Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

leadership

Mars, Contextualization, and Church Leadership

By

Image: NASA

What time is it on Mars?

I was obsessed with space as a child. In fact, I still have my old books about space, and now my children are reading them! I can assure you that it was their decision, not mine. Going along the theme of loving space, I was naturally into Star Wars, but it was Star Trek that won the day for me. Now I’m definitely revealing my inner nerd, but I even had a manual that talked about all the intricate systems on the USS Enterprise.

I recently watched a TED Talk from Nagin Cox, a Spacecraft Operations Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In it, she explained what life on Mars was like—she even referred to herself as a Martian! Now before you ask Google, Siri, or Alexa when humans first landed on Mars, let me clarify. She’s a Martian because she works on the team that controls the four rovers that the U.S. has placed on Mars since the mid-90s.

When the rovers are “sleeping” at night—in order to recharge their batteries—Cox and her team are hard at work creating the rover’s program for the next day. So essentially, Cox works the night shift.

Now unlike individuals who work the graveyard shift from 11 pm – 7 am here on Earth, things are a bit different on Mars. This is because a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth. In other words, it takes 24 hours and 40 minutes for Mars to rotate once.

Not only that, but a year on Mars is almost twice as long as a year on Earth.

While this might sound like a minute detail (pun intended), this has actually created quite a couple of issues for Cox and her Martian colleagues, such as:

  • When you say the words yesterday, today, and tomorrow, how do you know if someone is referring to yesterday, today, and tomorrow on Earth time or Martian time?
  • Do you work the 11 pm – 7 am shift according to Earth time or Martian time?

Now what does this all have to do with church planting and leadership in the church?

[Read more…] about Mars, Contextualization, and Church Leadership

Faith Like Broccoli

By

prayer

“What are we going to do? There’s not enough food to feed the children. How did we end up here? How are the children going to react?”

These were the questions the orphanage leaders were asking one another on a hot summer day in Chiang Rai, Thailand. When I was pastoring in South Korea, I had led a team to serve the orphans at this particular orphanage in Thailand. The orphanage had close to 100 children. Some came from poverty-stricken homes where their parents couldn’t afford to feed and house them, and others lost their parents due to one circumstance or another.

These were children who, in the world’s standards, didn’t have much, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Constant laughter, joy, and childish pranks filled this orphanage, whether the children were in school, eating a bowl of rice, or playing games with sticks and vegetables.

…that is, until they ran out of food…

When the orphanage leaders realized they had no way to feed the children, they decided to break the news to the children before they prayed over their last supper.

“Children, we need to pray,” said the orphanage director, “we’ve run out of food, money, and all means to go and buy groceries at the market.”

The childish atmosphere immediately turned into nervous silence.

[Read more…] about Faith Like Broccoli

Why You Shouldn’t Be Worried About “Job Security”

By

vitaly-145502

“It’s all about job security, right?”

Over the course of my adult life, I’ve heard this phrase multiple times. And it’s always irked me the wrong way.

Now I understand where someone might be coming from—they want to be irreplaceable so that they’re never faced with a pink slip and are without a job. As a result, they never write down their process or train others to do what they can do. They hold onto “industry secrets” and proudly declare that they were certified or educated to do these certain tasks. If they get hit by a bus, then the organization will suffer, since no one else can do their job.

I guess that’s job security…but it sounds pretty selfish to me.

In today’s open-share economy, do “industry secrets” even exist anymore? Sure, education and certification are proof that you’ve gone through the steps, but they don’t prove whether or not you’re competent in an area. After all, there are plenty of courses that I’ve received an “A” in, but I’ll be the first one to tell you that I’m incompetent in Calculus and Organic Chemistry.

No one wants to lose their job. I get it. I’m in the same boat.

But what if I were to tell you that there was another way to guarantee your job security?

It’s about having a posture of generosity, rather than scarcity

  • Scarcity is a closed fist approach to work and life.
  • Generosity is an open palm approach to work and life.
  • Scarcity says, “Cutbacks are inevitable, so I need to make myself irreplaceable.”
  • Generosity says, “Those who develop others will never be without a job.”
  • Scarcity says, “I need to add more tasks onto my list of responsibilities so that I become more valuable to the organization.”
  • Generosity says, “When I develop others to do what I can do, I’ll be entrusted with greater responsibility.”

One of the most selfish things a leader can do is to refuse to reproduce themselves.

[Read more…] about Why You Shouldn’t Be Worried About “Job Security”

Dealing with Conflict and Criticism

By

olga-guryanova-167262 (1)

When collaborating with others, conflict is to be expected.

Conflict is inevitable when you’re actually doing the hard work of collaborating. After all, if there’s anything that’s a guarantee in leadership, it’s conflict and criticism. So how do you respond? Do you embrace it? Or avoid it?

If there’s anything that’s a guarantee in leadership, it’s conflict and criticism.

Click To Tweet

Conflict is not the problem, avoiding conflict resolution is.

So have conflict, and then wrestle to resolution. But whatever you do, don’t avoid conflict; it’s necessary for a healthy team. If you never have conflict on your team, then this might be symptomatic of a deeper issue.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your team:

  • Do people feel the freedom to say what they really think?
  • Are you, as a leader or manager giving enough ownership to those that you lead that mistakes are inevitable?
  • Or is the rope so short because you have control issues and you want everything to be “just right”? And by “just right,” I mean it’s your way or the highway?
Whatever you do, don’t avoid conflict; it’s necessary for a healthy team.

Click To Tweet

Allow people to disagree with you, but create environments for this.

In other words, when it’s planning and strategizing time, have a cone of safety where anyone can say anything. This is where differing points of view can come up and be wrestled with. But once you agree on a way forward, make sure everyone is on board. 

Now what if people on your team have conflict with one another?

[Read more…] about Dealing with Conflict and Criticism

Collaboration is a Leadership Competency

By

collaborate

There’s a children’s book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It starts off like this,

I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Have you ever had one of those days? In 2004, the US Basketball team sure did.

1992 was the first year that professional basketball players were allowed to compete in the Summer Olympic games. This was the birth of the “Dream Team.” I remember watching Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, David Robinson, Magic Johnson, and Charles Barkley dominate. I had their basketball cards. I played them in video games. Man, this was the year for basketball.

From that year on, just like Canadians were always expected to dominate hockey, the Americans were expected to do the same with Basketball. After all, who could ever challenge them? Who could beat them? The Americans had not only won gold every time since the Dream Team had competed, but they had also never lost a game—they were undefeated.

But in 2004 it happened in Athens, Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics.

And although the US team had superstars like LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwayne Wade, they lost their opening game in the tournament against Puerto Rico—a team that they should’ve crushed. Instead, they got crushed and were beat 92-73. This was the biggest loss in Olympic history for the US; in fact, it was their first loss ever. Their performance was a far cry from the original Dream Team who typically beat their opponents by 44 points.

Was this the end of the Dream Team?

Well, as much as they scrapped their way to the semifinals, they were eventually defeated by Argentina. Since NBA players were allowed to compete in the Olympics, 2004 was the only year that the USA men’s team did not win gold. In fact, 2004 was the only year they ever lost a game too. In 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012, and 2016, not only did the US men’s basketball team win gold, but they went undefeated.

So what went wrong?

I only have one thing to say—just one thing. You know that phrase, “Teamwork makes the dream work?” Yeah…I know, pretty amazing, right? Well, apparently they didn’t know that…

Collaboration is the ability to work with others

In this previous article, I outlined the two-year process that I was a part of to identify the universal core competencies of church leaders. Collaboration was one of them. This was a competency that just kept on coming up.

In order to collaborate well, you need to start by working with others

Click To Tweet

While collaboration is simply defined as the ability to work with others, it goes far beyond that. To collaborate well, yes, you do need to display proficiency in your ability to work with others.

But as you grow in this competency, as a leader, you need to learn how to:

[Read more…] about Collaboration is a Leadership Competency