the front row live-blogging one of Carey Nieuwhof’s sessions.  An individual walked up to me and said, “Hey Brian, I wanted to introduce myself.  I’m Rob Cizek.”  I immediately recognized him, gave him a “man hug”, and asked him to sit beside me on the front row.  We talked during every break, laughed a lot, and immediately became great friends.  This all happened because Rob was willing to walk across a room and introduce himself to another person.  Rob was always connecting people to himself and others.
Because we both have an online presence, Rob and I were both regulars on the Christian conference live blog circuit.  This allowed us to spend a lot of time together multiple times each year over the next several years.
One of our conversations I remember most involved Mark Driscoll.  Mark had just been fired from Mars Hill Church amidst a tremendous amount of controversy.  What ensued was an online feeding frenzy.  I knew Rob had a tremendous amount of influence with Christian leaders in the Seattle area.  One example was how he regularly organized all the area’s executive pastors for networking and training opportunities.  Because of this, I felt he would have a unique perspective on the situation.  And boy was I right.
I’ll never forget his analysis of Driscoll.  He said, “Brian, there was never anyone kinder to area pastors than Mark.  He always made his facility available for our events.  He made conferences available to us.  Anything we needed, he would take care of.  He had a huge Kingdom mindset.  We will miss Mark.  He made every church in the area healthier.”  From that day forward, anytime I was asked about Mark Driscoll, I quoted Rob Cizek.  Nothing exemplified the type of person he was better than that.  When it did not appear you had a friend in the world, Rob was your advocate.
The last time we were together was October’s Catalyst Conference.  We got to spend a lot of time talking about the joy of being a dad.  We took turns looking at photos and videos of our children.  With my daughter leaving home and attending Liberty University next fall, I sought his advice on dealing with a daughter going off to college.  He talked about his daughter attending college in Florida.  I remember thinking “Florida!?  You live in Seattle!  Could you get any farther from home?”  He gave me some great advice on how to deal with this situation and help your wife through it as well.
Rob deeply loved his wife and children.  He deeply loved Christian leaders.  And he deeply, deeply loved Jesus.  He talked about no other topics.  I cannot even begin to imagine the heartbreak his immediate family and church family are experiencing.  He will be deeply missed by everyone who knew him.  My prayers are with them.
This April I will be attending the ReThink and Orange Conferences.  Unfortunately, my experience will not be as rich because Rob will not be sitting beside me for part of it.  We can’t believe he is gone so suddenly.  But I look forward to seeing Rob again in Heaven.  I take comfort in knowing he is having the time of his life right now worshipping Jesus.
God bless Rob.  You were a dear friend and one of the absolute best.  You will be deeply missed.

The Joy That Can Only Come From Daddy-Daughter Date Night

Tonight was Daddy-Daughter Date Night.  I was so excited all week.  As a dad with a daughter entering adulthood and soon to go off to college, you cherish these times because you know the sands are running through the hour glass.  It’s hard for dads to compete with boys, other teenage girls, worship bands, cell phones, homework and anything else 18-year-olds do these days.
As the evening approached, my 18-year-old daughter did what most 18-year-old daughters would do, tried to get out of it.  It was time for me to lay down the hammer.  I basically made her choose – an evening with me or Christmas without a credit card.  I won.
At 5:15 PM, I came down the stairs from my home office ready to go wherever she wanted for dinner.  She said, “Dad, I don’t really feel good and got a ton of homework to do.  If we can just order a pizza, I’ll even watch football with you.  I promise.”  I thought, “Am I in the middle of a Cats In The Cradle song?”
I said, “Let me go get something.  Whatever you want and I’ll bring dinner back from there.”  We settled on, what else, Chick-Fil-A.  So I went and hit the drive-thru but I came back with a surprise for my daughter.  In addition to her chicken nuggets and fruit cup, I got both of us chocolate chip cookies.  When I pulled them out of the bag, I think I became the leading candidate for Father Of The Year!
We had a great dinner, solved all the world’s problems, and then sat on the sofa watching worship videos from North Point Community Church and the Orange Conference.  She taught me about loop peddles.  We laughed at the Christmas In Bevelton video.  She even threw the old man a bone and let me watch a Chris Tomlin video.  It was SO MUCH FUN!
This was the BEST NIGHT I have had in a long, long time.  A quick aside before my final thoughts, if you want to see what an amazing worship leader my teenage daughter is, check out this video from NorthStar Church’s recent Ladies Night Out:

She does have a point about homework, though.  We are in Finals Week.  Since we could not make a full evening out of it, we have already scheduled lunch for Saturday.  So two hours was all I could get tonight.  I’ll take it and would not trade it for anything.
As I now sit across the room from her with both of us working on our laptops, her doing homework and me writing my thoughts, I may have never been happier.  Until our next Daddy-Daughter Date Night.
BTW – she’s already trying to get out of our Saturday lunch.  But she still has my credit card and that’s all the leverage I need!

Click HERE or on the image to the left and as a free gift for subscribing to this site, you can receive my new Ebook 1269 Leadership Quotes: Timeless Truths From 2016’s Top Christian Leadership Conferences.  Featured are the Johnny Hunt Mens Conference, ReThink Leadership, Orange and Leadercast Conferences among others.  If applied, these insights will make you an exponentially better leader.  Enjoy!!!

3 Powerful Lessons from a Ministry Affair That Almost Happened

By

Staff Writer

-

December 6, 2016

I knew it could happen to anyone, but I also knew it wouldn’t happen to me.
I knew it wouldn’t because I had heard the stories growing up and because I knew the statistics. It wouldn’t happen to me because I’d watched a friend and fellow pastor wreck his life. It wouldn’t happen to me because I read articles like the one you’re reading now and sagely nodded my head to its advice, hoping those reading it would listen because it could happen to anyone.
Except not me, because I knew better. Except I didn’t, and it almost did.

A friendship with a fellow co-worker turned into a mutual attraction. I tried to pray it away. I tried ignoring it. I even told a couple of friends about it for accountability. But the attraction and danger only intensified. Eventually, I faced a choice between wrecking my family, ministry and pastoral calling or telling my boss what was going on. By the grace of God I did the second, and it’s only because of that decision the word “affair” isn’t part of my story.
But there have still been consequences.
I have had to go through the long and painful process of re-earning my wife’s trust. The unhealthy relationship I formed shattered the trust of the team I led, and I ended up losing my job. I had to stand before a ministry I loved and announce I was leaving. I became one of the stories I’d heard growing up. I was a statistic.
There’s a lot of hope in the middle of the sadness. Because God is who he is, things are being made new. My marriage has never been stronger, I’ve never been more emotionally or spiritually healthy, and not only has God not given up on me, but he is also using this terrible last year to do necessary surgery on the deeply wounded recesses of my soul.
But I wish so badly I had done some key things differently. If I could go back and do things over again here are three key things I would change. I’m writing these down because while it’s too late for me, it might not be for some of you who are currently reading this.

FOCUS ON YOUR FAMILY

When my first child was born, I didn’t respond well. He was up for hours a night screaming, he had eczema, wasn’t breastfeeding well and wasn’t responding to any of the ways we were trying to fix these things. My wife and I were constantly fighting, so I emotionally withdrew. I didn’t realize this at the time but I had substituted connecting with my work over connecting with my wife. Of course, she noticed. She said we were fighting too much and that she wanted to read marriage books and go to counseling. I told her this was just a stressful season, that this was completely normal, and we’d get through it.
I was wrong.
What I realize now is I had authentic emotional and relational needs, but I’d cut myself off from their legitimate fulfillment. When I stopped being vulnerable with my wife I dammed up the river of my heart, but all that water was going to flow somewhere.
Over the past year, I’ve learned what true emotional vulnerability with my wife looks like. I’ve learned how important it is for us to sit on the couch after the kids go to bed and talk about life. I’ve learned how to hear her anxiety, fear, and frustrations not as an extra burden to either carry or avoid but as an opportunity to connect and say “me too.” I’ve discovered that while I chase false intimacy and run from vulnerability I can unlearn that.
I wish I could go back a year and tell myself “your wife is right. You’re emotionally disconnected, and you’re neglecting her and putting yourself in danger. Focus on your family.”

YANK OFF THE BAND-AID

Feeling a strong connection to someone who’s not your wife isn’t a sin, but hiding that connection is. When I realized my feelings had turned a strong and dangerous corner, I felt deeply ashamed. There was something wrong with me. I was broken. To feel something so strongly meant I had already cheated on my wife in my heart. Of course, none of that was true, but the feelings I had were so strong they felt true. The most painful and ugly thing to admit now is that on some level, all this felt good. I wanted to hold on to this inappropriate relationship I had developed because the emotional waters I mentioned earlier were being redirected and it made me feel alive.
Because of this, I was slow to give the honest version of what was happening to other people. When I initially told a couple of close friends what was going on I minimized the intensity of what I was feeling. When I told my wife I did the same. And when I eventually told my boss what was going on I didn’t lie but left out embarrassing details that would have helped him realize how serious the situation was. Looking back I think there’s a scenario where if I had been brutally, painfully honest right away – if I had pulled the band-aid off in one tug – I could have saved my job and put my wife through a lot less pain.
But because I was ashamed I only told part truths. I’m still paying the consequences for that choice.

LET GOD DO THE DEEP WORK

Affairs, much like smoking cigarettes, aren’t about a lack of knowledge. Both wreck lives and yet people know that and choose them anyway. Why?
What I have realized in the past year is there are huge reservoirs of buried pain in my life. I grew up in a family dynamic that didn’t know how to express anger or hurt. I had very little emotional connection with my mom. And I was sexually abused by a camp counselor in 6th grade, something I’d never told anyone other than my wife.
Until this past year, I barely knew how all this affected my interior world. I was reading my Bible, praying, and trying to follow Jesus as best I knew how. But because there were enormous, undealt with wounds from my past I was blind to my deepest vulnerabilities and unaware of how little I knew how to receive God’s love.
Over the past year, I have seen a counselor every week and a spiritual director every month. On multiple occasions I’ve sat on the floor of my living room at night, crying from the deepest hurting places of my heart, asking God to heal the wounds from my past. In Isaiah and then again in Luke we are told a crucial part of God’s kingdom work is to heal the brokenhearted. I get what that means now.
It’s so tempting for pastors to live out of the outer layers of their heart while bubbling underneath is fear, fear, and more fear. This shows up as pride, lust, anger, insecurity and emotional exhaustion but so much of it comes down to this: we are afraid we are unlovable. We’re afraid we really are failures. We are afraid the wounding words from our past are true. We don’t believe we are children of God, accepted freely and wholly by the death and resurrection of Jesus. We say these words to our church communities every week but we don’t believe them for ourselves.
To accept God’s love in the deepest parts of our soul means letting God do the deep work, to let him speak into our fears and free us. It involves accountability, a wise mentor, and a counselor who loves God and is skilled in their profession in equal measure. This is ultimately what ends affairs before they begin: learning how to accept the infinite love our Father has for us.
There’s one last thing I would want to tell myself a year ago: you’re going to be okay. Tear off the band-aid. Do the deep work. Come out of hiding and embrace the painful journey of healing. If you do that, God is going to take care of you.
I say this now because while I would never again want to go through this last year, I wouldn’t trade the new life God has birthed inside me for all the ministry success in the world.

The Narcissistic Pastor: 10 signs that you may be one

by Charles Stone

Ancient Greek mythology offers an important lesson for anyone in ministry, or in any leadership position for that matter. As one fable goes, Narcissus was a beautiful hunter. As a boy his face looked as if it were chiseled from the purest marble. His beauty attracted others to him but he could never let anyone get close even though they tried to extend their love to him. He resisted because he had found another love. Here’s what happened in the story and the implications for someone who might have traits of a narcissistic pastor.

One day at age 16 as be walked along the mythical river Styx, he stopped to sip water from a calm pool. As he knelt, the image he saw in the pool transfixed him. He immediately discovered his new love, the image of himself. His obsession with his own image kept him from giving or receiving love from others. The story says that because he could not bear to leave his reflection, he lay down by the pool and pined away for himself. Eventually the earth absorbed him and he became the flower narcissus. Thus, the word narcissist came to mean a person who has a fixation with himself.
What are some indicators that a pastor or a leader may be a narcissist? And what are the dangers to his or her ministry and family?
Peter Steinki, a prolific author and church ministry consultant, has working with hundreds of churches and pastors in the last 40 years. He once worked with 65 pastors who had affairs and found that narcissism lay at the root of most of those failures. These pastors’ need for others to value them and their need to feel important led them to sexualize their desires. Their narcissistic tendencies led them to moral failure.
Based on my experience with others and upon the insight of others like Steinki, I believe that if a pastor shows signs of narcissism and doesn’t admit them and seek help, he has doomed himself to failure. The narcissistic pastor lives with an inflated sense of self-importance and an insatiable drive to be liked and to be at the center of attention. Satan will capitalize on these traits and tempt him to compromise his morals and values. A narcissistic pastor will create a false self to cover his fear of humiliation. Exposure to the real person is anathema to him. Steinki says that a narcissistic pastor’s drive to avoid disclosure often results in these kinds of behaviors.^[1]

1. Rage if he experiences shame for shame exposes his true self.
2. An inordinate need for praise in order to feel important.
3. The feeling of entitlement to special treatment.
4. The immense need for continual feedback of how important she is.
5. The feeling of superiority and its reinforcement from others.
6. Strong reaction to rejection and disapproval, sometimes with intense rage.
7. The lack of the capacity to mourn, a defense against depression.
8. Calculating and conniving behavior to “maintain” supplies of continuous adulation.
9. An impaired capacity for commitment.
10. No capacity for self-focus or self-examination.

Unfortunately, ministry can give rise to narcissism. We are often in the limelight and get kudos and compliments from others that feed our egos. In the past two decades it seems that annually some well-known pastor commits adultery or fails in some public moral way, often rooted in narcissistic tendencies. Unfortunately, narcissists often exude qualities we laud: self-confidence, a magnetic personality, strong platform skills, and the ability to motivate others. Narcissism is deadly. Perhaps that’s one reason the bible often speaks against pride and for humility.
I’d like to hear about your experience with a narcissistic leader. Would you add any traits to this list? Have you ever seen a narcissistic pastor change? What helped him change?
Related posts:

• Do Pastors Wield too Much Power?
• Mashed Potatoes, Pride and God’s Eyes