Dan Gould

Category: Leadership

  • Leaders Summit @ Grace – Day 3

    Well today was the last day of Leaders Summit for the staff at Grace. We had a great discussion on these two topics this morning People Skills and Developing Leaders.  As a Leader, both of these areas, as are the other 10,  are crucial to the advancement of the Ministry or Organization. Here is what we talked about in each of these sessions:

    People Skills

    I took a people skills test and was surprised that what i thought would be my biggest weakness was my biggest strength.  I am sure i messed the test up somehow.  I think my wife would be a better gauge than the test I took today.  However, it did make me realize how important the skill of working with people is in ministry. DUH! Right? But seriously, it’s easy to over look some things and think you are good with people.  The little things add up.  One of the things that comes to a challenge for me is remembering peoples names.  I am not very good at it but need to improve in this area.

    Towards the end we had robust conversation about relationships on staff.  The essence of the question really centered around this thought “how do we become more than co-workers?” Meaning, how do we become friends who work together?  I thought it was a great question and am glad to see that others are thinking in this direction also!  Exciting things can happen when we get to know the people we work with on a personal level as well as a professional level!

    Developing Leader

    This was different this time around than last time.  If you want to grow you have to develop more leaders, but that’s not the question, the question is how do you develop leaders?  Chris shared this chart with us and we dialoged about it for quite a while.  Many times in leadership development, we gravitate to one or two approaches.  Chris challenged us to think in a broader term.  Here was the diagram we used to spark this conversation!

    This afternoon they will talk about Execution.  Wish I could be there for that I am sure it would have been good!

  • RAIN DOWN By Delirious

    I can’t get this song out of my head since Tyler, our NEW Student Worship Coordinator at Fusion, taught it to our student band and led with it last weekend! I am so excited about Tyler being on board with us and believe that God is going to use him greatly at Fusion. Tyler doesn’t blog . . . yet, but has a myspace. Peep him out and leave him a comment! Enjoy the video!!!

    Vodpod videos no longer available.

    more about “RAIN DOWN By Delirious“, posted with vodpod

  • Leaders Summit @ Grace – Day 2

    Well day two of the Leaders Summit went much better than the first day.  It seemed that Chris (one of the speakers) was more relaxed and able to connect with the audience (our staff) a lot better today.  Again we covered some things that aren’t new when it comes to leadership and then other concepts that really challenge and stretch you.  For me, I am able to look at where I was four months ago compared to where I am now.  I am thankful that i see some consistency with my answers.  That tells me that I am not delusional or lack self awareness.   Here are the four areas of leadership that we covered today

    Change Agent
    Character
    Emotional Awareness

    I might be missing one?  I am sure that says something about my learning ability.  But anyhow, the three above had some great times of learning and discussion, even some quiet moments as we avoided awkward conversations or what some call pink elephants. However, I believe today was a healthy learning day for all of us and it will be interesting to see how we apply some of the principles that we learned today.  I also enjoyed getting to know some of the staff that I don’t know to well during our table discussions.

    I still have a lot to learn and process!  I will post more of my learning about each skill at a later time!

  • Influence

    Tomorrow, we are wrapping up our series called “The Epistle”, which was our summer Bible study of 1st-3rd John, with a two part talk on Influence.  Here is our theme verse for the next two weeks:

    “Dear friend, don’t let this bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God’s children, and those who do evil prove that they do not know God. ” v.11

    Would you consider yourself to be a person of influence?  How are you an influence?  Who are you influencing?  Are you a good or bad influence?  Who is influencing you?

  • Leaders Summit @ Grace – Day 1

    Today, the team from Leaders Summit met with the staff at Grace Community Church for what will be a three day leadership conference.  This will actually be the second time I have gone through the material.  This is really good stuff, some of it basic, while other very thought provoking and even convicting.  It is interesting to see how our team responds to this.

    To be honest, I don’t know if I agree with all of the things that are said.  Like the example of not watching live TV in order to maximize time.  Please don’t get me wrong, I am all about maximizing time, but this sounds a little rigid and very scheduled.  Almost driven to the point of not having fun unless it’s scheduled.  That scares me!

    However, it’s easy to get caught up on the things that we don’t necessarily agree with, or get caught up on the way things are said, that we miss the point.  The principles we are learning are very good, the method however, may be different for different situations.  Example, if you don’t want to write in a journal because you have an on-line journal called a blog that fine.  The principle is capturing the thoughts that come, so you don’t lose them later.

    It was interesting to see what I wrote a couple of months ago and what I wrote today.  I do like the fact that we are meeting on Mondays from 9am to 3pm over the next three weeks instead of 2 days in a row starting at 8am and ending at 5pm.  I feel like I will actually get more out of it especially where my brain shut down during the last sessions toward the end of the conference last time.  We will see what happens.

    Today we talked about why it’s important to study leadership.  Based on our self assessment, click here to take one for yourself, we were able to see possibly our strength and weaknesses as it pertains to the hard and soft skills of leadership.  Here are the three Leadership Principles we talked about today.

    1. Vision
    2. L3 – Life-Long-Learning
    3. Team Work

    I am excited to learn and begin/continue to apply these leadership principles to our student ministry.

  • Youth Ministry Reminder!

    I saw this on my friend Nicks Blog.  I was at the YS conference when they showed this for the first time remembering Mike just after he died!  Great reminder as to why we work with teenagers.

  • It was early!

    Met with a great couple this morning!!  They have been married for 28 years (awesome) and have two grown kids.  Unfortunately, we met at 6:00am at Starbucks.  Yeah, my phones alarm didn’t know that time existed.  First time I have ever talked about student ministry that early!  However, even though I was tired at first, I think my body woke up quickly and I feel ready and eager for the day!  I think I might like this time in the morning.  I know, sick thinking, I probably need counseling!

  • Student Worship Practice

    Sitting in the Student Worship Center watching our student worship team practice with a potential candidate. Going awesome. Great to see the instruction and guidance given to the students in this area!! Excited to see what God does next!!!

  • Great Leadership Interviews!!!!

    If you are a leader or want to lead you should check out this great resource! Great leaders that met at Saddleback Church for the Network Gathering. Great Stuff!!!!
    http://www.ustream.tv/channel/purpose-driven-network-summit-2008

  • The Day from Crapville

    Today was one of those tuff days that you never want to repeat. However, when you look back on it later in life, it is sure to be a pivotal marker in your development.

    It all started with my evaluation. Not that the evaluation went bad, it was actually pretty good. I seem to be above expectations in all areas but one. I understand leadership development and want to grow as a leader, but I learned something today that I am still fleshing out. Today in my evaluation we flew through the things that were above average and spent most of our time on one area that was average. I think there were like 8 things that I was evaluated on but to be honest, I have no idea what the other 7 were because all we really talked about was the 1 area I was average.

    Lesson 1: Leaders are Learners I want to be the best leader I can be, but spending more time on the success instead of skimming them to get to the one average area, can cause people to miss the opportunity to celebrate successes. Growth has to happen, and challenges have to be given, but lets not overlook success to get to that point!

    Secondly, when you work with volunteers, sometimes it is hard to read what they mean by the way they say certain things. As much as you try not to read into a situation or comment, it is hard not to take things personally. I don’t think it was meant to be a personal thing, but it could easily be taken that way if I dwell on it.

    Lesson 2: Leaders are Learners I want to be the best leader I can be, but sometimes constructive criticism can be hurtful if you are blind-sided by it or take it in the wrong way or with the wrong attitude.

    I know these are times that I am growing and being stretched as a leader, but it isn’t fun!!!!!

    “As iron sharpens iron,
    so a friend sharpens a friend.” Proverbs 27:17 (NLT)

    Refiner’s fire

    Purify my heart
    Let me be as gold and precious silver
    Purify my heart
    Let me be as gold, pure gold

    Refiner’s fire
    My heart’s one desire
    Is to be holy
    Set apart for You Lord
    I choose to be holy
    Set apart for You my Master
    Ready to do Your will
    Brian Doerksen / 1990 Mercy/Vineyard Publishing