On Leading Well

Author: Ken

  • Self-Leadership in Personal Finance

    The United States economy, as everyone well knows, is experiencing a correction. They say when Wall Street sneezes other markets catch cold. Google advertising has gone flat (still strong, but not growing, which sent the stock value plunging $250 per share) and people are charging less to their credit cards. Some see this as a crisis for a consumer economy driven by fear and greed. Others see wisdom and veiled hope as consumers think twice before opening our wallets. Imagine an entire country rediscovering the notion of personal responsibility….

    Wanna survive a financial crunch? I offer three rules and three links for consideration as Personal Finance 101. We’ve tried our best to live by these rules during 22 years of marriage and they have served us well:
    Rule #1. God owns it all.

    Rule #2. Spend less than you earn. Over time you will be able to do most of what you want to do in life.

    Rule #3. Divide your monthly income into three parts:
    a. Give at least 10%. (Pay God first).
    b. Save at least 10%. (Pay yourself next).
    c. Plan to enjoy life on what remains.

    For very practical wisdom and a knock on the side of the head, check out 10 Things I Know At 40 That I Wish I Knew At 20, everything-you-ever-really-needed-to-know-about-personal-finance-on-the-back-of-five-business-cards, and SoundMindInvesting.com. The last one gives excellent lifelong perspective on giving, saving, investing and diversification.

    Self-leadership lesson: Live by the rules.

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  • Two Quick Thoughts on Life-giving Reproduction

    “Better to give a year or so to one or two men who learn what it means to conquer for Christ than to spend a lifetime with a congregation just keeping the program going.”
    – Robert Coleman in Master Plan of Evangelism

    “A man’s greatest talents are not in how much he has been able to do alone, but in how effective he has been in getting others to work with him. A good leader leads men; a great leader trains leaders.“
    – Henrietta Mears, mentor to Bill Bright

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  • Student-led Movements Everywhere

    “Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!” – God, Psalm 46:10

    We are currently witnessing a resurgence of spiritually motivated student activism around the world. “God will accomplish His purposes,” our former pastor used to say, “with us if He may, without us if He must.” The longer Ann and I are involved in God’s global harvest, the easier it is to believe we are on the brink of seeing His Great Commission fulfilled.

    One of my many lame excuses for few recent blog posts has been extensive travel over the past two months. From Cape Town to Cairo, from LA to Canada, and from Hungary to Thailand, dozens of conversations with field staff and student leaders confirm that God is accomplishing His work at a seemingly accelerated rate.

    • Kristoff, a German student who attended the CM2007 missions conference in Korea last July, was convicted by those students sitting in the “no photos” section because they came from countries where they faced persecution. “We’re not risking anything,” he said. He has mobilized a prayer movement, calling fellow students to believe God together for gospel-resistant German campuses.

    • I recently attended a gathering in Hungary of about 500 Christians who minister throughout 19 countries in Eastern Europe and Russia. A majority of these teams saw between 5-20 students indicate decisions to follow Jesus Christ just last semester. Several of these locations have been notoriously hard soil.

    • In “closed” East Asia, one multinational team comprised of 4 staff members and 5 volunteers has seen God open up student-led ministries on 30 campuses in 4 cities. Please read that again and let it soak in. I asked Andy, the team leader, what his secret was. “Asking students to be in a prayer group or join a Bible study is not a challenge,” he replied. “We show them God’s big heart for the nations from day 1, then invite them to change their world. We’ve discovered that this way the students don’t think ‘Hey wait, I need a staff member to help me,’ or ‘I need permission to….’ They just go for it and start leading.”

    Lesson for us: History is moving toward a very clear end which culminates in the God of the Bible being glorified in every nation. Students have always been the lever that moves the world. Let’s get everyone we can think of out of the bleachers and onto the field.

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