| Our verse to DATE the Word on March 29 (3/29) is Nehemiah 3:29 |
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| Nehemiah 3:29 After them Zadok the son of Immer made repairs in front of his own house. After him Shemaiah the son of Shechaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, made repairs. |
| HELP THEM HAVE OWNERSHIP In an interview with some other Christian University colleagues, I was asked to give several of the best “unknown” leadership lessons I had learned. The aspect of “unknown” was they wanted to hear things that were not OBVIOUS. As I pondered my answer I thought about the importance of generating student “ownership” of campus events and activities. I recalled how I intentionally read through my Bible during the year and had done this several times. By reading completely through my Bible meant I read all of NUMBERS and ALL of 1 and 2 Chronicles (you know these are challenging books). And it meant I read all of Nehemiah 3. While Nehemiah 3 has only 31 verses it has some of the hardest names to pronounce and it does seem many of the verses are repetitive as Nehemiah tells who was involved in building the wall. Because I had heard the value of helping others on your team have ownership and I believed in cultivating ownership I noticed there were several verses in Nehemiah 3 about ownership that got my attention, such as Nehemiah 3:29. To those interviewing me I would ask them to turn to Nehemiah 3:29 and from this verse with some hard names to say I gave them a RICH PRINCIPLE of LEADERSHIP. I told them to HELP TEAM MEMBERS HAVE OWNERSHIP of their school, their residence hall, their teams, etc. like Nehemiah did with the wall builders. I told them I did not know if Nehemiah was a genius or not but 6 words in Nehemiah 3:29 were pure genius. Did you see the six words? Look at it again. Nehemiah 3:29 says, “After them, Zadok the son of Immer made repairs in front of his own house.” Just 6 words, but oh what they accomplished. IN FRONT OF HIS OWN HOUSE. One has to wonder how hard Zadok worked and how diligent he was to the details to make sure the WALL was built sound and secure. After all his security and his family’s security rest on his diligent work! As we worked to oversee the student body at Liberty we had leadership teams on every floor and we had prayer groups on the floor led by members of the leadership team on that floor. I don’t know how many times I told teams to TAKE CARE OF THEIR FLOOR and TAKE CARE OF THEIR PRAYER GROUP. I knew if each team member took care of their prayer group then the floor was taken care of and if each leadership team took care of their floor the campus overall would be taken care of. And the guiding thought for all this came from 6 words found in Nehemiah 3:29 as he had a man build the wall in front of his own house. In conveying what was not an obvious leadership principle I did bring it back to one of my most obvious leadership principles of the first person you lead is you. Each of us should be RESPONSIBLE for ourselves. To teach this idea of ownership I heard about a father-in-law who wanted to help his son-in-law out. His son-in-law owned a construction company. The father-in-law asked his son-in-law to build him a beautiful, grand house. While he could not give him a blank check, he told him to spare no expense as he wanted him to build him a really nice house. The son-in-law went to work and knowing his father-in-law did not know how much things cost he decided to cut corners and buy cheap materials. Using cheap materials ended up costing more as things broke while installing them. When he finally finished the house, the son-in-law hardly had made any profit. His father-in-law then comes over and, AND, instead of taking the keys to the new home from his son-in-law he tells his son-in-law to keep the keys as the house was his! As said in another verse we need to have the mindset of autographing our work with excellence. Are you owning your work? If you are a student, are you owning your studies? If you are part of a team are you “owning” the team? Our actions or inactions can have a great impact on ourselves! OWN YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES!! Verse to DATE the Word on March 29 (3/29) is Nehemiah 3:29. Nehemiah 3:29 says, “After them Zadok the son of Immer made repairs in front of his own house. After him Shemaiah the son of Shechaniah, the keeper of the East Gate, made repairs.” Continue Strong, And remember to DATE THE WORD |