"Why do people choose the substitute over God himself? Probably the most important reason is that it obviates accountability to God. We can meet idols on our own terms because they are our own creations. They are safe, predictable, and controllable; they are, in Jeremiah's colorful language, the 'scarecrows in a cornfield' (10:5). They are portable and completely under the user's control. They offer nothing like the threat of a God who thunders from Sinai and whose providence in this world so often appears to us to be incomprehensible and dangerous . . . [People] need face only themselves. That is the appeal of idolatry."
- David F. Wells
Monday, September 8, 2008
But only because I went to a church for almost ten years that pretty much had this pastor.
More Excerpts from The 417 Rules of Awesomely Bold Leadership: Use Words and Spell Things with Them
Rule #62 -- Empower Through "D-N-A"
...and when I showed him my Harley, I think he re-considered what faith is all about.
The point is, Leaders may lead through vision, but Leading Leaders lead through empowering people to share the Leader's vision. We do this through what I call "DNA", which stands for "Delegation-n-Acronyms". You can't have one without the other.
First: Delegate. Then: Unleash an unending blizzard of acronyms.
What makes a great acronym? I use this simple way to remember:
A -- Awesome
C -- Can-Do
R -- Relentless
O -- Othoritative
N -- Not un-awesome
Y -- (Fill this in later)
M -- Manly
S -- Synergistismic
Friends, as I once told a small group including Czech President Vaclav Havel and Vince McMahon of the WWE: Leadership is about one thing: Vision. But Awesomely Bold Leadership is Leadership Plus Vision. And what is more powerful, friends, than Leadership Plus Vision Raised to the Power of Spelling Things Out with Other Words? Probably nothing, my friends, and that's why I...
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Rule #398 -- Leave a Legacy of Awesomeness in Leadership
...so General Powell looked at me, his eyes welling, and said, yes, sure, there are leaders. But who is leading them?
Then he realized that okay, there are lot of people doing that. But who is leading those people, the ones who are doing that?
Well, yeah, some people are doing that. But -- and here was his real question -- who is leading THEM?
Well, I am.
But here's another question, friends: Who is going to reach the next generation of leaders, and empower them to be led by someone awesome? We have a crisis here. Who will lead leading leaders when I die?
Answer: My books and CD's, that's who.
And my tapes, and some of these younger guys I allow to speak at my conferences. These men are revolutionizing leadership by doing everything exactly the same way, but they're doing everything the exact same way with their shirts half untucked, sometimes tattoos, and they say things like "off the chain" a lot.
New generations require new approaches. And here's my new approach: Good ol' fashioned Awesomely Bold Leadership. Awesome is as awesome does, and if that means changing a name of a church from "First Baptist Church" to "The Bizzle Chizzle", I'm all for it, so long as we have a gifted man on stage, and...
Hilarious and incisive.
This stuff is barely parody these days.
The pastor I sat under rode a Harley (and wanted everyone to know about it, to the point that he even rode up onto the stage at the same kids' building fundraising event where he suggested people sell their cars or refinance their homes to give proceeds to the building fund) AND was (and is) irrationally acronym obsessed.
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Comments on "This Is Almost Too True to be Funny":
3. Bill
- 09/09/2008 8:57 am CDT
Our pastor uses a lot of alliteration (e.g., the Person of Jesus, the Priority of Jesus, the Passion of Jesus, etc.) in his sermon points. That bugs some people but I will take that any day over effusive alliteration.
I wonder when pastors will realize that those of us in the corporate world get our fill of slick powerpoint presentations during the week. We don't need any more on the weekend.
4. Chanda
- 09/09/2008 12:30 pm CDT
Wow. And I feel like I should have an acronym for that, but alas, I miss the mark of over-zealous creativity again.
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As usual, this post and the upcoming elections reminded me of another of my favorite C.S. Lewis passages. This one from his short essay 'The poison of subjectivism':
"While we believe that good is something to be invented, we demand of our rulers such qualities as 'vision', 'dynamism', 'creativity', and the like. If we returned to the objective view we should demand qualities much rarer, and much more beneficial-virtue, knowledge, diligence and skill. 'Vision' is for sale, or claims to be for sale, everywhere. But give me a man who will do a day's work for a day's pay, who will refuse bribes, who will not make up his facts, and who has learned his job."