Leadership Thought: The Most Valuable Resource in My Ministry Is a Wooden File Cabinet.

Dear Friends,

I was recently asked by a young man, “Tom where do you get all of your stories and ideas for sermons and for writing your daily “Leadership Thoughts?”

My answer was simple, “I try to file everything I read or hear so I won’t forget them.” Even personal experiences that might have future  value, I make a note of them and file them away, so they might become available to share with others.

If you were to come into my office, you would see a four by six hand crafted wooden cabinet built by a member of a former church I served. Inside the cabinet are five drawers containing thousands and thousands of  3-5 cards.

I started in the 70’s filing everything I thought would be of future value. When I read a good story, or heard a good quote, I would hand write the information on a 3/5 file card and file it away.

Then when photocopiers were invented, I would photocopy material and paste it on those 3/5 cards.

As I got older, I got smarter, and so I would then give the information-often on a page in a book- to a secretary who would then copy the material I had noted, and paste the information on file cards and file the information for me.

Today I am very grateful for that old wooden file cabinet that contains all of that information I have stored away.

I try to read every day, so now when I find a valuable story or article that I want to save, I put it in a file folder that goes into one of my many steel file cabinets.

Filing is a wonderful way of retaining good ideas and information. It has been an invaluable resource for me throughout my ministry, and I can tell you how much time it has saved me in developing messages and writing sermons.

John Maxwell has said, “Good material is like golden nuggets…The most precious commodity is not money; it is ideas,” and I think he is right.

There is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t read and file. It is a habit that has been of immense value to me.

But you say, “Tom, I am not a speaker, so I don’t need to file away information.”

I would say to you, “You need to do it.” For some day someone might be helped by something that you have learned and filed away, and you now possess the resources and the wisdom to address that need.

If you want to keep growing, start filing. Develop your own system that fits your personal needs, and you will always have ‘water in your well.’

The number one-time waster in life is looking for things you have lost, and the reason you have probably lost them is because you haven’t filed them, so start filing today. Tomorrow you will be glad you did.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

Leadership Thought: "You Can’t Hurry Grief"

Dear Friends,

“You can’t hurry grief.” Those were wise words sent to me in a card from a member of a former church I pastored. Last year she lost her husband to a heart attack, and she was writing to share her experience in dealing with the grief of her loss.

At first, I wasn’t sure what those words meant. My nature and inclination as a coach and a former athlete, was to bounce right back up when you get knocked off your feet and move on like nothing happened.

But the truth of my friend’s comments continued to ring true. Everyone experiences grief in different ways, but for me I have realized that I need time to work through the pain of my loss.

Jesus wept as he stood beside the grave of his good friend Lazarus. His grief was real. His words were genuine and sincere. His heart ached at the loss of his good friend. He didn’t hide his grief and he doesn’t expect us to hide or bury our grief as well.

When grief erupts, you suddenly recognize the tenderness of your soul. Just when you think you are making progress, grief assumes control to remind you that you still need more time to heal.

During the last months of Jean’s life, I would take her in the car when I went grocery shopping. She wasn’t able to walk on her own, so she would wait in the car while I got our groceries. Yesterday after shopping at Aldi’s, I got in the car, and started to turn the key, when all at once grief hit me like an avalanche. I felt overwhelmed with immense sadness, and I found myself crying uncontrollably as I remembered our times together  in an Aldi's parking lot.

I shared my Aldi’s experience with my sister-in-law, and she wrote the following.

“I can relate to you breaking down in Aldi’s.  For me it was with the Talbots catalog when I found myself picking out clothes to send her."

"No offence, but she definitely preferred the clothes I got her to those 4X sweaters you got her on Christmas Eve, though she laughed more at your choices.”

I responded. “No way, Sue. She always wore those 4X Christmas sweaters with great pride, and she told everybody that they were the greatest gifts that she had ever received.”

Yes, laughter, as well as time, can help ease the pain of an aching heart.

How glad I am for laughter. I can assure you that living with me has produced a lot of it-mostly at my expense I might add-but today I am glad I can still laugh at some of the dumb things I did when we were together because I know laughter can be a healing balm to an aching heart.

Yes, I am still tender from my loss, and I know I have a long way to go in my healing process. I recognize grief, like the winds of a mighty hurricane, can hit me at any moment and knock me to the ground, but I am learning not to be surprised or embarrassed when it does, for I recognize it is part of the healing process.

There is an old Turkish proverb that says, “He who conceals his grief finds no remedy for it.”

Whether at church as I was the other day, or alone in my car in an Aldi’s parking lot, I am slowly learning to accept, and yes, even be grateful for grief, knowing that grief itself is its own best medicine.

I am shortly heading south for a trip that will eventually lead me to the church I served in Fort Lauderdale, but along the way I plan on making a number of stops to visit some of my dearest friends.  I know there will be plenty of tears, and hopefully lots of laughter, and yes, even some pain, but that is all a part of the healing process and who better to share it with than those you love and those who love you in return.

I grieve yes, but I live in the knowledge that while, “weeping may last for a night, shouts of joy come in the morning (Ps. 30:5), and so I  thank God for I know his victory is my victory and his triumph is my triumph, and that not only do I enjoy victory over grief but I experience victory over the grave: so I can rejoice and say with Paul, "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

Leadership Thought: Finding Love in a Urologist's Office.

Dear Friends,

“Is Stacy here?” I asked as I sat in front of the receptionist at the doctor’s office. 

I had just arrived for my doctor’s appointment- real early-six days early in fact- as I soon discovered when the receptionist checked the appointment schedule and told me my appointment was next week.

She laughed as I told her I always tried to be early for my doctor’s appointments,  but perhaps arriving almost a week early was a little extreme.

I then asked her if Stacy was here, and she asked why I wanted to see Stacy.

I told her she was so kind on the phone with me when I called a few weeks before to ask a question of my doctor.

I guess grief is hard to hide, even on the phone, and in the course of my conversation with Stacy, she recognized an opportunity to show love to a heavy heart.

I told her about my wife who was recently placed on hospice, and she responded in a way that revealed she cared. 

Suddenly our conversation changed, and instead of my asking the questions she began asking me the questions as she sought to care for my hurting heart.

A few days later Stacey took the time to call me to see how I was doing, and to let me know she was thinking of me.

The receptionist told me Stacy was in and that she would see if she was available. 

And while I was waiting for Stacey to arrive so I could personally  thank her for her kindness, the receptionist opened her desk drawer and pulled out one tiny Hersey kiss and handed it to me.

Grief has no timetable; it can erupt at any time and in the strangest of places, and sitting in front of the receptionist, I burst out in tears as I received her gracious gift. 

It wasn’t the gift that opened my tear ducts; it was the fact that she understood and cared for a sad and broken heart sitting outside her window.

Just then Stacy arrived. She had learned my wife Jean had just died and she saw my tears and immediately pulled me out of the waiting room, and there in the empty hall outside a doctor’s office, a woman whom I had only met over the phone embraced me in a wordless conversation I will never forget.

No, I didn’t see the doctor yesterday, but I didn’t care, for I knew I had received what I needed from a receptionist and a nurse who in the kindest of ways met a need greater than any doctor could ever provide.

As I walked out of the office with tears still streaming down my face, I turned and thanked the staff for their kindness and then I remarked, “If everyone were as kind and as caring as you were to me today, we could put an end to our nation’s bitter climate.”

Now I don’t know if either one of those women were Jesus followers, but I discovered yesterday that one kind word can teach more love of God than a thousand sermons.

“Kind words are short and easy to speak and their echoes are endless” (Mother Teresa), and even as I write this Leadership Thought this morning I still hear the echoes of their love.

Paul exhorts us to practice kindness in dealing with others. "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12-13).

Kindness is the language that everyone can understand, so let's speak it so no one ever needs a translator.          

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

Leadership Thought: The Goodness of God.

Dear Friends,

I can't begin to tell you how encouraged I have been by the numbers of you who have taken the time to watch the Celebration of Jeans life. The service has touched a lot of lives.

It was a family service, and it was such a joy to have my children and grandchildren all participate in different ways.

I share this partly because I can't begin to respond to all of you who e-mailed me, but please know I am grateful for your encouraging response.

Grief is difficult. It comes and goes and when it comes it is overwhelming, and while it only lasts a short while, it is a constant reminder of the hole loss produces in our human hearts.

However, God is so good, and so gracious and I greatly appreciate the treasured gift of friends all over the country who have continued to pray for me and our family.

I find that I am greatly sustained by music, especially listening to The Goodness of God by CeCe Winans. I play it again and again and it’s on Alexa 'repeat' much of my day. It is such a powerful reminder of His goodness and His love. Take a listen, and I think you will agree that it is a message that wonderfully communicates His great love for us.

CeCe Winans - Goodness of God: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AwLTeMyq20

Celebration of Jeans's Life:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2XJ7_aOzfI&t=6496s

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

Leadership Thought: The Two Most Influential Friends I Never Met.

Dear Friends

Two of the most influential “friends” I have never met are Zig Ziglar and John Maxwell. While never personally meeting either of them, I have a deep personal affection for and a relationship with each of them because of their writing and speaking.

Zig wrote the million selling  See You at the Top, the first book that I ever remember reading that I read again and again. It was the book that influenced my style of teaching, for Zig was a story teller, and I love sharing stories when I teach.

My love for John Maxwell came a few years later. I started listening to his cassette tapes on leadership, many of which I still have hidden away in some boxes in our basement. I would look for them, but tape recorders are hard to find these days.

John is considered the world’s foremost speaker on leadership, having written well over 100 books, many of which I have devoured.

But until yesterday I didn’t know that it was Zig Ziglar who had a profound impact and influence on John Maxwell.

Yesterday on “Minute with Maxwell,” a daily two minute leadership podcast by John which I try to listen to every day, he shared a story about Zig.

As a young man, he heard Zig was speaking, and he not only wanted to  hear him but he wanted to sit in the front row to listen to this illustrious Christian businessman share his message.

And so John arrived three hours early so he could get a ticket in the front row. One of the 1,200 people in the Dayton Convention Center, and sitting in the front row, he heard Zig share a message that forever changed his life.

The words John heard that would change his life were these: “If you will help other people get what they want in life, they’ll help you get  everything you want in your life.”

John said the words changed his life because up until that time he was the kind of leader who was intent on getting others to capture his vision, join his team, read his books, and build his legacy.

John’s life forever changed that day. He learned that the secret of influencing others was simply serving others. As a result, no longer was his leadership style self- directed but now it became other directed. “How can I help you.” and not “how can you help me,” became a philosophy that would turn his life and his style of leadership around.

It is so true. If you are intent on first adding value to others, you will get all kinds of value added to you in return.

Jesus was an “add value kind of leader.” Always other centered, he prayed and planned and prepared and pursued others with one purpose: to add value to them and that message has changed millions of lives both now and for all eternity.

John says Zig not only relentlessly shared this same message again and again, but that he lived it; he modeled the message, and in doing so he became one of the best-known inspirational speakers of all time.

Adding value to others, adds value to ourselves, and after all wasn’t that what Jesus taught when He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

Leadership Thought: The Passing of My Dearest Friend and Lover Jean. 

Dear Friends.  

Early this morning death finally conquered the body of my dear wife, but thankfully it never conquered her spirit and her soul.

Parkinson may have robbed her body of life, but it could never crush her indomitable spirit. In these last few years, she not only battled Parkinson, but she endured breast cancer surgery, four painful years of Shingles, three months of Sciatica and several painful bouts with UTIs.

In spite of all these ailments, she joyfully endured to the very end, and she never once gave in or gave up as she looked forward to her new life in heaven that Jesus had promised her.

She spent her last days surrounded by her family and friends who loved and admired her.

The Sunday before Jean passed, we had gone to Outback, something that she was determined to do, although she could no longer walk. And as difficult as it was to move her from her home hospital bed down the second-floor stairs and then to the car and to the restaurant and then back home again, she gave it her all. In retrospect, I am afraid she didn’t have much left when she arrived home, but in doing so she had accomplished a feat which she had hoped and planned to do and something we all thought was next to impossible.

Many of us were privileged to climb into bed with her and wrap our arms around her, as we reminded her of just how much we loved her and how proud we were of the wife and mother and friend she has been to all of us.

Although lying in bed and seemingly unresponsive, I trust the words we whispered in her ears were heard and received as wonderful reminders of the legacy of love she has left each of us.

She lived those final hours surrounded by children and grandchildren who were personally present or who shared their love for her through face time.

We laughed and cried as we gathered around her, listening to Christian music and enjoying remembrances of her life, laughter and love.

We played and sang some of her favorite songs “You’re My Best Friend,” Don Williams, (a song we loved to sing together when we were driving in the car); “Raise a Hallelujah,” and "The Goodness of God," Bethel Music; “How Great Thou Art, ”Carrie Underwood;  “Amazing Grace, ”Alan Jackson; "Jealous of the Angels," Jenn Bostic;  and “You Are My Sunshine” which she loved to sing to her little ones.

Again and again during those final six months of her life she shared with many of us how she was ready and longing to go to heaven. She was well prepared for eternity and to meet Jesus whom she loved and longed to see.

Paul asks, “O death where is they sing, o grave where is thy victory?” And then he triumphantly answers his question as he replies, “Thanks be unto Christ who gives us the victory.” She well knew the culmination of that victory that was soon to be hers.

I have never cried so hard or hurt so much the past few days, and while she was always ready and looking forward to being with Jesus, I confess I was selfish and struggled with the idea of letting her go. But in the final few days when most all of my tears had dried up, and I was able to release her to her heavenly Father.

In spite of our loss, I am encouraged knowing that I will see her again, along with all those others who have also put their trust in Christ and who have raced on ahead to welcome her. Praise God that those of us who are left behind, and who have surrendered their lives to Jesús will never have to say their final goodbyes, just “so long, I’ll see you later.”

As I mentioned, I struggled with the thought of giving her up, but I couldn't help thinking of those who die with no hope of heaven. If it was so hard for me to suffer the loss of my precious Jean, even though I know she was bound for heaven, I can’t imagine what it would be like for those who have no hope of heaven, but only await the sentence of death and final judgement.

Knowing this, I plead with you who have never experienced the joy and peace of personally knowing Jesus and His power to transform death into life to accept his offer of life eternal by putting your faith and trust in Him.

Paul writes, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away and the new had come." (2 Cor 5:17).

Jean has entered into that new and everlasting life, and I have too, and because of that I believe I will see her again.

This new life only comes by accepting what Jesus has done for us upon the cross where he cancelled our sin’s debt and freely offered us the way to eternal life.

It is as simple as saying your ABC’s Admit you are a sinner, Believe Christ died for you, and Confess He is the Lord of your life.

If you have never done this, please don’t put it off. Click on the link below for a full explanation of how to inherit eternal life.

Right now, plans for Jean’s Celebration of Life have yet to be determined, but when they are determined, I invite all of you to join us as we remember and celebrate this special wife, mother, sister, grandmother, and dearest friend.

No more lying on the raft in Henderson Harbor, eating Trader Joe's chocolate covered Hand Cones, looking for her phone or the TV changer, holding babies in her arms, something  which she loved to do, and no more asking me to "Please clean out the fridge." or repeat again and again, "What did you say?"  

None of those things will be important nor necessary for in heaven she will want for nothing as she sits at the feet of Jesus, while listening to those of us she left behind singing the words from Jenn Bostic's  "Jealous of the Angels."

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

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