Dear Friend,

We at Leader Formation International are delighted to share the lessons learned while traveling the globe proclaiming the message God has entrusted to us. We take the title for this series from the opening story, but each account challenges us as leaders to become the kind of real men and women God calls us to be as He forms and then uses us as the hands of Christ in the lives of our followers.

We hope you will find the lessons presented here to be insightful, refreshing, and encourages you follow Christ in leading others.

Bill Lawrence
Leader Formation International

A Lip-Sync Leadership

Recently Lynna and I were at the Wilanow Palace in Warsaw, Poland, where we saw an amazing sight.

Just as we arrived we saw a bride and bridesmaid and thought, "O, great, we'll get to see a wedding at the palace today."

A little while later we saw a band getting off a bus, dressed in beautiful black and gold uniforms, and we thought, "Wow, a wedding and a concert at the palace. What a wonderful day."

Not long after this, while walking under a canopy of trees, we saw a tall, stately man wearing a long black and gold coat, pants with a gold stripe down the side, and carrying a baton in his hand--obviously the leader of the band.

The weather was perfect as we wandered around the palace grounds, by the ponds, past the meadows, and along the lake and eventually came into a neo-Renaissance garden with lovely flowers, green grass, and walkways. This was surrounded by benches where a few people were sitting. Next to this was the palace, first started in the 15oos by King Jan II who had defended Vienna against the Turks and kept Europe out of the Ottoman Empire.

We discovered that the band was gathering and getting set up to play. Just as we entered the garden area, the band leader came in with a woman wearing a beautiful off the shoulder full-length black gown and took her in front of the band. We concluded that the band was going to play for the wedding, and we decided to watch.

There were a couple of things that seemed unusual. For one thing there were no guests that I could see. And for another there was a woman there, very casually dressed, who was carrying what we in the United States would call a ghetto blaster or a boom box, a radio and CD player capable of being very loud.

There was a videographer in from of the band set up to shoot video and there was a photographer taking still shots as well. Then we noticed the and groom enter from the far side of the garden and walk parallel to the palace, so I thought the wedding was about to begin.

Then the woman with the boom box played a number and the band director led the band, all with horns to their mouths, the bass drummer swinging his stick, and woman in the black gown sang and twirled and curtsied--but no one made a sound. The horns never played, the drummer never hit the drum, and the singer never sang a I thought it was a rehearsal in which the band was listening to how the music should be played before actually performing. I did notice another strange thing, though, and that was that the groom, as he was the bride, had a white in his hand.

We were waiting for the wedding when finally it struck me going on. It was a lip-sync wedding. There was not going to be a wedding, the band was never going to play, the woman was never going to sing. They were pretending.

Next we saw another bride and groom, and another and another and another--twenty or thirty couples getting their pictures taken in front of the palace and in the garden.

You see, any bride in Warsaw can come to the Wilanow Palace and have a lip-sync wedding. She can be a princess on her wonderful day and before her prince loses
his charming--she can have her picture taken with the band and the singer in the beautiful gown and, voila, she can have her wedding at the palace.

A lip-sync wedding! What a clever idea, don't you think?

But what about lip-sync living?

Now that's another story.

You know what I mean. Lip-sync living is when we arrange our lives so we always look good, always look in control, always look as if we have it all together when, in fact, our lives may be failing apart. But we never let anyone know that. We can never admit we are unready for a crown. We can never admit we need a cross.

And, of course, lip-sync living must mean lip-sync love--when we say we love, but we never let anyone close to us or let anyone see us in our vulnerability or need.

And lip- sync love has to lead to lip-sync leadership--leadership that must always be right, always be in control. always be safe. and must never ever face the reality of the cross.

Peter was a lip-sync leader--a man ready for a crown, but who thought like Satan because he pursued his crown without the cross. Jesus had to correct this mistaken thinking.

We can be lip-sync leaders, too, acting as if we know exactly what we" re doing, where we're going, how we're going to get there, working to maintain control because we can never let our followers know what's really going on inside of us. The problem is they sense it. They know we don't have a handle on what we're facing and the issues that are about to overwhelm us. They know we're faking good, but running scared. Like Peter we need to learn to overcome faking good by trusting greatly because the only One who can deliver us from lip-sync leadership is the only Leader who never led that way.

Questions To Ponder:

• How does the idea of lip- sync leadership impact you.? Have you covered up for your inadequacy when everyone around you knew what actually was going on.? What came out of that.?
• What does it mean to you as a leader to cast all your cares on Jesus, the one who is your only true enabler.?
• What would your leadership look like if you chose to face all your fears and trust Jesus who knows your fears and loves you anyway?
• What kind of a leader would you be if you were free from the hypocrisy of lip-sync leadership?

He was standing between the little red fire engine and the six-legged camel lying on the floor just in front of the Cheshire cat tower. Facing out the airport window and bobbing right-to-left in constant motion, He was oblivious to everything around him.

I first noticed him while I was waiting to board my Zurich to Bucharest flight. He caught my attention as he draped himself in his white prayer shawl with blue stripes across the bottom. Then he took out his phylactery, kissed it, and put it on his forehead.

"Strange looking character," the man from Dallas standing next to me said to his traveling companion. And the man was right. He was a strange looking character who didn't care at all that he was standing among the children's toys in an airport play area, praying. Somehow he had determined that the window where he stood faced Jerusalem. It was a cloudy day, and there were no signs that said Jerusalem this way, only A66, my terminal and gate number. Yet he was doing exactly what Solomon said Israelites away from home should do--pray toward Jerusalem. Even Jonah, deep in the darkness of the fish's belly, turned toward the temple in Jerusalem in his desperate prayer of repentance to God during his moment of repentance from rebellion.

What makes a man find a window facing Jerusalem in the Zurich airport, wrap himself in a prayer shawl, place his phylactery on his forehead, and bob from right-to-left while praying among the children's toys? What makes a man allow himself to be labeled, "a strange looking character?" Habit? According to his clock it was time to pray. Fear of God's judgment? According to his thinking the discipline of works would get him in good with God. A law that must be kept, no matter what? According to his understanding, not to pray would get him in bad with God. And what about you? Would you become a strange looking character in an international airport in order to pray? Of course not. This is the very thing Jesus warned us against when He told us not to pray so others could see us.

But what does prayer mean to you? Would you interrupt what you have to do because it's your time to pray? Do you build your day around your prayer time--your inviolable prayer time? Or do you just fit in prayer as you can so it becomes a kind of dry river bed in your soul that gushes forth in a flood when life becomes so barren you must have the sweet refreshing taste of God's presence? And then go on your way until you need another prayer fix?

Think about it. If law means that much to a strange looking character in the Zurich airport, how much more must grace mean to us? Enough to pray even when it isn't convenient?

I last saw that man as I entered the jetway to board my flight. By then he had his prayer book out and was getting ready to sway in the Jewish prayer way, a strange looking character wrapped in his white prayer shawl with ] across the bottom, his phylactery on his forehead, facing Jerusalem, standing between the little red fire engine and the smiling six legged camel lying on the floor just in front of the Cheshire cat tower.

Questions to Ponder:

• What does prayer mean to you.?
• What price will you pay to pray?
• What motivates you to pray?
• Do a study of John 15:7-8, Luke 18:1-8, Matthew 6:9-13, and 7:7-10 to see the main things that Jesus taught about prayer and apply these principles to your life.
• Prayer was one of the key disciplines Jesus practiced. Think about Mt. 14:32; 26:36; Mk. 1:35; 6:46; Lk. 5:16; 6:12; 9:28; 22:41. Why did the Son of God have to pray so much? What does this mean for our lives?

Fathers frustrate me, my own father included. But frustration with my own father is over, even though he caused deep pain in my heart.

When I say fathers frustrate me, I'm speaking about the fruit I see in leaders who are driven or diverted or devastated by their have seen this involvement in assessing leaders in America, Asia, and Eastern Europe for nearly twenty years. Universally, no matter what culture I encounter, fathers are frustrating. What I have seen is amazing.

Fathers who live in denial and won't let their sons and daughters face reality, so hurt or grief or shame takes root in the souls of their children and rises up to pull them down.

Fathers who hurt and abuse their children so fear and anger take their spirits prisoner and keep them from being all they could be.

Fathers who desert their children they grow up stunted in their hearts, not knowing how to be men and women because they had no model of loving strength and tender courage.

The fruit of these fathers frustrates me because I know their sons and daughters could be so much more if only they had known good fathering.

So am I blaming fathers for the struggles of leaders in our world today? Aren't leaders responsible for their own issues? Of course they are, but they have to learn what their struggles are and how to fulfill their first responsibility--forgiveness leading to growing fruitfulness.

Leaders can only forgive if they face what needs to be forgiven. Yet most leaders I work with haven't ever faced their fathers' fruit in their lives. Thus they live with their hands shackled by fear or anger or loneliness, driven to find the love they never knew through an empty success.

Are all fathers bad? Of course not. But all fathers are flawed. That's the fruit of sin in our lives. I have tried to be the best father I could be, yet I know I have failed my sons in ways I never intended. I also know they will discover this as they grow older, so I have told them to talk with me once they figure out what I have done to shackle them.

You know the biggest problem with fathers? They are missing in action. Many are present, but absent; but most are just absent. Present or absent, they are missing in the action of entering into intimate relationships with their children through which they teach them how to become men and women.

In the area of leader formation there is no greater need than the need for effective fathering. In the past twenty years I have never met a leader who was not shackled in some way by a frustrating father. Some had good fathers, so the impact was less, but many had frustrating fathers, even evil fathers, who bore their fruit in shackles wrapped around their children's hearts.

Questions to Ponder:

• What about you? How has your father affected your leadership? Do you need to forgive your father so you can find freedom from the shackles of your heart? If you know your hands are held in the shackles of a father-provoked anger, what will you do to find the freedom of forgiveness?
• Read Ephesians 6:4. Why do you think Paul exhorted fathers to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and not to provoke them to anger? What does a father-provoked anger look like in an adult son or daughter?
• If you are a father what are you doing to bring your sons and daughters into your heart so you can raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? What are you doing to grow in the nurture and admonition of the Lord yourself?
• What kind of a father are you? One who is engaged in your children's hearts or one who is distant, distracted, missing in the action of emotionally connecting with your sons and daughters?
• What changes must you make by God's grace so you can become the kind of father to your children your heavenly father is to you? And what must you confess to your children so you can find the forgiveness you so desperately need as a father?
• How has your father affected your view of god? How has your experience as a parent affected your understanding of God. Forgiveness and grace?

Sometime back I flew from Dallas to Sao Paulo and then on to Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil. Almost as soon as I got on the plane to Porto I fell asleep, waking up just as we were landing.

I got up with everyone else and walked into the airport looking for my friend, Mark, whom I was there to visit, but there was no Mark.

Very unusual for him. After waiting for over an hour I realized I might have gotten off the plane too soon and might be in the wrong city, so I went back into the airport and asked if I actually was in Porto Alegre. Apparently the person I asked didn't understand English, but nodded yes anyway. So, thinking I was indeed in Porto Alegre I had to figure out what to do. I had no phone number (dumb me), so I decided to go into the city, find a five star hotel, and use their business center to send an e- mail. That's when Adriana came on the scene.

The only English speakers were at the money exchange window, and two of the men there were very helpful, telling me the name of a five star hotel where I could go. Just as I was leaving to get a taxi, Adriana spoke up. I hadn't even noticed her until she said she could take me since she was getting off work and going that way. Since she spoke English--she had lived in London and then New York until recently--I asked the Lord not to let me waste this opportunity. So I started to tell her about Jesus. She listened, asked questions, and, when we arrived at the hotel, turned off her car engine, listened some more, and prayed to receive Christ. Wonderful!

Encouraged, I entered the hotel, went on the Internet, exchanged messages with Diane, Mark's wife, and got their phone number. But Diane couldn't locate the hotel where I was, so I went downstairs, got the street name, and called to confirm my location. But the answer to the call made no sense to me. All I heard was some music and strange words I couldn't understand, so I gave the phone to the desk clerk for help. It was then that I mentioned I was making a local call to Porto Alegre. "Porto Alegre," he said, "This is Florinapolis--Porto Alegre is four hundred kilometers away!"

I met Adriana by mistake, a Divine "mistake," the kind God planned from eternity past. You see, I had gotten off the plane one city too soon because I was sleeping when they announced our arrival. When I saw everyone else getting off the flight I assumed I was at Porto Alegre, but I wasn't. I had only gotten to Florinapolis.

So do you think we should pray for more Divine "mistakes" in our lives? If you do, be careful the next time you fly. You just might meet an Adriana because of a God planned "mistake." And, yes, I did get to Porto Allegre for a delightful dinner and evening with Mark and a great time the next day with Diane and their two youngest children.

Questions to Ponder:

• What “divine mistakes” have you experienced? What fruit have they borne?
• How do you take advantage of the opportunities God sends your way? How have you prepared for the doors God unexpectedly opens for you?
• Should we pray for more Divine "mistakes" in our lives?