I’m not at Catalyst, but wish I was :: Unity
Posted by Chris on Friday, October 10th, 2008
Brad Ruggles writes a live blog of an overview of what Dave Ramsey spoke on at Catalyst (In Atlanta, GA) this week. I am neither a pastor or have my own church. I do however have a interest in church leadership, churches, etc. I’ve also been apart of a church that spoke a lot about unity, buy never did much about it. What Brad writes here resonates with my so well.
Brads notes are as follows:
Unity is a spiritual happening. You have to be very intentional about creating unity. It doesn’t just occur.
Few churches or organizations experience real unity.
There are 5 Main Enemies of Unity:
- Poor Communication
- Gossip
- Unresolved Disagreements
- Lack of Shared Purpose
- Sanctioned Incompetence
Poor Communication
Poor communication can take many forms, but when the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, strife sets in. you have to work to create communication.
Gossip
Gossip is degrading and will destroy a church or organization.
A successful leader develops and maintains a culture in which negatives arehanded up and positives are handed down.
By definition, gossip is when a negative is discussed with anyone who can’t help solve the problem.
Unresolved Disagreements
Unresolved disagreements happen when a leader doesn’t know they exist or when that leader avoids confrontation. When you don’t deal with your “stuff” your stuff gets bigger.
Confrontation
Sometimes Christians avoid confrontation in the name of being “nice”. That’s not nice, that’s wimpy.
A little confrontation cleanses the wound and allows the parties to go forward in a spirit of unity.
When you are aware there are hurt feelings and/or disagreements, act quickly and decisively. Nobody ever killed anything by saying, “Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim….”
Lack of Shared Purpose
Lack of shared purpose is caused when a leader doesn’t restate the goal, the vision and the mission early and often.
Sanctioned Incompetence
It has been said that sanctioned incompetence demoralizes. When you allow someone to goof-off, not execute, or live up to their potential, you damage your witness.
Team members will eventually eventually become demotivated when someone else on the team can’t or won’t do their job and a leader will not take action.
For the sake of unity in the entire group the leader must go to battle early and often with any of these enemies of unity
When unity is valued in the culture, the team will also act to keep these enemies at the gate.
Filed in makes ya think, random thoughts, spiritual application |
Great post and these are some great thoughts. It is sad but true how often it is so easy to talk about unity and yet it is something completely different to accomplish it. Talking about unity does little we can discuss unity all we want and even have little gimmicks to pretend that we are unified but in then end we fail to reach the goal and are left standing empty handed.
I totally agree with the 5 enemies of unity though I may have defined them slightly differently. But what happens when you see all 5 of these and the same church and they fail to do anything about it. Sadly the unity they proclaim are seen as merely empty words.
Good points. Thanks for sharing.