One of my enduring memories from childhood is reading the Christmas story from Luke 2 before we opened our presents. Perhaps a more accurate description of my attitude back than is that we had to read the Christmas story before we opened presents. My mother could recite Luke 2:1-20 from memory. Despite my impatience it gave me a sense of Christmas priorities that shaped me for life. My parents, age 84 and 85, fly in tomorrow (after my father sings in the Christmas Eve service at their church tonight), and I’m looking forward to one more Christmas together.

Merry Christmas!

Are you getting anywhere? Most of us work in an annual cycle, which moves focus away from the big picture. In churches, it includes church holidays like Christmas and Easter, punctuated by educational programs and stewardship. In schools, it’s September-June. Businesses have quarterly and calendar year cycles. You can easily spend most of your energy meeting the challenges of the cycle. Something’s got to happen in church on Christmas Eve. The budget has to be ready for January. School doors have to open in September. Taxes have to be filed in April. If these things don’t happen, or are done poorly, you face important consequences. You’ve got to be ready. And you breathe a sigh of relief when you get through a phase of the cycle.

Ideally the activities within the cycle are aimed at something bigger and long-term. The cycle is a given, but leadership is more than successfully navigating the cycle. The best leaders are able to see above and beyond, and chart a larger direction for themselves and for the group. They ask questions such as, how do our activities for this year’s Christmas Eve fit into the larger plan? What might we do next year that will be better, or keep the momentum going?

You’ll do better over time if you can get your head above the fray, and look down the line. Perhaps this means a personal retreat (even a morning) in the New Year to clarify your own thoughts. It may also mean a session with key staff and other leaders to ask questions like, “How does this budget reflect our wider goals?” Or, “we keep saying we want to support families. What can we do this year to make that happen?” As always, the clearer you are in your own thinking about direction, the easier it will be to begin a conversation with others on these important matters.

Now realistically, there are times when personal and organizational life means getting through the cycle is all you’re able to do. Most of us won’t be spending a lot of time on long-term plans this holiday week. But as the next round of activity heats up in January, what can you do to take a longer view in 2008? How can you get your own thinking clear? And what are the resources you need (time, imagination, and people on the inside and outside) to develop and implement a modest plan for moving forward?

Here are six things to do on these days before Christmas (one a day, or all six daily):

1. Take one very deep breath.
2. Smile.
3. Sit still for five minutes doing nothing.
4. Read something that makes you laugh.
5. Eat something you love slowly.
6. Cross something off your list without doing it.

I’ve been fighting a nasty virus this week, and for me the answer to the title question of this post is, very little. At times like this I realize that my functional theology boils down to this: I am acceptable when I produce, and not acceptable when I don’t. My prayer practice this week involved being present in the moment rather than chasing down the rabbit trails of undone lists, and focusing on God’s acceptance of me apart from anything I can do. (Grace, anyone?)

When I was a pastor, we did an Unplug the Christmas Machine workshop. One of the comments made in the book by Jo Robinson & Jean Coppock Staeheli is that in getting ready for Christmas people often use up the time they usually use to recover and maintain themselves. This may be more true for pastors and church leaders than almost anyone else. It struck me then that the time I used every day writing Christmas cards was that recovery time, and I started sending cards after Christmas instead.

Over the years I’ve done various things every day in Advent to sustain myself rather than deplete my energy. Sometimes I sing one obscure Advent hymn a day (the kind that we Baptists never sing). I make sure to take my walk after dark so I can enjoy the lights on people’s houses. I read Christmas with Martha Stewart Living, without feeling an ounce of pressure to make my house look like Martha’s.

What are you doing for yourself this Advent?

Pastoral leaders often overfunction administratively, paying attention to all the details of the worship service and the church office, even proofreading the bulletin at times. They want to make sure all the committees and teams are doing what they need to be doing. But I often see clergy underfunction in the area of leadership: stepping up to say, “Here’s is where I’d like to go.”

You may hesitate to make a strong statement about direction. Sometimes this is driven by fear. You wonder, “If I say where I want to go, what if they don’t want to go there?” Or, you feel it is arrogant to chart a course. Your natural inclination may be to say, tell me where you want to go, and I’ll take you there.

The conversation about vision and direction needs to start with the leader. The conversation often won’t happen unless the leader starts it, and a self-defining statement is the best place to start: “Here is where I’m headed.” Often people are waiting for us to say something which we never say. People are appropriately dependent on leaders to lead. So if we wait for them to say something, or if all our leadership retreat events are organized around asking them what they think, we leave them hanging. Now, leaders must earn the right to make these statements. In pastoral ministry, this takes several years. (See Israel Galindo’s worthwhile post on vision.) And the conversation does not begin and end with our view, of course. In congregational life, that’s just the beginning. We can only lead the willing. But we do need to articulate our own view, our sense of God’s calling for our ministry and for this ministry we are leading. And then we need to pause, and take time to listen, recognizing that if we wait for every one to say, ‘Great, pastor! Count me in!” we’ll never get anywhere. We look for for a critical mass so we can begin to move forward together.

Where are you heading as a leader? How clear are you on your own calling? How clearly have you said so to those you lead?