Stuff I Learnt From Last Year (2017 Edition)

Generally, here's my Year 2017 summarized in various forms... 

Also, it you're interested in what I picked up from previous years (especially 2016), click here. 


Quotes from Various Sources 
1. You don't have to worry about what people say about you, but what people say about you that is true. - Brian Houston (senior pastor, Hillsong Church) in an interview with Carey Nieuwhof (Canadian pastor and leadership guru.) 

2. Leaders who stop believing the best about people stop receiving the best from people. - Carey Nieuwhof 

3. Growth has more to do with your attitude than your budget - from an e-book called The Senior Pastor's Guide to Breaking Growth Barriers. I shared this book here. 

4. You can disagree with my choices all you can; but judging my choices won't change yours. - from Hell On Wheels (TV Show) Season 2, Episode 7.

5. While describing the nature of a fallen world, the script writer of Hell On Wheels in Season 3 episode 2 says, "Every man here carries a gun, which can be had for as little as 3 dollars, and a knife and goes to church on Sunday."

6. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. - Tim Keller 

7. For in the beginning of things is often to be found their end. (Salem, TV show, Season 2 episode 1).

8. Nobody here does anything to be nice. The quicker you learn that, the longer you survive. - UnREAL season one episode 9.

9. There is nothing (evil) a man cannot do once he accepts the fact that there is no God. - from Don't Breathe (movie). 

10. You cannot win a war without a general. - Tyrant (TV Show) season 2.

11. Billy Graham’s Rules for effective Christian ministry:
(a) Operate with financial transparency.
(b) Avoid even the appearance of sexual immorality.
(c) Avoid criticizing other pastors and churches.
(d) Be painstakingly honest in all publicity.

12. We don’t want to become a company for everything, we want to become a platform for everything. And in fact we’ve even moved on from using the word platform. We now use the word raft because platform is something which sits still. A raft is something which moves. And the world that we’re in today is moving at a particularly rapid pace - Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO 

13. If you cannot be honest with yourself, how can you get the truth out of anyone else? - Quantico (TV Show)

14. We should notice that there is a big difference between being present and being in the presence of God - Kim Walker-Smith (while performing THRONE ROOM at Worship Central's New Song Cafe) 

15. Everything is food for something else - Carl in The Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 7

16. Judas Iscariot was not a godly man who had a bad day, but an ungodly man who got exposed on one day - Pst. Mark Driscoll 

17. Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees, takes off his shoes - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

18. The highest expression of stewardship is obedience, not readiness - Edmund Chan. 

19. Contrary to popular opinion, “No” is a complete sentence. - Scott Savage 

20. Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth. - Elementary (TV show) Season 1, episode 10.

21. "The paradox of tolerance" refers to the act of being intolerant of intolerance. - Unknown 

22. There's always a temptation to go, "Alright, well, let's write another 'Oceans'." But I'm, like, a firm believer that God's always doing something new, as opposed to the comfort of resting on laurels or resting on what's worked in the past. - Joel Houston (co-writer of Hillsong's "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)") in their documentary, Hillsong - Let Hope Rise (2016)

23. Trust is such a delicate thing. Always easily clouded by love or hate. - Quinn in "Into the Badlands" (TV show) Season 2 episode 3.

24. Jimmy Kimmel on Las Vegas Shootings: “It feels like someone has opened a window into hell.”

25. A shark that does not swim sinks - Arrow Season 5 episode 1.

26. We should give not because we have but because we know the pain of lacking - Anonymous 

27. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another two new ones till you have read an old one in between. - C.S. Lewis


Lessons On Life and Personal Growth 
1. Everyone - even the most forgiving and the most tolerant - has a breaking point. Just don't stretch them to that point. You'll regret it. 

2. When you realize that you are not always right, you'll LOVE to listen to people who think TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the way you do. It will keep you sober. 

3. Approach another person's weaknesses and failures with caution. Do it as if you're walking bare feet in a room full of broken glass. Because that's the same way you'd like people to deal with you when your world is falling apart. Yes, like it or not, it will someday. 

4. The other word for a "tired mind" is depression. 

5. "I have nothing to hide" is an understatement. Everyone has something to hide.

6. Don't rush. Your "next" may be now. 

7. Not everything has an immediate "next". Dig deeper. Your next may be now. 

8. The debate on what to wear and what not to wear is not about you or the clothing you're wearing, but the one you're representing. 

9. He is no man he who has to be reminded or who has to remind others that he is one. 

10. At some point, we have all said something regrettable - something nasty - something that we all want everyone to forget; but they don't and they won't forget. So we just have to bear with that reality and move on. That is life. 

11. People can sometimes see holes in your character which you don't; so don't always put them off when they tell you some stuff. Go think about it. It helps. 

12. Don't take me as I am and leave me the way you found me; take me as I am then rebuke my stupidities. Then you'll be a good friend. 

13. Be yourself. That's the best gift you can ever give yourself and others. 

14. Your freedom is always limited to what you know. The more you know, the freer or more enslaved you become. 

15. Almost everyone that loves second hand things is stingy. 

16. People love anonymity online because it gives them the needed courage to be evil without accountability. It's the courage of fools.

17. Misplaced passion is a dangerous thing, a violent master.


Lessons On Leadership 
1. Through close observation, you realize this: that there is always the other guy under that great leader that seems wiser and better than the leader but doesn't really care about titles and fame.

2. I always think that the greatness of a leader is in how many people one has mentored and not the number of his or her followers.

3. When you're not answerable to anyone, it's not a privilege but a trap - a trap for impeding disaster. Autonomy makes you think that you are a god; you are not. You are human and you are replaceable.

4. A leader needs to trust people - whether those people are trustworthy or not - or he/she will lead alone. And leading alone is tough and exhausting.

5. Everyone has potential hidden in them it's the responsibility of the leader to identify it and help that person fully unlock it. 

6. If you don't adapt fast after trusted members of your team move out of town, your team is likely to stagnate or die altogether. 

5. The absurdity of being a "prominent public figure" is that someone can deny God His glory so that to guard his/her ego.


Lessons On Ministry and Christian Living
1. There are at least three types of Christians: 
(a) Those who live by always being amazed by what God is doing. 
(b) Those who live by always being threatened by what the devil is doing. 
(c) Those who don't know the difference. 

2. Prayer should not replace strategy and strategy should not replace prayer. Each one has its place in the journey of success. Carnality is when you replace prayer with strategy, and foolishness is when you replace strategy with prayer. 

3. Holistic Christian teaching touches on three areas of life: a Christian's relationship with God, a Christian's relationship with their surroundings (people and things) and a Christian's relationship with their own self. 

4. Your level of obedience to God is not ultimately determined by what you do after He's given you instructions to follow but what you decide that you'll do even before He gives you the instructions. That is called surrender. There can never be total obedience without surrender. 

5. Fear says, "We've never done that before!" Faith asks, "So what?"

6. Everyone has a theology. It may be right, it may be wrong, but we all have a theology. We all have something to say about God. 

7. The finished product.
That's what we all seem to see in others, but rarely in ourselves. That's also what God sees in all of us. But, of all things we are ever supposed to see, we rarely see it in ourselves.

8. Most of the time, we think we know what we want... until we receive it, then we don't actually know what to do with it. That's why God hesitates to give us stuff, until our purpose and what we want are aligned in the same path. Then, only then, will we know what to do when we receive what we want. 

9. Every spiritual gift has its own way of discipline in order to maintain its effectiveness. Break the discipline, and you make the gift ineffective in edifying the church or oneself. 
A prophet is given a grace totally different from a teacher, who in turn is given a different grace from an encourager. Once you understand your gift, also seek to understand its gracing and its disciplines. 
Flowing within your gift and diligently being disciplined in it makes it effective as far as you are concerned and as empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

10. God will let you have the leader you deserve; but it's not necessarily His choice. This means that God will allow you people to have a leader (whether nominated or elected) but that does not make Him the chooser. 

11. Too much prayer without praise and thanksgiving is like always borrowing but never saying "thank you". Praise the Lord also, for that is the duty of man. 

12. It is quite humbling when we realize that God has made us part of His story: His great story of saving the world.

13. No one is angrier at sin than God; and yet no one is more forgiving of sin than He is.

14. God will do it. Not because you are good, but because He is good.

15. In ministry, the surety and promise within your call is the source of your perseverance. 

16. Three people are always watching you: people, the devil and the Lord. But they do it differently. 
The one to criticize and judge you, the other to devour you and the last one to show you favor.

17. The less fervent the prayer, the more carnal the mind.  

18. The longer we live, the more we realize that we need God more than we even need our own lives. 


Lessons on Relationships, Marriage and Family 
1. You cannot break a relationship habit under the same conditions that created it. That's why breakups are a necessary ingredient while dating. 

2. Fall in love but with your mind wide open. Being drunk with love is dangerous, way more dangerous than being drunk with anything else imaginable. 

3. Another observation I've made concerning married people: there is a very big difference between the wife that's appreciated in public, and the other one who's demonised in public. 

4. Most of the arguments in relationships end with the man demanding that he be respected and the woman pleading that she be heard. It's a quintessential overflow of a very infamous peculiarity. 

5. Once sex is involved, the mind is blurred to thinking right. The mind becomes "sexified".
Avoid the sexification of your minds, guys.

6. If you want to be a poet or a philosopher (or both), get into a very good relationship or a very bad one. The awesome or diabolic actions of your partner will always have an an effect on the overflow of your words. 

7. The best therapy for a man is an ego boost, not psychoanalysis.

8. Relationships have issues. Marriages have more.


Lessons on Music, Worship and Singing 
1. To all musicians, lead worshipers, singers etc: you're as good as both your public and private voice rehearsals. You may sit around the best vocalists and be trained by the best voice trainers in this world but if you're not teachable and you don't take time to practice both in public and in private what you're taught, your voice will remain as bad as it was 10 years ago. True story. 

2. This world is filled with too many superstars, but less artists. Creativity is so elusive today.

3. You can be a great singer with a great voice but when you overdo your voice techniques, you just end up boring everyone. When it comes to singing,  little is more. 

4. If a song is helping someone reach God, regardless of how you feel about it as the singer, just sing it. Right then, it's God's song for the person, not yours. 

5. People who sing are either very happy people or very sad people. Music only knows two extremes of emotions: happiness or sadness. 

6. If you don't delight in the exactness of detail, you can't be an artist. 


That's basically what I picked from 2017.
See you in the next blog as we start talking relationships and stuff... 


Bonface Morris. 

If Your Drawing Board and Your Strategy Are the Same Thing, You're Finished

Some of us know how to deal with failure: we put the bitter truth on a plate, stare at it, muse over it, eat it with haste and and move on. But most of us don't.

And this happens (not being able to deal with failure) mostly when we have all our eggs (hopes and dreams) in one basket (in one person, strategy or plan). It is when we cannot comfortably put that plate of failure on the table and eat it. We pretend to focus elsewhere, albeit to kill the urge to eat the failure-feed, but mostly, always falling short. Then we may either end up blaming the plate, the table or the chair instead of focusing on the failure-feed.

So, the question now is: when our present failed strategy is and was our only way out, what do we do?

I'm afraid to say that if your drawing board and your strategy were/are the same thing, then you're done. You're finished. You, are, finished.

I'll explain.

Let's imagine that you were invited to a song-writer's competition requiring participants to only sing their best original compositions. Also, participants may write as many good songs as they wish. But as for you, even after knowing these good rules, you came to the auditions with only one BEST song written by you.

Your strategy would be: "This is my best song, it will work, it will win me the award. The judges will listen to it and fall in love with it, and it will help me trump every other competitor. I have the BEST song, therefore there is no need to worry." Why do you feel overconfident? Because it is the best song! It is YOUR best song.

Unbeknownst to you, there is someone else thinking the same way as you are but they have their other three "BEST" songs.

What they are doing is this: they are imagining, "If the judges won't like this first BEST song of mine, I'll unleash my other BEST song; and if they won't think the second one is worth their ears, I'll still point them towards my other BEST song." If your competitor's BEST songs are in different genres and with different strengths in composition and lyricism, you're finished. They'll win, and you'll fail. Why will they win? Because they will be thinking about "BESTNESS" with regard to the judges, not themselves!

Back to the point though...

Now, imagine a situation where the judges listen to your one BEST song (which will actually happen if every other competitor was as well prepared as you were) and after they're undecided, they chose to ask you for a second song: "Hey! Do you have any other song you've written apart from this one?" Guess what you will tell them... Nonsense. You'll tell them nonsense.

You'll end up as the runners-up (or not, depending on the competition), not because you are a bad song writer but because you're a poor strategist. You thought your one song was enough, but your competitor came in with more tools to win. It was a do-or-die for them, it wasn't for you. So when they unleash their second song, you'll be wishing you had a "drawing board" to go back to. But you wouldn't be having any. Why? Because your drawing board was your strategy - you had already utilized its significance. Your one song was your do-or-die strategy.

This simply means this: whenever you have an opportunity to compete, don't EVER undermine your opponent. You'd be better be ruthless at wanting something than play around with wanting it then lose it in the end. You'd better be prepared for the worst, and the best may just end up smiling at you; than thinking that you are the best only to realize that the best is actually better and smarter than you in many ways.

I hope you learn this whenever you fail: that two arrows are always better than one. The second arrow enables you to eat your failure-feed with pints of salt.

End Note: The only place where our strategy and our drawing board are allowed to be the same is in our relationships and when dealing with God.

Bonface Morris.

Stuff I Learned and Discovered Last Year (2016 Edition)

Stuff I learned from 2016

This is a summary of my journal entries from the year 2016 in point form. 2016 was a year of deep learning for me by the way. Feel free to pick quotes from these lessons: that's what  they are for anyway.

If you may be interested in more entries from previous years, read more on what I learned in 2013 here, in 2014 here and in 2015 here.

*******

Lessons on life and personal growth

1. Sometimes you stick in the same place for a while not because you don't want to grow, but because you want others to come to where you are. At such times, you only grow inward because growth on the outside will cause an imbalance. And you don't want that.

2. If you want to know something more about the character of a mother, look at her sons. Sons almost always replicate the mannerisms of their mothers. Almost always. 

I observed a few mother-son relationships and discovered this: a boy is almost always as good or as bad as his mother.

3. Probably, one of the worst things in the world is to have a useless voice; a voice that is always sidelined and neglected. A ghost voice.

People with ghost voices are very defensive; sometimes from within but mostly it is seen in how they decide to not follow and do things with the masses.

4. Don't waste time thinking too much and worrying about tomorrow's outcome that you have no control over; instead, enjoy and work out today to your level best. At least when tomorrow comes, you'll be proud that you did your best today.

5. In 2016, I came to appreciate the importance of hard cover books; not fully though. They came in handy when power blackouts came about.

6. Everyone has an opinion on everything. Even silence, in and of itself, is an opinion.

7. You choose who to befriend. You choose who to propose to. You choose who to marry. It's your choice. The only thing you don't choose is when you'll die.

8. It seems everyone wants to be part of a great story, but very few are ready to be part of the making of that story. Always remember this: that every great thing you see took time and effort.

9. War always precedes greatness.

10. Here is the one single advice I'd give to this generation (both the young and old): listen first, react later.

11. Always know when to give up on an argument or discussion because some people just won't lose - even after realizing they are wrong.

12. Make friends with elderly people: both men and women. Tap from their wisdom on life, family and investment. It may be the best free advice you can ever receive in your whole petty life.

13. Be content with the fact that not everyone will agree with you, no matter how smart you are.

14. This is how scary wisdom has become: for every smart thing you're going to say in this world, always know that there's someone somewhere who knows a little more than you do but they have chosen to say nothing about it.

15. "Online" is now a real place: with buildings, with people, with personalities, with relationships, with cars, with jobs, with churches, with feelings, with clubs, with malls, with roads, with homes, with playgrounds... Online is a place.

16. And don't compare yourself to other people because there will always be someone who is better than you. Appreciate yourself as the best of yourself. That always works.

17. There is now the emergence of something I call "soft pride" where someone agrees that what you're telling them is the right and true thing to do but decide to do against it because they - as individuals or in the present culture they live in - think it doesn't apply to them. 

18. There are days when life requires that you simply stand still, days when you walk, days when you go sprinting, then days when life throws you in for a marathon. Never mix them up.

19. Listening to eBooks by converting them to audiobooks using a Windows Software called Balabolka happened to me last year. It made my ebook-reading life so sweet.

20. Always discern the difference between people respecting you and fearing you, between people envying you and refusing to give you support.

21. This generation is so excited about #Hashtags as if they are THE SOLUTION. They are not THE SOLUTION. They may be part of the solution, but they are not THE solution.

22. That one thing we fail at most but which is required almost everywhere, by everyone and in everything, is consistency. We lack discipline, and that is a problem.

23. The more open-minded you are, the less you judge. I wrote something on open-mindedness here.

Lessons on relationships, family and marriage

1. Relationships do not survive on love. Relationships survive on friendship, on mutual agreement and on trust. Love isn't overrated, but its role is to complement these three (friendship, mutual agreement and trust) and to ensure they smoothly work in unison.

2. I learned that most people don't talk about the real issues in relationships: finances, sex, faithfulness, work, ministry etc. They don't take real steps towards change because they think they'll change once they're married. This is one of the biggest misconceptions about marriage.

3. If you're single and you happen to meet a saved lady or guy that understands what contentment is, don't let her go before you make her yours. It's hard nowadays to get a person that isn't a gold digger, saved or not. 

4. Treat every date you have with your girlfriend as if it's your first date.

5. Things are not what they seem. Campus students, parents, Christians and everyone else should always remember this. Get the details first before making noise about something or fully appreciating anything.

6. If love to you means spending a lot of money, then you have not known love.

Lessons on leadership

1. The level of our commitment is shown in our consistency, not in our good words.

2. Greatness is when you ask for help even when you think you don't need it.

3. I sat down and wrote two constitutions for different groups I lead in church: the Youth and the Worship Team. It proved quite exhausting but it is becoming very key in bringing the change we all desire.

4. Reasonable millennials desire authenticity more than they crave "coolness". Always know that. 

PS: I actually wrote a blog about this here.

5. Never underestimate the intelligence of your readers and listeners.

6. A leader should never expect those under him/her to pursue a vision that the leader is not into; unless that leader is only a leader by title and not by action.

7. As a leader you need to learn to respect people's decisions, whether good or bad.

8. As a leader, be a person of your word. Be the first one to be faithfully committed to the words you say. People only trust people who do what they say they will do.

9. People follow the momentum given by the leader. When he/she says that they can't, it's almost true that the whole team can't.

10. As a leader, learn to face the outcome of your decisions whether good or bad.

11. Ideas are great; but ideas without an actionable plan, they are just wishful thinking.

12. I am a horrible counselor, but I can make a good coach. Why? Because I am too action-oriented. Just sitting around listening to someone without offering direction feels offensive to me. 

13. Have nothing to do with people who think that you can't slay giants. You are made for more.

14. Leadership within meetings is a one-sided kind of leadership. Very ineffective.

15. If someone else can do it, please allow them to do it.

And then there was a whole blog on what I have learned in leadership in the past 10 years. read it here.

Lessons on Christian living

1. The tragedy is not knowing Scripture. No. The tragedy within most of us Christians today is resolving to speak out Scripture only in order to sound "spiritual". We actually don't believe what it is saying. That's the tragedy. We argue with God because we think His ideas are outdated. That's the tragedy.

2. I've realized one thing in my walk with God: that in order to mesmerize us, He has a habit of coming in full force to help us just after we have given up on ourselves.

3. I discovered that people's understanding of the Christian life and how it should be lived is messed up. People excuse quite a number of things, including; sex before marriage, worrying, lack of faith, conforming to the world e.t.c.

4. People want perfection, God wants brokenness; people want to give you praise, God wants to make you whole. Notice the difference.

5. God and man may give you advice/counsel, (which you may choose to accept or reject), but it has always been and it will always be your choice.

6. The past will always haunt us. It is therefore our responsibility to make today a better past for tomorrow; so that whatever will haunt us tomorrow from today will be good memories, a stable and praiseworthy foundation and a life lived for the glory of God.

7. God is always in a good mood.

8. The problem today is not that there are no answers in life; the problem is that we give up so fast. We give up so fast on almost everything: on God, on friends, on family, on people, on systems, on our relationships and marriages, on life... we give up so fast. That's the problem.

Various quotes from books, podcasts, movies, TV shows, sermons and various web articles
1. God does not drive an ambulance - Pastor Matt Chandler.

2. Being a leader is not about being perfect, it's about weathering a storm and carrying on - 

from The Last Ship (TV Show), Season 2 Episode 9.

3. Sometimes saving one life - if it's the right life - is enough - 

from Person of Interest (TV Show), Season 5 Episode 13.

4. There are 3 words you should drop from your leadership vocabulary starting now: someone, something and someday. Read more here. 

5. A woman that can be bought isn't worth having. - 

from Marvel's Daredevil (TV Show), Season 1 Episode 4.

6. Instagram leads to depression - Pastor Matt Chandler.

7. Dating without the intent of getting married is like going to the grocery store with no money. You either leave unsatisfied or you take something that isn’t yours - Jefferson Bethke.

8. I picked up a number of quotes from an interview Perry Noble (a pastor) had with Mark Driscoll (Google him if you don't know him - that's one pastor who knows how to bounce back!). Here are the quotes:
(a) In this internet age, communication has become instant, constant, global and permanent.
(b) There are three kinds of people leaders deal with: wise (are teachable and learn from their mistakes), foolish (these just want to argue and shift blames) and evil (they just want to hurt you.)
(c) The fruit of a good theology is love. A good theology results in loving relationships. 

9. As you search for the truth about God, understand that it's best to deal with the subject of sin before you deal with the subject of prayer. When you ask God to forgive you for the things you've done, your sin will no longer be a barrier in your relationship with Him. 

- from my Devotionals. 

10. Atheism is not an ignorance problem but a preference problem: preferring self to God - John Piper. 

11. In the end, our success is not about us, it's all about God. You take Him out of the equation, you got nothing - Hillsong UNITED's Joel Houston in an interview about their movie "Hillsong - Let Hope Rise".

12. Consistency separates winners from wannabes, and diligence makes the difference between all-time greats and one-hit wonders - Pastor Steven Furtick.

13. Quotes from Elevation Church's #CodeOrangeRevival 2016: 

(a) There is a sound for revival and there is a rhythm for revival, but the time of revival is NOW - Christine Caine.

(b) Revival is when God shows me who I am today and besides that, He also unleashes the picture of me after an extraordinary encounter with Him, and asks me, "Hey, which one do you wanna be?"

(c) God can do the impossible, and He often calls us to do the impractical. - Levi Lusko. 

(d) Evidently, our world glorifies the finished product, but God glorifies the process. - Carl Lent (Senior Pastor, Hillsong New York).

(e) Do not focus on the platform, focus on faithfulness. If it is God’s plan for your life, allow Him to bring you the platform. And because your focus has always been on faithfulness, this will then sustain your platform. 

(f) It is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature - Peter Scazzero

14. I date music, but I'm married to worship - Travis Greene. 

15. The four pillars that lead to ministry success are; (a) don't focus on growing the church, focus on growing people, (b) character and integrity (not charisma) (c) humility and (d) generosity - 

from an interview between Rick Warren and Justin Blaney (founder of Innovate 4 Jesus.)

16. Yes, God is for us; but ultimately, God is for God - Pastor Matt Chandler. 

17. Ladies, imagine your future sons turning out like your boyfriend. If that thought makes you cringe, you should probably break up - Jefferson Bethke.

18. We are not waiting for the move of God, we are the move of God - Pastor Steven Furtick.

19. At the center of our anxiety is our pride - Pastor Steven Furtick. 

20. If you cannot be honest with yourself, how can you get the truth out of anyone else? - 

from Quantico (TV Show).

21. You will never know your capacity, how far you can go, until you accept a challenge - Pastor Steven Furtick.

22. Your freedom affects more than just you - Cameron McAllister, RZIM.

23. The idea of love in the absence of truth is meaningless - Michael Ramsden, RZIM. 

24. Quotes from LEADING YOUNG (a leadership hard cover book by one Gibson Anduvate): your leadership will be determined by what motivates your decisions. If you want to be the kind of leader who wields true life-giving influence, you must choose to serve... and... many aspire to leadership but few have what it takes. The younger generation of leaders is looking for role models and mentors but they are few and hard to come across. 

Bonface Morris.

Leadership and Mentorship: Lessons From a Few Years in Leadership

Leadership and Mentorship: Lessons From a Few Years in Leadership

I'm not a great leader. I've never been... But I always have something to say... (I don't know if it is a good thing to always have something to say or a bad one, but I'm okay with it.)

Anyway, here is what I have to say about what I have learned from leading in various capacities while on different teams these past 10 years. I'll go straight to the point and keep it as short as possible;

1. When practising leadership, some people or things will never change. Wisdom is when you know which ones and grace is when you understand how to deal with each without compromising progress.

2. Every great leader needs at least two kinds of people; someone who looks them in the eye and points out all the stupid things they are doing, and another one who pats them on the back and tells them they're doing great.

3. Only God has got your back. People will say they do, but they mostly understand so little of the weight of whatever they are promising.

4. People are fantastic. People are messy. Get used to it.

5. Not everyone wants the success of your team or leadership. There are members of your team and sometimes even leaders above you that will always think that you're not good enough. Get used to it.

6. Competing with other leaders and comparing yourself with them are some of the most stupid things you can do as a leader.

7. Your main goal as a leader is to simply glorify God and leave a legacy that gives Him glory. Everything else is overrated.

8. Lead. Be on the front line. Give direction. That's what leadership is all about. If you're doing anything less, you're missing the point.

9. Your passion and vision will be what determines where your team is headed. The lazier and less committed you are, the more your team falls apart.

10. There are so few leaders and mentors today, but so many people with positions and titles, that's the crisis of leadership in this century.

11. A perfect person cannot lead. Leadership is messy almost all the time, so a perfectionist will die sooner than they can make a second step in the right direction.

12. Great leaders never work alone. Never. (I learnt this from Andy Stanley). No matter how good you are, you'll always need people.

13. As a leader, the Spirit of God has got to work in you before He works through you. It's useless and stupid to keep giving instructions you never follow.

14. Do your work, play your part. Leave the consequences to God.

15. Keeping up and practising spiritual disciplines with consistency is what helps to keep you grounded as a leader. Get this document on discipleship and read about spiritual disciplines therein.

16. Learning new ways to lead and being open to new ideas helps a leader avoid moving around in circles.

17. My mistakes as a leader don't only affect me but a few hundreds of people that look to me.

18. People don't have to like you, but they sure do need to know where you stand on the most important issues of life.

19. I'll at any time accept on my team the committed, consistent and available person than the unavailable that seem influential.

20. Burnout, loneliness and depression are never that far in leadership, so delegate and share more.

21. There are always people under and around you that can lead better than you do, so stay humble.

22. People will quit on you. It's normal. Please don't overthink it.

23. Let your word be your bond; and let your actions always agree with whatever your mouth speaks. It is stupid to make promises that you are not ready to follow through to fulfil.

24. So many of us leaders only choose to see those under us through what they give and what they do and not what they can become. That's prejudice.

25. People are always waiting on the leader... Most of the time, they will only do and go as far as the leader does and goes.

26. There is a difference between wanting a leadership title and loving to lead; and a difference between commanding and leading.

27. Leaders are not gods, they're tempted and face challenges just like everyone else. Of all gifts, I think leadership is the most overrated.

28. Only leaders that have been tested and tempted and have hit rock bottom can understand, empathise and pray with people who hit rock bottom.

29. Instead of complaining against leaders, pray for them and offer advice.

30. Team meetings help leadership more than you could ever imagine. Almost all successful leaders hold consistent, true and constructive meetings.

31. Great leaders are some of the most unappreciated people in the world.

32. There are blind leaders who neither have vision, passion nor direction. A life under them is like living in hell.

33. To any reasonable leader, gossip is shit.

34. It doesn't matter how long you've been in leadership or in ministry, you just haven't learnt enough yet.

That's all for now.


Bonface Morris.

Marriage Prep: Notes And Lessons

Side Note: My girlfriend is picking out lessons and making notes from various sources (and from Scripture) on marriage. We are not claiming that she knows anything or everything (we actually know very little - and almost nothing - about marriage, so any married person reading this should get off their high horse at least for the time being), but that she is choosing to share what she is learning along the way. She is simply sharing her findings. And as I said here before, I am allowing her to have a voice on this blog and express what she is learning… If her voice becomes loud enough (read: consistent), she might just get her own blog. (Come on, a lady is gotta fly, no?)

So here is the first part of the various sentiments and lessons she's picking up along the way that she feels may help us guys in relationships. I know it is helping ours, so we guess it may add value to yours too. Also, if you haven't done it yet, please read her first blog in this series of posts here. There, you will find links to both her Facebook profile and her Google+ which you may use to say "Hi!" to her.

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Marriage prep: notes and lessons

For we young people that are called to be children and servants of our Father and of Lord Jesus Christ, relationships, courtship and marriage mean quite a lot of things to us. (By the way my boyfriend claims that the word "courtship" is highly overrated by we Christians, but that's a discussion for another day.) To some, relationships, courtship and marriage mean the whole world to them, while to others it's just another part of life.

From my observations, I have come to understand that some of us get into relationships for very selfish reasons. Mostly, these reasons do not fulfill the will of God for our lives and that is why our relationships end up being pain-zones instead of refocus-and-refreshment zones. I am not claiming that I am now perfect as far as the "why" to get into a relationship is concerned, but that I identify with these mistakes because I have made them before.

From what I am learning, most of us don’t know that relationships and marriage are a calling, a service to God, because it is through a good relationship and a good marriage that a servant of God can also carry out what is expected of them in that area of life.

I will be sharing with us the various things I am learning from various good sources about relationships and marriage. I hope that you will not see me as the expert writer but as a conduit, a channel, through which such information is being conveyed. 

First, let us review the meaning of some very important words that are going to come up in these posts;

Relationship - the dictionary definition of this word is a state of connectedness between people, especially an emotional connection.

Dating – the dictionary definition of this word is a form of regular romantic courtship between two individuals. Now, I don’t really fancy the way this word is used in secular systems because it is so selfish in itself. (Although it actually hold good meaning in and and of itself.) Most of us use it to cover our true motives which are having fun, and pretend to want to know people without the actual intention of marriage.

Marriage – the definition of this is a close and intimate union between a man and a woman.

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Now, I just came to know of this about most relationships, even the one that I was in when I was 18 years old: that they (including Christian relationships) have a tendency of not demonstrating the love of God and His will for a relationship between the opposite sexes. We have these relationships because of our selfish reasons (only wanting to receive) and our ungodly nature. I am learning that as Christians, our relationships with the opposite sex should always be with the intention of marriage. If you’re in a relationship, you are courting or are dating - whichever you like - I am learning that we better deeply rethink the real reason as to why we are doing so. 

Here is a good place to begin at when trying to figure out if we are doing the right thing or not: we should ask ourselves "Why am I in this relationship?" or "Why do I really need a relationship?"

I know with this you may say, "I have a job, I live on my own, I make good and enough money to support a family..." among many other reasons. 
All these reasons and others that you have may all be valid, and I don’t seek to dispute them, but I want to highlight those that would make me question whether I am there yet. Here are the few things that I have been told we need to have in order to consider ourselves ready for a relationship and later, marriage;

1. A personal unaided relationship with God

Men are called to be the head of the family (so I'm learning), therefore, men need to have a personal relationship with God in order to lead and love in the right way. Women too need to have a personal relationship with the Lord in order to learn the way of submission and how to love both their boyfriends and future husbands. 
This (having a personal unaided relationship with God) doesn't mean that when you get in a relationship, or you start courting or dating or when you get married that you should forget the essentials of brotherhood (having fellowship with your fellow brethren in church, going to church or praying together), but that your relationship with God should be able to stand when all these other people are not with you. This is because, even after marriage, you will still need to worship, read God's Word and pray as individuals and/or as partners. 

According to 2 Chronicles 24:1-2 and 24:17-18, let us not be like King Joash who was very enthusiastic and ready to serve God only when the priest Jehoiadah was alive. He served God to his best all the days of the priest but when Jehoiadah died, he listened to the princes of Judah and forgot the God of his fore-fathers; he even went to the extent of worshiping idols and groves.

Someone has said that if we as women do not have a good relationship with God, then how will we apply it in our relationships with our boyfriends or husbands? How will we know the roles that we have to play in the eyes of God? I am learning that we have at many times misinterpreted Scripture when it says that we should submit to our husbands (I don't have a husband yet, but you get the point). Some of us just want to apply this Scripture by twisting it to fit our selfish desires. 

2. Devotion to God’s purpose in the context of marriage

1 Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:21-26

I am learning that husbands are called to be head of their homes, and to love their wives as Christ loves the church. They are called to lay down their lives for their wives. Wives are to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Lord Jesus. 
Note: You hear me talk a lot about submission because, from my studies, it seems to be the main bone of contention in marriages... (Again, married people should help us understand what this is all about.) Also, an argument I am still trying to figure and argue out is: how then do ladies and young men fulfill God's will (of love and submission) in a normal relationship between two unmarried young people? I got part of the answer here though, but I would wish married people to expound on it further.

3. Knowledge and application of Scripture

How well do we understand the Word of God and how do we interpret it and apply it in our lives? This is very crucial. Deuteronomy 17:18-20 sets an example for men and describes them as an authority influenced by God's law. 
Note: What I am also trying to wrangle with here is: does this mean that in the home it is their way or the highway?

4. To have a Christ-like character

The character of Christ is perfect, yet we are not perfect, so how do we go about being like Christ? This can be achieved through letting the Holy Spirit with His gifts and fruit transform us (Galatians 5). How will we learn to be forgiving and understanding at all times with other people as Christ was and still is with us if we don’t let God’s will to prevail? Romans 12:1-2 says that (paraphrase) when we conform to the nature and image of Christ, we change who we are and eventually what we do. 

5. Labor

A man who is not ready to work should not eat; this is what Paul teaches in 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12, so you should be ready to work and save in order to provide for your family.

Proverbs 10:5, 13:4, 13:22, 28:19, 21:17 also supports this.

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After saying that, let me also add that I have learnt that marriage is a school on its own. It's a mystery that cannot be unveiled in a few statements. We actually have known so little and have a very small revelation of what marriage actually means to God: the totality of what He thought/thinks when He creates a marriage. 

Here are the few things I have picked up concerning marriage and God's perspective on the same. God brings two people in holy matrimony for these reasons (there may be more);

1. To raise up a godly heritage for the Lord.

God has major concerns for the institution of marriage and that is why He wants His children not to go around breaking the hearts of His other children, be it His sons or daughters. In Genesis 1:28, God tells man that he should be fruitful and multiply, this mean only when we are married can we bring up children, and if we are not upholding the will of God, then how will the children grow up to be godly? 

This is also seen in Genesis 18:19, "…that he will command his children and household after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord." Though God says that we should be fruitful, we ought to do it under His will, in accordance with His Word so that we do not stray away and fulfill our own desires. So why should you commit to being in a relationship that you don’t wanna raise a godly heritage for God in marriage?

2. To demonstrate the Father’s (God's) love to His children.

John 1:12 says, "but to all who have received Him- those who believe in His name- he has given the right to become God’s children."

I am being taught that we are called to the service of our God in marriage, to demonstrate His unconditional love to His children (our spouses). The apostle John says that we are God’s children for we have accepted Him in our lives. Now, again, I pose a question: if you’re not ready to love another person as God loves them, is there a reason for you to be in that relationship?

God loved us in our sinful nature with all our imperfections and made us whole with his love, you should be ready to love the other person with all their weaknesses and faults.

3. In order to conform to the nature of Christ

Romans 8:28-29, 12:2.

Someone has taught me that the reason which we fail to see - or choose not to see - is that marriage is a calling, a service to God, and like any other calling, we have to give ourselves away so that we can be used by/of Him. This therefore means that we have to conform to the nature of Christ in order to do His will. God foreknew us, predestined us to be conformed to the image of Christ. I know you may ask how this happens; well, Jesus is patient with us, He waited for us to accept Him on our own and He did not force himself on us, likewise we should be patient, loving and caring towards others as Christ is with His church.

Final Note
Am learning this whole marriage stuff because I believe that am gonna be a wife someday, so this for me is just preparation. I want to know what God wants me to do when I’ll finally enter this covenant. I am not some “holy” person, but am working and trying to be more like Christ. I want to know my duties as a wife and my roles in my husband’s life, and who better to teach me than God Himself. Allow Him to teach you how to do it and be it.

Key Reference

Are You Ready for A Relationship? – a teaching by Paul Washer

Alice Ogutu. 

Stuff I Learned and Discovered Last Year (2015 Edition)

Life lessons, 2015 Edition

Since 2013, I've been capturing and noting down a few lessons along the way as the years pass by: things that have made me raise my eyebrows for good reasons.

You can read the lessons from 2013 here in the 2013 Edition and from 2014 here in the 2014 Edition.

This post lists a few inputs from what I captured last year. This does not make me wise, but just keen and observant. (Petty sometimes, as someone I knowy8u recollects.) I encourage you to note down a few of your own on every single moment of your life. You may end up realizing that, after all, your years are really never wasted; and that almost every step of your life has something to teach you.

Here goes...

Lessons on life and personal growth
1. I learned was that there are at least three things you should have done to yourself as a normal person by the end of a year:
(a) You've called yourself stupid a couple of times
(b) You've called yourself great and,
(c) You've called yourself awesome
This is because no one is consistently the same thing throughout the year; only dead people are that way.

2. The world lacks peace makers, it lacks reasonable people. But it is full of go-getters and "fighters". It is like everyone wants to fight and win. Many crisis would be solved only if we had the intervention of people seeking to mend the world, not to tear it apart.

3. We change nothing by keeping quiet. We all should be whistle blowers - shouting and screaming to save a world that is being haunted by injustice and hypocrisy. And not only whistle-blowers, but doers of the very deeds that save the world.

4. By increasing the good use of my idle and wasted time by committing my 15 to 30 minutes a day to reading an ebook ( I have a problem with reading paperback books) or listening to podcasts while cooking, washing or heading home, I achieved some sort of multitasking capability which made me learn quite a lot in such a small amount of time. (This was after my laptop broke down somewhere at the beginning of 2015. All things work for good, no?)

2. The momentum you begin a year is important; and much better is the zeal with which you'll work it out. But what matters most is what you do in the course of the year and how you end it, not how you begun it.

3. Podcasts happened to me last year. I downloaded a few, I'm following a few, and I ain't regretting it.

4. People move on. If you don't, your bad.

5. Most of the things we possess are due to comparing ourselves to others and our endless clinging on competition. If we were to be left alone in this world, we would have so little - just what is enough and necessary for our basic upkeep.

6. People who say nothing online are always present. They are like ghosts; vicious ghosts that are ready to stalk you, pounce on you, read and analyze your every post and become your biggest critics while offline on in your inbox. I've learned to ignore them. I ignore them because life is full of people who do nothing but are always criticizing people who do everything meaningful. They are like the devil: he does nothing but is always here criticising the good we do which he is incapable of doing.

7. The more educated you are, the pettier and more choosy you become. (I'll quote Malcolm Muggeridge on this one: "We have educated ourselves into imbecility...")

8. If you limit yourself to what you already know, how else are you going to change the world? The world is changed by people who take risks: those who choose to wade through the uncharted territory; not those who limit their possibilities to what they already know and what has already been proven and done.

9. A wise man that does not speak wisdom to a fool is in one way or another, the worst fool. 

10. That one thing that we have been equally given is time; you don't have more, I don't have less. At least God is fair, eh?

11. Life has four classes which we all need to simultaneously attend:
1. Of dealing with God.
2. Of dealing with self.
3. Of dealing with people and
4. Of dealing with books.
If we miss the balance while dealing with each, and in relation to others, we all get deformed.

Lessons on leadership and parenting
Note: Parenting lessons were learnt through observing various families around me. I am not an expert of any sort on this topic.
1. Speaking from a youth leader point of view, I think parents assume that young people have no right to audience. That they are only to be commanded, heckled at and ignored. You wanna know what escalates rudeness in young people? It's because you ignore everything they're trying to say.

2. I learned that vulnerability is a good thing for a leader. It's one of the best things that can ever happen to him/her and those under him/her.

3. That thing where parents dismiss a young person before they even try to explain themselves, whether right or wrong, births a drift between the two of them that will keep growing over time. They then should never wonder what happened to their once "good children", when everything falls apart some day and they don't seem to tell them anything.

4. Nobody follows a dumb person unless that dumb person is something close to Stephen Hawking.

5. Fathers and mothers are bringing up solid and empowered ladies/women. That's a great thing. O don't deny it, it is a great thing. But they're altogether forgetting to bring up solid and empowered gentlemen/men to compliment and/or match these ladies. The result is a world that is upside down. And ladies can rant all they want about not meeting so many "ideal men", but the main point still is: they should tell these mothers and fathers, "Please bring up men for us too. Or the world will have too much of our 'empowered' selves and abandon us in unchivalrous agony."

6. There's no great writer and/or leader who does not read. I discovered that writing takes the clutter that are the words in our minds and converts them into meaningful and decipherable statements to benefit people around us; reading is the yardstick that guides that process. 

7. I discovered that taking feedback from the people I lead is just as important as expecting them to give heed to and follow the instructions I give them. Leadership is two way.

Lessons on Christian living
1. God is our Father, not our servant. Once you realize how Sovereign He is, how Holy, how powerful and how exalted He is, you seize commanding Him to do things for you like most crazy Christians are doing today. You should go ask the prophet Isaiah about this for further clarification.

2. When you're open-minded, (I am doing a blog on open-mindedness which I'll drop soon), you tend to learn a few things :
(a) Not to see people as "a whole" but as individuals with unique choices i.e. a person from a specific tribe will be handled as an individual and separate from their tribal affiliation  e.t.c.
(b) To give people people a second chance and treat them beyond reasonable doubt as individuals who can change
(c) To refuse to think that you are a god and that you are immune to the things affecting these other people. You'll start seeing ladies who became pregnant before marriage differently, you see Willy Paul and Kanyari differently e.t.c.
(d) You start learning to see people as God sees them, thus no prejudice: broken, needy (for a Savior) and subject to change. You realize that anyone can change into anything if given chance.
(e) You become less judgmental but more appreciating; and you accept that anyone can be used of God and become anything. You don't start drawing lines/boundaries for who can be or cannot be your spouse based on your pettiness.

3. Christian conferences and seminars don't change anyone. They simply expose us to a wider range of possibilities, which is a very great thing to everyone seeking to grow and become better. Conferences challenge us to become better, but change itself is a choice anyone can make with or without attending a conference.

4. If we keep on kicking each other endlessly and mercilessly in the butt as Christians in the presence of the people who do not know or love God, they'll all eventually think: "Seriously, they can't even agree with each other nor genuinely love each other, so why should I trust them to have the best life so far? Is the good life in Jesus they are telling me about everyday even worthwhile?" That made me have quite some lengthy thoughts on John 13:35 (Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are My disciples.) It opened my eyes to what true Christianity is all about.

5. I think we spend too much time teaching people how to pray or evangelize that we rarely do it ourselves. We rarely pray or evangelize. Therefore, I concluded that evangelism seminars are useless if after everything, no-one goes out to evangelise. Music lessons are also useless if there won't be any singing after they're done.

6. I discovered that Christians in the market place are and could be the best evangelists and witnesses of Christ only if they utilize their opportunities well. (I picked this from one of Rick Warren's podcasts. See? Podcasts are a great thing. :-) )

7. It is very rare that someone who is not consistent with God could be consistent in life. Very rare.

Lessons on relationships and marriage
1. It's weird how people expect others to grow wise overnight or immediately after marriage. It is assumed that all married people are wise. But that's not the case because I am meeting so many married people who don't even know what they are doing in there. 
Example: Say I was gonna get married in a fortnight or so. After a couple of days, people will be expecting me to unleash words of wisdom to all "young people" I left behind as "youth". They forget that wisdom is not an overnight thing. If I can't practice using and delivering it now as a single person, it won't be there after I'm married. Wisdom is not an overnight thing. People should therefore allow the unmarried to be wise too. Because almost half of the New Testament was written by an unmarried apostle (Paul) and Christianity leans on the teachings of the Son of God who was never married. Oh yeah.

2. I confessed something to my bae (damn, this is personal). I told her this: Can I tell you how I love you? This is how I love you: I love you too much to not want to lose you. To want to always be with you. But I also love you knowing that nothing lasts forever except the things that concern the heaven of God.

3. Marry a woman who'll take care of your mother when you're abroad. 

4. I learned that one of the main causes of wrangles and divisions in families and relationships is when couples and family members stop waiting for each other apparently in everything: they watch separate TV Shows, use separate cars, eat from separate tables at different times, go to bed at different times, go to separate churches, love different leisure activities etc. There's no waiting for each other at all. This is how drifts keep growing and people end up not tolerating each other.

5. Married people should write blogs to help both the single and unmarried get life, relationships and marriage right. It is foolish to keep complaining yet never helping.

6. Family is important. It is the first place my faithfulness and service should be felt. If I'm only good to outsiders and not to members of my own family, I have missed the point of what life on earth is all about.

Family

Bonface Morris.