I got my Nugget!!!

So last Wednesday night at our Connection Group, I challenged everyone there to "find a nugget" about leadership in the next week or so, and be prepared to share it the next time we got together! Well, I just couldn't wait, I had to share the one I found. It totally goes with the topic of discussion from last Wednesday night, we were having about "Character." It's a John Maxwell quotefrom his book, "21 Most Powerful Minutes in a Leader's Day," that is worth repeating:

"Anyone who displays inconsistency of character will not remain a voice of influence in the lives of others.""

He goes on from there and busts out another one like 2 paragraphs down:

"The effectiveness of any message relies more on the character of the messenger than on the content of the message.""

Wow. When I read those, I was challenged to the core. I want my character to shine through in my life like never before! I want people to see more Jesus in me than ever before. And yet, I'm keenly aware of how fragile the character of a leader is. God help me to guard my character like never before! Find me trustworthy in the days ahead!

Anybody else got a nugget on leadership they want to share???

Just a bloggish thought,

Keller

Lessons I learned from an Older & Wiser Leader

I mentioned a couple of days ago, that I had lunch with Gary Cox, the senior pastor of First Christian Church in downtown Fort Myers, FL. I wanted to share a few of the teachable insights he gave me during our lunch. What a great guy. I am so humbled to have learned at his table for 2 hours last Thursday.

1. Don't try and sprint a marathon. Gary has been at FCC for 18 years. 12 as the senior leader. He is a testimony in longivity and faithfulness. He's just steadfast. What a good word, for a 32 year old, prone to be a bit rambunxious leader like me!

2. Discipline trumps Talent in the long run. Gary told me this when I asked him, a 50 year old guy, to give advice to himself 18 years earlier when he first moved here, as a 32 year old man. He told me he would tell himself to spend more time developing disciplines than talent. Talent is what it is, but discipline has the ability to sustain, like talent never can. Gosh. Are you kiddin' me! That's just ridiculous!

3. Dont' believe your own press. Avoid the temptation. Period. You're just not that good. It's all God anyway.

4. Never underestimate the power of Vision. It really is true that without a vision the people perish. Lead with vision. Give your people a compelling vision to buy into and follow.

5. This is still the best job on the planet. In spite of all the tough stuff that comes with "the people business," never forget for a minute that we actually get paid to do this! We get to invest our lives impacting other people's lives for eternity. Nothing beats that. Nothing. Gary lives that!

There is so much more I could share, but I think I'm still processing it in my own heart, so, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna have to leave you hangin'. What a friend and mentor I have in Gary Cox.

Thanks again Gary for lunch,

I'm so glad I get to do this everyday!

Matt

3 Things My Generation Longs For...

I had the privilege of having lunch with Gary Cox today. Gary pastors First Christian Church in downtown Fort Myers, FL. I came into the meeting excited to be able to ask questions of a guy who has been in the area doing what I'm doing for more than 18 years. I consider Gary a mentor and a friend.

I went right at him with questions and he gave some incredible responses about how he is different from 5 years ago, lessons he's learned in leadership and pastoring, raising up & sending out leaders, and lessons he's learning in vision casting on a local church level! Amazing stuff. Maybe I'll blog about it in more detail soon...

After more than an hour of answering my questions, Gary asked me, "What would you, a 32 year old pastor, say to me, a 50 year old pastor, if you could?" (Which was amazing to me by the way.) I knew my responses would have to do with my generation as a whole, and not just me personally... I said 3 things which led us into the 2nd hour of our conversation together:

1. "My generation is desperate for your generation to believe in us." B/c of the abandonment issues we face, generationally, we are longing for members of our parent's generation to believe in us! We desperately long to know that you believe in us. That you believe we can do what you do. That you believe that what we do has value and is recognized as worth-while. I believe that is huge for my generation.

2. "My generation is desperate for a chance to play." Don't just tell us you think we CAN play, actually pass us the ball. Nothing speaks louder of your belief than when you give us a chance to play. The following is an excerpt from a book that has made a profound impact on my vision for the local church:

"Most young Davids within the Christian world start with an innocent heart before God and a trusting attitude toward churches. But when they discover cumbersome systems and unnecessary processes that don't contribute to effective ministry, these disillusioned Davids quickly decide they can do more elsewhere. Therefore, our local churches may unnecessarily be losing some of our brightest and best future leaders."

I cannot even begin to tell you how that paragraph above has shaped who I am as a leader. I want so desperately to be a believer in "young Davids." If I can impart nothing else, to the leaders at NLC, I want to impart belief. John Maxwell calls leaders, "Dealers in Hope." Man, I want to be that! May it be said of me one day, that "Matt Keller sure did believe in the leaders God placed around him."

3. "More than principles, we just want access to the Real you!" I can't even begin to tell you the value that was added to me today just by getting a chance to sit for 2 hours and watch Gary Cox tell stories, and reflect on lessons he has learned. Seeing experience in his eyes, and watching the way he processed through life-experiences was just flat out compelling! I think my generation would love to have access to leaders who are where we dream of going. I think that's why I have such an "open door" policy when it comes to Church Planters. I'll schedule time with any church planter who genuinely wants to pick our brain. There's no sacrifice I won't make for them. B/c that's what I longed for 5 1/2 years ago when we were just starting out. Gary gave me access today, and I'm so thankful for it!

By the way, he picked up the check... which is just dead wrong!

I am the richer (& so is our church) b/c Gary Cox gave me access to him, for real, for 2 hours.

Thanks Gary for a great lunch, (like Gary even knows I have a blog!!!)

Matt

I hate that my Battery Needs Recharged

So I'm the kind of guy who just wants the battery on my lap top to always be charged up and ready to go. It always seems like it runs out of life at just the wrong time. Just when I'm ready to take it somewhere further than 5 feet from a wall and type something profound, the battery is dead, or dying! I hate that... I guess I have unrealistic expectations for my battery life, huh? Many of you are reading this right now thinking, "Come on Keller, maybe you just need to be a bit more 'battery responsible' and plug it in strategically or methodically, so that when you need it, you've got the power you want and need!"

Great thought, and on a Monday morning, I can't help but think how our spiritual batteries get depleated and then we find ourselves at work, or in the car with our kids, or on a phone call, and we need some "spiritual power" only to find out that our battery is dead or dying. There's just not the power we were hoping to have in that moment! Perhaps we should take our own advice, "Maybe we need to be a bit more 'battery responsible' and plug in strategically and methodically, so that when we need it, we've got the power we want and need!"

How's your spiritual battery? Is it charged up and ready to go for another week? Or are you running on reserves or worse, dead? Look at the next 24 hours of your life, when can you carve in some time to plug in & recharge?

Just a bloggish thought,

Keller ... out (not bad for a Monday)

Contact with the Outside World!!!

One occupational hazard of being a "Professional Christian" (as I like to call myself) is that, since I work in a church all day long, I have to be very intentional about connecting with the "outside world" around me. Well, today I got a chance...

I was picking up my dry cleaning this morning before I went to study and as I pulled up to the drive-thru, the lady just looked at me as if she forgot who I was. (I had just dropped my stuff off yesterday...) So I simply stated my name and then she said, "Uh, why can't I remember who you are?!?" To which I said, "It's no problem, & it's actually my fault, b/c I haven't done anything to make myself stand out as the Best Customer Ever!" She just smiled and laughed and then said, "There is another person named "Keller" that comes through here, I'll just try and remember you with her..." To which I said, "No, I think I can do better than that!"

So we laughed a moment longer, I paid, and then drove off...

I went around the corner to 7/11 and bought 3 Yellow Roses for like 6 bucks and then drove back through the drive thru line... just like 5 minutes later.

As I rolled down my window she gave me this look like, "Oh no, what did we screw up?" And then I stuck the flowers out the window! She instantly got tears in her eyes, and said, "You have no idea how this brightens my day. My father is in the hospital today, and b/c I'm here, I can't be with him!" Wow.

So I offered to pray for her... (not b/c I'm a pastor, but b/c I'm a Christian, by the way) and she said yes! So right there in the drive-thru line, I had a chance to make a difference in someone's life, and pray for comfort and encouragement for her and her father. Wow. What a good start to my day!

Drive-thru prayer... yeah, I've done that!

Have great day everybody,

Matt

Today I chose the Best Thing!

(Additional Content & Thoughts from the Message, "Moving Forward - Part 2" -
September 9th, 2007)

On Sunday I talked about choosing the "Best" over all the other "good"
things that go on in our day... Well, today I did that.

I woke up early, ran 3.2 miles, did a bunch of crunches, and then came down
and "Sat at Jesus' feet." Last week, Josh Quigley, our Programming Director
at NLC, shared with me how God was speaking to his heart through 2 Peter
chapter 1. (I encouraged him to blog about it, I'll let you know if he
does, and we can link you through...) So I spent some time there.

I also spent some time in Proverbs 10. It's all about the difference
between the way "righteous" people live their lives, and the way "wicked, or
lazy, or violent" people live their lives. Wow.

Here are a couple of things that jumped off the page at me:

V. 3 "The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry..."

Love that... Not just for me, but for the millions of believers world-wide
who may not have enough to eat. It makes me consider my "tootsie rolls"
again. (Great message by the way, check out Week 5 of our Matchbox Series.)

V. 7 "The name of the righteous is used in blessings..."

I have never seen that before. That God would actually bring our lives to a
place that when others think of Godliness, our name pops in their head.
Here's what that means for me. Let me give you an example, when I listen to a message by
another pastor often, I will stop saying, "I listened to a message by Craig
Groeschel the other day... Blah blah blah." Instead, I'll simply start
saying, "So I was listening to, "A Craig," the other day." See the
difference? Their name actually becomes a noun to represent something other
than just them. It represents something greater.

May that be said of us someday b/c of the way we lived our lives.

Thanks for letting me share how I chose the "Best" today...

Matt

What I realized during my "Getaway" with my wife!

I mentioned yesterday that Sarah and I spent the weekend away together... just the two of us! Here are a few things I realized while being with my wife this weekend...

1. It takes me 48 hours to relax.

Sarah and I spent the first 2 days doing alot of sighing and unloading. I love being married so long now that we know what each of us needs in the way of "decompressing." We spent the whole first evening at dinner watching the sunset, and just sighing and then making some "blurt out statement" about some detail thing or issue that we had been facing in the last week or so. It really wasn't until the 2nd morning that we actually "felt" relaxed.

2. I have to "getaway" to "Go Long!" in my thinking.

Again, it takes us about 2 days before we're really able to start thinking about some "long thoughts" for our family, or the church or our dreams or our goals. That's why getaways are so stinkin' important! Because "long thoughts" can't be rushed.

3. Life is too short NOT to get away.

Sarah and I watched the podcast from LifeChurch.tv on Sunday morning and the pastor, Craig Groeschel, is doing a series called, "30 days to live." It's good stuff about considering the bigger picture in your life. As we sat there watching it together we both realized that what we were doing together, just the two of us, was the most important thing we could be doing in that moment! May we never look back with regret in our marriage that we didnt' take full advantage of these opportunities.

4. My wife is AWESOME!!!

Yeah, so I'm not really gonna go into all the details, but suffice it to say that, "MY WIFE IS AWESOME!!!" I feel sorry for people who have "settled" in their marriages. & after a weekend like this, I'm glad that we didn't settle in our marriage a few years ago! I never knew that marriage could be this good. That's all I'm tellin' ya...

Just another bloggish thought,

Matt

I Choose My Wife!!!

Sarah and I had a "Get-a-way" Weekend over Labor Day and it was amazing! We totally needed it. And so did our church! For the last 5 1/2 years, we have always made sure to keep our prioirities in the right order in our home & ministry. Ministry can be all-consuming and too many ministry couples quit making their marriage the priority. The truth is, Church is alot like a child, it's always there, and sometimes you just need to leave it in good hands and focus on your marriage.

God has given us a great team and we know that NLC is in good hands. From the beginning, we have wanted to build into the culture of NLC that I'm not the only one who can, "feed the sheep," so to speak. Too many pastors do their churches a disservice by not training their people from an early age that it's okay for the pastor to be gone! I'm thankful that the people of Next Level get that! The truth is, "If you want to build a strong church, then build a strong marriage!" You can quote me on that!!!

As for the boys, they spent the weekend with Grandma & Grandpa, (which they love!!!) and we got to experience the beach, just the two of us! I love that my kids are already learning that mommy & daddy's marriage is priority over church and even them! We want our kids to understand that, "if our marriage suffers, our whole family suffers." I want our kids to grow up knowing that nothing is going to get in the way of our marriage! Including them... We love them & they are amazingly important, of course, but not to the detriment of our marriage. (That seems rather counter-intutitive to me.)

I hear stories every so often of couples who haven't so much as been on a date night in "...forever..." I have to tell you that I get concerned for the state of their marriage when I hear that. Date nights and time away from our life and kids is like Oxygen to our marriage! We have to have it or we'll die! Life moves too fast and is too demanding for us to not pull away for a couple of hours or days and reconnect. Tomorrow I'll share with you a few thoughts on what I realized on our "weekend away!"

By the way, it's good to be refreshed and back at it this morning,

Just a bloggish thought,

Matt