YOU'RE ONLY A MAN VS. YOU DA MAN

One of my favorite movies that I enjoy watching is "Law Abiding Citizen" starring Jamie Foxx and Gerald Butler. An overlooked but powerful scene in the movie is at the very beginning when a story is told about Marcus Aurelius.

“Marcus Aurelius hired a servant to walk behind him as he made his way through the Roman town square. And this servant’s only job was to whisper in his ear when people praised him, ‘You’re only a man. You’re only a man.’”

As I continue to get ready for our VBS at the Macedonia church, which will concentrate on Leadership, I realized that good leadership is about assembling the right team. No Leader can carry the entire load; therefore the assembling of a good leadership team is vital for ministry.

One insight that I read on this subject matter comes from Jim Collins' book Good to Great. He said before you even think of deciding where it is that you want to go as an organization/church/business or community group, you need to make sure you assemble the right team.

1.Get the right people on the bus (your leadership team)

2.Get the wrong people off the bus.

3.Get the right people in the right seats.

Many times, we fail to assemble the right team! Instead of finding the right people for the position, we pick "OUR PEOPLE, or PASTOR PEOPLE, or YES MEN. Our staff, our deacon board, our accountability committee looks like a grand collection of people who instead of in love walk with us to remind us "YOU'RE JUST A MAN", they are hand picked cheerleaders, our personal, paid entourage who holla on demand, "YOU DA MAN"!

All of us like people who give us compliments and appreciate our efforts because in service work, many receivers of the gift God has given you act like they could do it better, faster and cheaper than you; however, it is dangerous to surround yourself with people who will not tell you the truth but would rather fill your ears with good sounding words. We must remember that the first key to leading and living a Blessed Life is to not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

Colin Powell said, "If you have a Yes man working for you, one of you is redundant".

There is a danger that is worse than surrounding yourself with YES MEN and that is having the power to actually create your own YES MEN. To cultivate, Construct, to create your own private cheering section of YOU DA MAN PASTOR PEOPLE.

A Yes Man is someone that won’t challenge your position and in fact they will always tell you what you want to hear and then scurry about to execute your plan. Generally, Yes Men can be easily found in a crowd because they are the up and coming risers, trying to advance their careers as quickly as they can.

Our job in leadership development for the church is not to develop YES MEN but GOD MEN. A GOD MAN will be loyal to the Pastor because you can't follow God and disrespect his program or his Pastor. A GOD MAN will know how to express an opinion without disrespecting the office or the officer. A GOD MAN is not just looking to see how much power they can possess or just talk to hear themselves talk.

GOD MEN who have been trained either by the Acts 6 principle, the I Timothy 3 Principle or the Matthew 25 Parable of the Talents principle; Leadership within the church is not management in the business sense but stewardship. We don't own or run! We are entrusted with and must answer.

Thank God that I have been blessed at Macedonia with a Marcus Aurelius who loves me enough to say, "YOU'RE ONLY A MAN! Thank God in our Convention Work, District, State and National, I have real Pastoral friends who will walk with me while praise is being showered and say "YOU'RE ONLY A MAN".

I am looking forward to vacation Bible School 2011!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Owens