Links for Leaders 3/23/18

Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking—Kristen Duke, Adrian Ward, Ayelet Gneezy, and Maarten Bos

“Put your phone away” has become a commonplace phrase that is just as often dismissed. Despite wanting to be in the moment, we often do everything within our power to the contrary. We take out our phones to take pictures in the middle of festive family meals, and send text messages or update our social media profiles in the middle of a date or while watching a movie. At the same time, we are often interrupted passively by notifications of emails or phone calls. Clearly, interacting with our smartphones affects our experiences. But can our smartphones affect us even when we aren’t interacting with them—when they are simply nearby?

3 Traits of Your Best Vision Carriers—Dan Reiland

qA vision is carried relationally to far more people than any one vision castor can take it, regardless of how gifted a primary communicator is.

After an inspiring talk from the senior pastor; people will sit in homes, coffee shops and where they work saying something like, “So, what did you think about what Pastor said?”

That’s when the vision carriers kick into gear.

Humility Is Not Always Nice—Jon Bloom

Humble people aren’t always what we think they ought to be. They aren’t always modest, they aren’t always agreeable and submissive, and they aren’t always nice — at least in the ways we proud people think those qualities are supposed to look in humble people.

We do tend to find true humility attractive when we recognize it, but we don’t always recognize it. Sometimes we mistake humility for pride and pride for humility. And truth be told, we don’t always like to be around humble people.

Building a Culture—Shawn Lovejoy

Culture is the invisible, often intangible makeup of our beliefs and behaviors. Culture is ultimately what makes everything tick. Culture is what makes us magnetic and attractive as an organization. So how do we build the culture we want to build.

Be the Culture you Want to Build.

To Grow, Rest, or Die? The Olympics, Farming, and Church Leadership—Daniel Im

As church leaders and pastors, we are so obsessed with growth that we don’t realize that growth without rest is a short-term solution.

Isn’t that why farmers let their ground rest in the winter? Or why they plant a cover crop? Or why they rotate their crops? Or why they let their fields lay fallow for longer than a year?

Or at least…why they should be doing such things?