I know you’re probably tired of hearing more statistics about social media.

But how well do you use it?

How well does your organization, business, church or local ministry use social media to empower your vision champions? To drive change? To bring new business in the front door? To accomplish your mission?

As leaders we need to speak the language of the people we’re leading today as well as those we’ll be influencing (and being influenced by) five to ten years from now. Here’s one of the best (read: shorter and better music) updates to the ShiftHappens video series. Ignore the facts to your own peril.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SuNx0UrnEo

And the longer version with the old, familiar Fatboy Slim track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HybVOMJI0_E

Thoughts?

Dear friend,

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. As this year draws to a close, Ann and I kneel in awe of all God is doing around the world.

I want you to know that I am thanking God for you today. Thank you for striving to learn and grow as a servant leader. Thank you for waking up each day and eating challenges for breakfast. Thank you for persevering when the work is hard and thankless. Thank you for pressing into difficult relationships with grace and truth. Thank you for practicing what you preach and holding to your convictions when it seems like you are standing alone. Thank you for those times you have shunned the crowd and sought to please the Audience of One.

Thank you for living, loving and leading well.

Shoulder to shoulder,

Ken

I just hung up the phone with a senior executive who asked me this question: How do we engage younger leaders?

It’s a great question, one that is repeatedly asked as the Millennials (born between 1980 and 2000) reshape our churches, companies and organizations. Here are some tips that I have learned from others or from my own experience in positively engaging younger leaders over the past decade:

1. Give them a piece of the action. This generation is not willing to wait 5-10 years in a job to start making a difference or having a voice. Institutional loyalty is low, but willingness to work hard is very high – if the vision is compelling. Look for ways to appropriately engage them in setting direction.

2. Entrust them with real responsibility and chances for achievement. Pay and working conditions are probably far less important than the work itself. This generation (like most younger generations throughout history) really wants to change the world. Will we let them?

3. Mentor, don’t mother. This generation aspires to lead and has the horsepower to do so. Having grown up in online social networks, many already possess the knowledge, intellectual flexibility and the social awareness of emerging leaders. Their desire to exert influence doesn’t mean they want to stage a coup of older generations. Most long for a mentor – a stable, trusted elder relationship that doesn’t focus on “the good old days” but dreams about the future together.

4. Provide sufficient structure by limiting options. Option overload has brought this generation to brink of analysis paralysis. I was in a leadership workshop last week when the topic of structure and constraint came up. Some people hear the word “structure” and envision a prison cell in which all movement is stifled. Others view constraint in a more positive way, like riverbanks that give shape to a mighty river instead of allowing it to flood everywhere. Focus brings power and fruitfulness.

How do you like to be engaged?

Why did you get out of bed today?

Seriously.

For a paycheck? To keep your job? To avoid boredom?

Or perhaps because you were eager to pursue your calling.
Because you believe that what you do today might make a difference tomorrow.
Because deep down inside you believe you can change the world.

Here is a fantastic TED presentation by Simon Sinek on how leaders inspire others to action with the power of why. Genuine movements always begin with a WHY – a cause. What’s your Why?

Sure, Hillary climbed Everest. But how often did he do this?

How does one achieve such a blessed state? As with all great human endeavors, it begins with a compelling vision. In my case, this vision takes the form of “I want to go home every weekend seeing the bottom of my inbox. I want to savor a Sabbath rest. I want to exit that Sabbath with energy and hunger for next week’s new opportunities and not just manage what’s been going on.”

At some point we have to answer the question: What’s the difference between hovering at 500 or hovering at zero?

Answer: Nothing, really.

Kudos to:

• David Allen (Twitter: @gtdguy) and Getting Things Done for believing in me
• InboxZero.com for practical how-to’s and “mind-like-water” thinking
• Erik Butz, MySan McGowan, Jason Dencklau and Kelly Sasser, my fellow Inbox Ninjas over the past five years

Recently I had the opportunity to meet with some people who are totally serious about fulfilling the Great Commission in the next ten years. Yep, vision flowed. This was a gathering of the Lausanne Strategy Working Group who were preparing for Cape Town 2010, the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. My friend Paul Eshleman chaired the meeting and challenged each of us to write an article for the online journal www.lausanneworldpulse.com.

My article, Are Today’s Students On Your Radar?, just came out in the August edition.  Take a peek.

I have moved!

My blog is now located at www.OnLeadingWell.com. I am shifting from Blogspot to WordPress to gain more flexibility in managing my content. I hope that a cleaner interface, Categories and other features will make my content more accessible to you.

Please visit the new site and Subscribe (or resubscribe) to RSS or email updates.

Gratefully,

Ken

If you haven’t yet seen this powerful 10-minute video, I encourage you to check it out.

YouTube – Watch it.

WillowCreek Resources – Buy it.

During the Go! Missions Conference in College Station, Texas, I’ll walk through these twelve passages which progressively reveal God’s heart to bless the nations through the person of Jesus Christ.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us,

that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Psalm 67:1-2

And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:5-6

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction…. These twelve Jesus sent out… Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” Mark 16:15

And [Jesus] said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Luke 24:46-47

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” John 20:21

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands… Revelation 7:9

All Scripture quotes from the English Standard Version

OK, now that we’ve explored the implications of digital screens, I want to reflect on some profound analog concepts. Freedom, liberty, personal responsibility, sacrifice, loyalty, honor and unity come to mind.

Last week our family used spring break to visit Washington D.C., our nation’s capitol. During our decade overseas, we visited many of the great seats of government throughout Asia and Europe, but we’d never seen the home court. Wow!

If you ever want a dazzling multimedia experience, I suggest standing in the cavernous memorial to Abraham Lincoln among a silent crowd and slowly digesting the words of Abe’s Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. You can read them online, or you can read them under the massive statue, covered by the roof with the names of the States of the preserved union, looking down at the Capital across the reflecting pool, the Washington Monument, and two full miles of the West Mall. In contrast, the Korean War Veterans Memorial only highlights four words: Freedom Is Not Free. It will take your breath away as you gratitude wells up from a deep place inside. Ditto the WWII and Vietnam Memorials. This is hallowed ground.

The sense of respect and honor grows as we visit Arlington Cemetery (310,000 servicemen and women are buried there, marked with a simple white cross), the tomb of the Unknown Soldier (inscription: “Here rests in honored glory an American Soldier known but to God”) and the JFK eternal flame. And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what we together can do for the freedom of man.

As we moved from place to place, from museum to museum, and out into the colorful parkways lined with pink and white cherry blossoms in full bloom, the deafening drumbeats of ceaseless scoffing and endless criticism of the United States by the media somehow faded away. Live blues flowing from the Cherry Blossom festival certainly contributed. I could picture George Washington and a few close friends sitting on the back porch of his Mount Vernon estate, overlooking the Potomac River, dreaming of a country that would be so radically different from the despotic self-serving governments the world had known to date. I found myself believing that George’s personal assessment of the United States still rings true today:

That the Government, though not absolutely perfect, is one of the best in the world, I have little doubt. – George Washington