Jon Acuff - Strategy - ReThink Leadership 2016

The opening speaker was Jon Acuff. Jon is the New York Times bestselling author, and a fellow Tennesseean!

• “There’s no such thing as a local pastor anymore. There’s only global pastors. Because of the internet there are so many more challenges.” @JonAcuff : #RL16
• “It’s exciting to be a senior leader because there are so many opportunities. But there are also so many challenges.” “The challenge with leadership is you’re the top gear. If you make a ½ degree turn the level below you makes a 1 degree turn.”
• The things we say causally can be interpreted as a rule and it infiltrates your whole organization. The things you say casually are not taken casually and become rules. You lose the right to say something casually.
• “When someone spends $45 on a pizza don’t give them a $.25 cent box…You’ve got some box counters in your organization.”
• A shared trip and a shared conversation is so healthy for your team.
• Strategy causes you to not fake. 
• Strategy forces you to admit that you have limits. 
• When you do a strategy it forces you to admit you can’t do everything and it helps you see a limitless God - @JonAcuff #RL16 
• “One of the frustrations of these conferences is what happens on the stage does not happen in the church. I hate going to small events that denigrate the senior leader.”
• The CEO's primary job is to create an environment of success. 
• Senior Pastors get so bogged down in the doing that they don't step back and ask the hard questions. Working on it not in it.
• "Part of the reason pastor's kids hate the church is that it stole their holidays as kids." @JonAcuff #RL16
• If you don’t have strategy the things that are most important get the rest of your time, not the best of your time. @JonAcuff #RL16

The more you admit your limits, 

the more you experience a limitless God!

Reggie Joiner - Strategy - ReThink Leadership 2016

ReThink Leadership started out with Reggie Joiner, the founder and CEO of Orange, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to influence those who influence the next generation. Orange provides resources and training for churches and organizations that create environments for parents, kids and teenagers.

• I had an ADD approach to ministry. ADD - random approach to ministry. The mission and vision statement of most of us have is very similar. It's not really your vision that determines your success. It is your strategy. It is what you do with your resources and align them to accomplish with the end in mind. It's your strategy not your mission Ultimately determines your success.Strategy is a plan of action with an end in mind.
• Staying alignment with your team or staff. Alignment
  You don't have to work to get misaligned as a team. It is what happens. What we have to be intentional about is alignment. Misalignment just happens over time. 
• There are a lot of great organizations that close because they don’t have a great strategy.
• The alignment makes the difference in accomplishing something.

• The first question we ask is “What do we want someone to become?”
• Another question is “Where do we want them to be?” If you can only get people to come to one thing, what would that one thing be?
• You can’t get your team on the same page if you don’t get them in the same room.
• If you don’t economize on the time when you can put your team around the table focusing on the right end in mind, you’ll create a different kind of momentum.