1. How To Practice Biblical Humility Within Social Media by Carlos Whittaker
2. Top Ten Temptations That Leaders Face by Perry Noble
3. What Fear Can Kill by Bianca Olthoff via Lindsey Noble's blog
4. How to Live Your Dream When You're Scared to Death by Jeff Goins via Michael Hyatt's blog
5. Are you a LEADER or a FOLLOWER? by Brad Lomenick

What else did we miss this week?

Check out the Micro Mission Kit from RELEVANT and World Vision Micro. In it you'll find all you need to know about how Micro is using a truly unique lending model to help fight poverty across the globe! You'll also find tools to equip your small group, church team, work place and even your family to all join together and donate to Micro! Find out more and get started online at: relevantmagazine.com/micromissionkit.

Building a bridge is an art. Not literal bridges that you drive over, although those are incredibly important...

I’m referring to building bridges in business, friendships, co-workers, mentors, and key partnerships. I’m referring to building a new relationship with your neighbor. I’m referring to connecting with someone that you’ve wanted to meet with for a long time and only having 15 minutes for a meeting. How do you turn that meeting into an hour or more, and then eventually into a friend?

Many folks just think that showing up is half the battle. Well, sort of. But there’s more. When it comes to winning a client, or inking a new partnership, or developing a new friendship, there are some key things I’ve learned over the years that might be helpful.

A few thoughts:

1. Love people until they ask why. Let your actions speak so loud that people can not help but to see your authenticity, and ultimately demand an explanation for the reason you do what you do.

2. Prove your craft before asking for something. Excellence, skill and know how is key on this. Show that you are competent before you demand that they should partner with you.

3. Ask more questions than they do. I love this one. Many times asking great questions is way more strategic than giving great answers.

4. Spend lots of time listening. Once you’ve asked a great question, listen. And listen more. And listen more.

5. Find points of connection and shared interests, and be intentional. A crucial part of great bridge building. Find out what motivates someone, what their interests are, what they enjoy. Is it sports? rock climbing? history? Whatever it is, find out and then build on those areas of shared interests.

6. Connect them to others. Great connectors and bridge builders are always figuring out ways to introduce their friends within their circle. Claire at Twitter does this amazingly well. And here’s the key on this- the ultimate value for the connection is not for you, it’s more for others.

7. Follow up. This is the #1 step that everyone seems to forget. We have to follow up. Never assume that because you haven’t heard from someone, it means they are not interested. They’re busy, just like you. Take the first step and reach out. And then reach out again. And then again.

This is a guest blog post from Brad Lomenick, check out more of his blog here or follow him here!

***Only 100 tickets left for Catalyst Dallas! Call Stan, Chad, Jon, or Daniel for special rates at 888.334.6569***

There are "leadership retreats" and then there's Catalyst. For most, the retreat is a designated time for your entire staff and other key leaders within the church to get together, while Catalyst might be something only yourself and a couple of other staff members decide to attend individually. However, the more we thought about it, the more our team at The Oaks thought it would be a good idea to experiment with these two entities. We decided to ditch the traditional leadership development route and try something a little different.

We stepped out on faith and bought 60 tickets to Catalyst Dallas, about 40 of those we used for staff and 20 for our top-tier leaders. And let me say, the experience was like none other. During the conference, I kept looking around at the different leaders in our church. These are people that lead major companies but have never experienced a leadership gathering like this before. Their mouths were to the floor. Our experiment worked.

Here are 10 reasons we're glad we made Catalyst our annual leadership retreat:

1. It was something different. Sometimes change is good.
2. Your team gets to hear from a host of A-list speakers. Catalyst brings the absolute best leaders in the church and business to share leadership principles. Coordinating a time when all of these leaders would be available to speak would be difficult enough to do on your own, much less convince them to come to your retreat.
3. It allowed our team to bond around something other than a campfire. I watched as our team sat around and debriefed after the session, sharing what each of us learned. Catalyst offered a unique bonding experience we wouldn't have had at a traditional leadership retreat.
4. The cost is essentially equal. For the same price as booking a center, gathering materials, and all the other costs with creating a retreat, you get one of the best leadership development conference in the country.
5. Our team makes connections with other leaders. I'm a huge fan of connecting and learning from as many people as possible. Catalyst allowed our team to make connections they would have missed out on otherwise.
6. The worship experience is out of this world. Catalyst gave us the chance to worship with thousands of fellow believers (and give our worship team a break as well).
7. Andy Stanley & Craig Groeschel speak at your staff retreat. Need I say more?
8. You walk away with resources. The vendors at Catalyst bring the added touch to the conference. Our team left with a ton of great books, resources and tools they can use to develop their leadership skills when we returned home.
9. The Catalyst team takes care of all the details. Instead of worrying about all of the little details, I was able to truly enjoy the experience with our entire team.
10. The leadership development didn't end at the conference. Catalyst does a great job of continuing to share resources to people who attend the conference. Our staff and leaders are extending their leadership development passed a 2-day retreat.

What's been your experience at Catalyst? Has it been a formative experience for your leaders?

Guest blog from Justin Lathrop. With over a dozen years of local church ministry Justin has spent the last several years starting business' and ministries that partner with pastors and churches to advance the Kingdom. He is the founder of Helpstaff.me (now Vanderbloemen Search), Oaks School of Leadership, and MinistryCoach.tv all while staying involved in the local church. Justin is obsessed with connecting people to people and lives his life daily to make the world a smaller place. He now serves as a consultant in the area of strategic relations predominately working with the Assemblies of God, helping to build bridges with people and ministries to more effectively reach more people. He blogs regularly about what he has learned from making connection at www.justinlathrop.com.

We all live in the tension of "THIS" and "WHY"

We work at a church (This) in order to help people experience life change (Why).

We work in a non-profit (This) in order to help kids get meals (Why).

We choose to be a teacher (This) in order to further the destiny of children (Why)

Pace makes our life crazy; the crazier our life gets, the blurrier our leadership can become. We have meetings and deadlines, decisions to make and teammates to develop. Life gets more and more busy every day. With the increased demands, we have to be more and more intentional with how we manage our leadership opportunities. One of the most important ways to impact our organizations, especially in the crazy pace of life, is to understand the power of WHY.

"WHY" we are doing "this".

The WHY behind our THIS becomes our anchor.

WHY creates vision
WHY compels us to start.
WHY inspires those around us.

The thing about WHY is it starts small.
It starts with you.
It starts Individually.

As a leader, we have to take our WHY and make it spread like wild fire. If our WHY does not spread, our leadership capacity diminishes.

WHY spreads first to our core team. If we do that well, they help us share it with individual tribes. As tribes start to connect with our WHY, it then has the opportunity to spread to our communities.

It all starts with WHY - and it all starts with you.

You can't hide your passion for your WHY. Even if someone doesn't understand your WHY, they can always relate to the level of passion you put out on display. Passion is magnetic and draws people in; it inspires people to take action.

WHY is not easy. WHY tends to feel audacious at first. But when we're consumed with WHY, the passion starts to spread.

There are two traps lurking to end our WHY:

• The first is when others start to care more about our WHY than we do. As the protector of our WHY, we have to be the most passionate and most understanding of anyone. A great example would be the musician who is working to be discovered. Early on, no one else knows or understands the WHY behind the art. Eventually they do and a label starts to get interested. The musician signs a record deal and instantly starts to expect the label to care more about the art then the artist. This equation works for anyone creating or leading in any industry. Never let someone care more about YOUR WHY than you do. Ever.

• The second, is when things start to go bad and we flirt with quitting. It's easy to be passionate and share our WHY on the good days, but on the bad days - when nothing seems to be going right - ALL we will have is our WHY and our faith. When this happens, we better be sure our WHY IS SIGNIFICANT. JK Rowlings didn't fight through dozens of rejections of the Harry Potter manuscript because rejections are fun, she did it because her WHY was stronger than any rejection she would face.

The other day, a friend of mine told me about four questions we should ask when we're confronted with the fear and start to question our WHY. These questions can help chase out the sounds when doubt speaks and starts to get loud:

1. Do you have data to support that this thought is true?
2. How do you feel? How does it make you feel?
3. Is there one stress free reason to hold onto this thought/voice?
4. Now, what are you going to do about this? Keep it, act on it, turn it around?

Have you defined your WHY? Are you sharing it with passion and purpose?