Paul Benger

A conversation for pastors, leaders, creators, entrepreneurs, cultural architects

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Pastor, Creator, Leader, Author, Entrepreneur, Cultural Architect, Leadership Coach

  • Peter Drucker – 9 Functions of a Mentor

    Leadership with education

    I don’t care who you are or what you do. Be a mentor. Have a mentor.

    Don’t worry if you don’t understand mentoring. Just go engage in one of the nine behaviors that follow.

    9 Functions of a Mentor:

    1. “Define the landscape.” Focus on details to get things done – see the landscape to plot a course. Mentors are fresh eyes.
    2. “Expose ‘white space’ – define opportunities – what is needed now.” Passion disconnected from meeting needs is wasted. Sincerity is not enough.
    3. “Clarify strengths and capacities.” Tapping untapped strengths represents new directions, deeper fulfillment, and greater fruitfulness.
    4. “Identify incorrect assumptions.” Listen for limiting beliefs.
    5. “Encouragement to ‘go for it.’” Great mentors inspire action. Dreaming big is only a beginning. Dreams without action drain vitality and affirm helplessness.
    6. “Help sort out the right strategies.” Mentors bring strategic thinking to your personal strengths and individual passions.
    7. “Affirm results.” Success creates focus, fuels motivation, and confirms direction.
    8. “Point out wasted effort.” Stopping is harder than starting. One the most challenging lessons in leadership is learning that trying harder doesn’t work, if you’re stuck. Mentors point out spinning wheels and flying mud.
    9. Establish “gentle accountability.” Accountability in mentoring relationships is an agreement. It’s not imposed by dictatorial mentors.
      (The 9 functions of a mentor are adapted from, “Drucker & Me,” by Bob Buford. Drucker did not list these 9 functions. They emerged in the mentoring relationship.)

  • 5 Keys To Multiplying Leaders

    Came across these notes from a talk by Oscar Muriu, Pastor of Nairobi Chapel on the subject of Multiplying Leaders in a Church context. Some of the best thoughts I’ve come across.

    1. Size of The Harvest Depends on How Many Leaders

    Matthew 9:37-38 “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
    The more harvesters we commission the greater the harvest will be. Jesus 1st strategy was to find his leaders & invest in them. If you don’t have leaders around you your impact is limited to your personal capacity.

    2. Live for the Next Generation.

    Psalm 71:18 Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.
    David’s was not living for his own generation. The problem when you live for your own generation is that your vision will die with your generation. Generation is 20-40yrs. Oscar uses an internship program consisting of 1yrs training and mentoring, to ensure that the next generation, are being impacted and included.

    3. Identify the budding leader and take them to the Lord in Prayer.

    Numbers 11:10-18 Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The Lord became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.1 He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?  Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors?  Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’  I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.  If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favour in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.” The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you.  I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone. “Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it.
    Moses was struggling with discouragement and burn out when he complained. He found 70 in one day!! Some of your best leaders are right there under your nose. Raise up Sons and Daughters for ministry.

    4.  Instill the 5 loves into the leaders.

    Mark 12:30-33 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.  To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
    Heart = character “from the heart comes”, Soul = conviction, Mind = comprehension, Strength = competence, Neighbour = compassion

    5. Never do ministry alone. Like Jesus, always take people with you!

    Acts 4:13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
    They had been with Jesus and it was noticeable.
    START A MENTORSHIP PROGRAMME!!!
    FIND A LEADERSHIP PATHWAY

  • TEAM KILLING CULTURES

    rowersYOU HAVE HEARD IT SAID THAT, “THE CULTURE DOWN THE HALL BEATS THE MANTRA ON THE WALL.” WELL THAT’S TRUE WHEN IT COMES TO TEAMS AS WELL AND THE WRONG CULTURE WILL KILL TEAMWORK NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY.

    We often preach the value of teams and try to instill teams in our churches, whilst continuing organisational and leadership cultural dynamics that squelch any possibility for those teams to thrive. If you want to improve your team (especially your leadership team), don’t ignore these cultures that will kill your team’s ability to thrive.

    A CULTURE THAT UNDERMINES THE LEADERSHIP TEAM’S IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION

    Talented leaders move on if the don’t feel that their contribution is essential or properly recognised. People on leadership teams want to be keenly involved in developing what’s next for the church. The long term impact of their frustration is a high turnover of leadership at this level and the church then suffers from a lack of quality leadership.

    A CULTURE OF SPONTANEITY THAT LIMITS PLANNING AND STRUCTURE

    No matter how much we talk about wanting teams to thrive in our churches, they won’t if teams don’t have the organizational environment that offers fertile soil for teams to thrive in. In particular, teams thrive in organizational contexts that privilege thoughtful, deliberative action and provide structures that allow for planning. As researchers Frank LaFasto and Carl Larson note in their book When Teams Work Best, fertile organizational soil typically exists when:

    1. Leaders set crystal-clear mission, goals and priorities that guide team efforts and establish clear operating principles.
    2. Leaders give enough time for ideas to be thought through and established before communication and implementation occurs.
    3. Organisational structures and systems foster effective group decision making.
    4. Teams enjoy ample, planned time to stay connected and work jointly on problems.
    5. Teams possess all the information they need to solve problems and make decisions.

    These structures offer the support a leadership team—and all the teams in the organisation need to be able to truly lead the church. Without them, teams spin their wheels and don’t make progress. Before your team will be successful, you may need to engage some cultural change to enable the team to thrive.

    At one church where interviews were undertaken, the senior team’s culture fought hard against any sort of planning. One pastor stated, we are more comfortable “fighting fires than building safe houses.” As such, the team constantly deferred to the lead pastor rather than seek God together and work together to develop direction and strategy for the church. Church cultures that prefer to fight fires rather than do the proactive work to avoid and protect against those fires are infertile ground for thriving teams. In such cases, addressing cultural challenges might be the first step in enabling a team to truly lead the church.

     A CULTURE THAT REMOVES REAL-TIME FEEDBACK AND ACCOUNTABILITY

    “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” (Prov 27:6).

    Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and mutual accountability is the not-so-secret success ingredient of exceptional teams. But too often, for a variety of reasons, team members avoid lovingly wounding a teammate, neglect offering feedback and refuse to hold one another accountable for their contributions to the team. That behavior is often learned in the larger church culture, where biblical accountability and confrontation is not pursued.

    If your church avoids confrontation and biblical accountability, chances are that your team will never gel or perform at its peak. Your team as a whole needs feedback on its collective performance, and individual team members need feedback about what they contribute to the team. Your team needs faithful friends who will tell the truth, even when it stings. Without confronting the (sometimes painful) truth, your team doesn’t have the insight to improve nor the fuel to do its job of effectively leading your church.

    Adapted from: Teams That Thrive by Ryan T. Hartwig and Warren Bird

  • Lead Summit Day 2 Session 3 – Dr Dave Martin

    12 Actions of the Greats

    1. Responsibility: spoke about this yesterday (see my notes)
    2. Mindset: Desire for more is not evil. The greats have a strong belief system. Fear, self doubt, intimidation don’t cripple the greats. Godfidence. If you think I’ll never do that, you probably won’t.

    Van Gogh only sold 2 paintings in his life time, but he kept painting. His brother bought the 2 paintings, today his paintings are worth millions. Don’t quit, don’t give up.

    80% of success is in the mindset

    3. Passion: Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive. Half heartedness is a certain guarantee of mediocrity. Passion issues from a fervent commitment to one’s cause. What you hate is a clue.

    When you are doing what you love, what you love will reward you.

    4. Imagination: People of greatness know how to think in innovative ways, creative ways. Imagination is a God thing, it’s not a new age thing. Seeing where you are going in the future. Little victories always lead to big successes.

    5. Relationships: No one succeeds alone.

    Joke: A friend will help you move a good friend friend will help you move a dead body.

    6. Focus: You can do anything you can’t do everything. The reason people fail is broken focus. Your life follows your dominant thoughts. What you think about the longest becomes the strongest. Focus creates strength (Grandmother moves a car off of her Grandchild, true story USA)

    7. Courage: Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage. In church we would probably call this faith.

    8. Persistence: too many people stop mid-stream. What do you do when the airplane hits turbulence? Hold your nerve.

    9. Integrity: great people say what they mean, mean what they say.

    10. Adaptability:

    11. Generosity: purpose to fulfil great commission.

    12. Wisdom:

    Offerings:

    Isaiah 61 spirit is on you
    you have to be a giver
    you are a deliverer
    your words: words create doors,
    don’t apologise, people are not against giving
    don’t make statements like, ‘visitors you don’t need to give,’ its an opportunity.
    Don’t rush it, don’t get people to stand up.
    Don’t act like it’s painful.
    Don’t ask unqualified people to take the offering.
    Do talk about it, show appreciation,

  • Lead Summit Day 2 Session 2 – Phil Pringle

    PhilPringle

    Matthew 16:13-18

    The Four Essential Areas of Leadership (continued)

    1. Vision Caster
    2. Team Builder
    3. Decision Maker
    4. Problem Solver

    Vision Caster (cont)
    Positioning Yourself in FAITH

    God lives in the positive mode

    Faith enables you to function properly even when you have tough things happening.
    Three Areas of Faith

    1. Faith in God:
    2. Faith in Others: (team) environment of believing in people is what this generation is looking for. As soon as you’ve got a context you’ve got discipleship. If they’re teachable we can train them. Don’t complain about what you didn’t train.
    3. Faith in You: This is the weakest link generally in most every minister. Jesus called self image sacred ground. “If you say ‘you fool’ you are in danger of hell”This is the ground under attack: “If you are the son of God…” The day that you learn to love who you are is one of your greatest days of victory.

      Every person is completely unique. You can’t use personality types stereotypically against people. e.g. “you silly sanguine, you cold-hearted choleric.”

      A lot of christian thinking is against this. What will this do to people? It will help maximise your potential.

      If you don’t love you, you won’t love your team.

      God isn’t wanting to beat you down, he’s wanting to put new clothing on you, a fresh way of thinking.

      Condemnation is the enemy of a sincere heart, a heart that wants to please God etc. It’s the enemy that wants to rub it in, Jesus wants to rub it out!

    TEAM BUILDING

    You will not fulfil your dream without your team

    A dream team happens because:

    1. You select them right: Do I want another 100 of this person? Jesus built through correction. A cultural download happens in the moment of correction. “Those who receive correction are children.”
    2. Teachability: Top of the list.

    Build your team and they will build your church.

  • Lead Summit Day 2 Session 1 – Paul Scanlon

    leadsummit

    The best is yet to come as more to do with us than we think it does.

    The Blessing of Low Maintenance People

    Low maintenance people are not celebrated but they are a gift to the local church.

    The benefit of having been around for decades is that you can see patterns. Everybody loves low maintenance people but we don’t realise that’s what we love about them because we haven’t named it.

    Some people are professionals at being High Maintenance.
    Many low maintenance people didn’t start that way. Jesus had, Peter, James and John etc.

    • High maintenance people (HMP) constant sense of urgency.
    • HMP always have a drama attached to their life
    • HMP are never satisfied
    • HMP are obsessed with details
    • HMP bring problems without solutions
    • HMP do not believe they are HMP

    LOW MAINTENANCE PEOPLE

    1. emotionally inexpensive: (are like stepping onto a battleship HMP are like getting into a canoe), not feeling driven
    2. not attention seekers: don’t care about recognition, applause etc.
    3. popular:
    4. agreeable: focus on the common ground
    5. thick skinned:
    6. deep root into God rather than a straw into people: (straw sucking life out) if the only time you open your bible is when the pastor asks you to we have a problem.

    Thought this talk Paul celebrated a couple in the Church in Bradford. Alistair & Sylvia Humphries…

  • Leadership Summit Day One Eve Mtg – Phil Pringle

    Four Things That Are The Essence of Leadership

    1. You Have A Vision:
    2. You Are A Team Builder:
    3. You Are A Decision Maker: make a decision to start something new when you get home from this conference. Your ceiling is the level of your ability to make difficult decisions. This is including confrontation with people.
    Phil’s script for confronting people.
    – Is what you are doing helpful?
    – Well I’m concerned, I don’t think it’s helpful?
    – You are out of order.
    4. You Are A Problem Solver: take a moment for the miraculous.

    VISION

    Habbakkuk 2:1-4 The anatomy of a dream, the journey of a vision.

    A good idea is very different to a God idea
    – my vision is my obedience

    The first thing Habakkuk does is position himself to hear from God. Solitude and silence. No tree struggles to bear fruit, the trees struggle is to find moisture. Your struggle as a person called by God is to get your roots into God’s Word and into Fellowship.

    1. Positioning is a Physical positioning:
    2. Positioning is a Relational positioning:
    3. Positioning is a Theological positioning: Grace not Law. In Christ, his righteousness not ours.
    4. Positioning is a Linguistic position: We speak God’s truth into our own lives. Thankfulness is the language of Big people. Praise is the language of Victory.

    In that place…alone with God…relationship not religion…grace/his righteousness…and speaking out praise…in that place you start to see things. Vision.

    When I see a vision, I meditate on it, I keep recalling it and I put scripture on it, Ephesians 3:20 – Phil Pringle

    You need to write a vision down, make it simple and keep communicating it all the time…weekly! If you are the leader you are the visionary.

    The journey of a dream It tarries…but though it tarry it will come to pass. The trying of your faith develops patience. Disappointment and discouragement happen to all of us.

    Just because you’ve got a vision it doesn’t mean that its guaranteed to come to pass.

  • Leadership Summit Day One Session 3 Paul Scanlon

    Leadership Elective Paul Scanlon

    Building A Solution Oriented Leadership

    John 6:5-13
    Jesus greatest legacy and ours too is the teaching that produces the ability to renew your mind.

    • Moving in the Supernatural requires faith but not necessarily thought.
    • Lasting change is a thinking issue not a faith issue.
    • Every revolution is a thinking revolution before it is anything else.

    Peter had a thought bias against non Jews. Peter would have, if he’d had it his way, built a Jewish sect called Christianity not a universal movement.

    Peter had all inclusive language but an exclusive mind and culture.

    We can all find ourselves singing things that we’re not living.
    In 3 years of being with Jesus, this didn’t get fixed in Peter, even though the opportunity was presented many times.

    God can use you powerful even whilst you carry a huge implicit bias.

    3 THINGS

    1. Solution Happen In Compassion Driven Environments: Not clarity, sympathy, duty, guilt etc. Compassion involves you in something your head hasn’t figured out yet. Compassion involves you first, gets you involved before it tells you what to do about it.
    2. Solution Oriented People Have an Advance Problem Solving Self Talk: oral speech = 300words a minute, self talk = 1200words a minute, 4X. Peter’s self talk kept him in prison to his bias. If you are a how person but that isn’t rooted in a solution oriented mindset you end up saying why it can’t be done. (Philip in this story…8 months wages wouldn’t feed these people.)
    3. Solution Oriented People See The Solution in its Unassembled Form: Andrew…there’s a kid here 5 loaves 2 fish. Leaders don’t arrive in assembled for they arrive in kit form. E.G.Chef is trained to see things in ingredient form, we have to se it in the form of a meal, the chef sees 3 possibilities from same ingredients.

  • Leadership Summit Day 1 Session 2 – Dr Dave Martin

    Dr Dave Martin is one of America’s Best Known Success Coaches.

    Making The Rest of Your Life The Best of Your Life

    I’m excited to be here, more excited than a worship leader at a skinny jeans sale. Dave Martin

    • The difference between where you are and where you want to go is what you know. Wisdom, the Bible says, is the principle things.
    • Only person who can motive you is you.
    • Our personal development is vital.
    • It doesn’t take a lot of keys, you don’t need a lot of keys to start your car just the right key.
    • Heaven’s currency is faith, earth’s currency is time. Everything you have today you traded your time for. Everyone has 24 hours.
    • I have 3 types of days. Result days, Prep days and Rest days.
    • Result Days: 80% time spent on developing.
    • Prep Days: plan for result days.
    • Rest Days: “Tired eyes rarely see a bright future”

    I never make important decisions when I’m tired. Donald Trump

    4 Questions Leaders Should Ask In Life

    1. Why?:
    2. Why Not?:
    3. Why Not You?:
    4. Why Not Now?:

    The greatest value in life is not what you get it’s what you become.

    1. Growth is not guaranteed:
    2. Growth today brings access tomorrow: Think about new ideas, stretch your thinking. Once your heart desires a destination your mind designs a route for you to get there.
    3. Growth is your responsibility: Our real fear should be not changing. Be teachable. You always invest in what you find valuable. (Three ways you can see yourself: you can see yourself how other people see you, you can see yourself how you see yourself, you can see yourself how God sees you.)
      Never stay satisfied with your current accomplishments:
      Wins just like losses are temporary:
      Become a continual learner. (study in America found that current physicians are two years behind current learning because they are two busy working)
      Find ways to apply what you learn: Act like the person you want to be.
      The most important think to know is what to do next: James 1:22, Joshua 1:8

    Principles of Jesus prepare us for life on earth.

    1. Responsibility: People who change the world start by changing themselves.

  • Lead Summit Day 1 Session 1 – Paul Scanlon

    leadsummit15The Lead Summit Kicked off today hosted by Pastor Dave Gilpin and Hope City Church in Sheffield. It is one of my favourite conferences and each year we take a small team from our Church. Over the years these conferences have proved usually beneficial. Here are my notes from day one session one, be sure to come back for my notes from other sessions and day two.

    Faith licks its lips at impossibility – Dave Gilpin

    Session 1 Paul Scanlon – Meaning is not found it is forged

    The local church is the best idea God had.

    • The best thing heaven has is Jesus
    • There is no other move, we are the move of God
    • The best way to live is if this is it
    • We can fail to grow Big People whilst at the same time trying to grow big things.

    Genesis 35:1-8
    Joseph is reflecting on his life in his mid-life.

    • You are not the same person throughout the whole of your life
    • We have not been good at understanding the seasons of life
    • Meaning is not found it is forged. Anything you can find already exists. We struggle when are are in the midst of things and you can’t understand. In the midst of the grey, there is meaning that will forge the next season of your life.
    • Do not let the meaning committee put a meaning on you whilst you are forging your own.
    • People want to impose meaning on things they can’t tidy up. Sometimes there is no meaning, it doesn’t exist, it has to be forged. It is yet to be created by you.

    Luke 13 (Tower of Siloam – I spoke on this Sunday Night in a message called Fruitful)

    • You have to make peace with the fact Bad things can happen to good people…they just can…
    • Destiny and meaning are two different things. Destiny is decided by God but meaning is decided by you, therefore meaning is more important.
    • The meaning you give to your life and circumstances determines your destiny. It determines our destiny, our identity, our strategy.
    • The meaning Joseph forges from his experience was the bigger picture that God had. “You didn’t send me here, God sent me ahead.” “Yes, you meant it for bad, but God meant it for good.” “God put me here for you!”
    • This is your opportunity to forge a legacy that will set up the next generation, that will create the next you.
    • Paul personally had to forge a meaning in the “Crossing Over” season at Abundant life Church (now Life Church) Bradford. He chose to see himself as a Joshua. That choice was what determined what came next. Had he forged the meaning, “I’m a bad leader, I can’t keep good people. I’ve failed etc. etc.”
    • When there are found meanings that sound brilliant whilst you are forging your meaning that sounds pitiful it is tempting to grab the offered meaning.
    • You have to listen to your heart! We have grown a culture of external confirmation and the last place we look is often inside. (Dot to Dot illustration: God spoke about the pressure to just join another Apostolic stream but God had spoken to Paul about a cross cultural, international connectivity that would happen if he didn’t fight God).
    • What is the meaning you are attaching to your current season?
    • Are you satisfied with the meaning you are giving to your life?
    • Forging meaning does not make what was bad good but it can make what was wrong precious.
    • Forging meaning gives you a vocabulary. A vocabulary that explains you and there’s nothing like having a language that explains you.

    Genesis 48: Joseph introduces his kids to their Grandad Jacob

    The first born to the right hand and second born to the left hand but Jacob crosses his hands. Joseph had named his kids as a result of what he was experiencing.

    • Manasseh 1st – God delivered me from trouble, Ephraim 2nd God made me fruitful…this was the meaning Joseph had forged
    • God will edit the meaning we forge of it fundamentally forged. “I do not need to deliver you to make you fruitful. You were always fruitful, fruitful when you were in jail.”
    • You in the midst of your nightmare are meant to be fruitful and that fruitfulness is what will deliver you.
    • God would much prefer to edit your flow than have to create it…