Leadership Through Love - Chapter 7 - "Field Trips & More!" (Steve Martin)

Chapter 7

Field Trips & More!

 - Enjoying Staff Events

- Staff Retreats

- Party Time!

      - Birthdays and BBQs

      - After Hours

Staff are often called upon to make events happen, such as the church picnic, the business expo, or the ministry conference. That is part of the job requirements, and understood by all. But serving others makes one desire, and need, a break once in awhile, to just relax and “hang out”. Just as in families, once a big event has come and gone, the staff needs some down time, apart from the “regular job duties”, to enjoy one another and continue to build good relationships. 

Coming from a large family, I appreciate the opportunities we had, and have, to be with one another, where one is not expected to have to “perform”.

Louis & Lila Martin family

- plus the almost full tribe of eight! 

(One yet to come...) 1968 in Cedar Falls, Iowa

Being one who enjoys having a good time, and wanting to see others involved as much as they desire, I saw to it that each staff I was blessed with had times of being together apart from the daily routine or the big event. I realized the importance of having a good time, when the pressures of the daily work or weekend schedule for church weren’t pushing hard.

For the monthly birthdays, we made it a point to celebrate these special days in the life of the accountant, the shipping supervisor, the custodian, the editor, or the receptionist. Having all the employees gather in the lunch room, my assistant and I had a birthday cake, ice cream, and sometimes balloons and other decorations ready to bless those whose birthday it was that month. 

This makes each individual know that they are indeed special and important, and not just someone sitting in the chair getting the job done.

Vision for Israel - partial staff - birthday party 2009

(L-R) Steve, Jodie Goodman, Indira & Edgar Persad

A specially made #24 birthday cake 

at the office for #55! (2009)

Once a year, we would try to schedule a staff retreat, out of town, for two days and nights. Usually this was after the annual conference, or some other event that had required extra effort and time. Going to a mountain retreat lodge, or a resort where all the food and recreation coordination was done by someone other than our own, was always a much appreciated time together.

Being able to gather after office hours, on a weekend or weekday night, gives employees the chance to appreciate each one even more, with an evening baseball or basketball game, racing event at the track, or a good band playing at the food gathering.

Whether the expense is covered by the business, church or ministry, or each pays separately, the staff see this extra care shown by the administrator and other leaders that the whole person is important, in addition to being the one on staff who gets the job done. It is interesting to hear what people say and do when “not on the job”. It can be a very positive addition to the ongoing relationships that are important to maintaining good relationships in the office.

Kevin Grafton, co-worker 

- Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation (Mendota, IL 1977-1980)

and Vision for Israel (Charlotte, NC 2001-2004)

Grill-Master on both jobs!

Another bonding time that is fun to do is to have summer cookouts during the work week day. It seems that each staff has a “grill master” on board, who likes to show off his home crafted skills on the gas grill. Give him or her that opportunity!

Buying either store prepared food, or having each one bring a dish from home, helps create an “at ease” break during the work day. And it makes a good lunch too!

I know the Lord knew the importance of getting His team away from the daily routine, as He would take them apart from time to time. A time to be refreshed, to “recharge the batteries” is important in the business life as well. Just having time to stop doing the normal routine will help keep people desiring to give their best throughout the year.

Planning staff events ahead of time gives people the opportunity to look ahead, to anticipate the time out with the others. As we all like adventure and to get “of the beaten path” sometimes, give the staff these opportunities throughout the year.

Ahava ("love" in Hebrew) and shalom!

Steve Martin
Founder/President
Love For His People, Inc.

Love For His People, Inc. truly appreciates your generous support. Please consider sending a monthly charitable gift of $5-$25 each month to help us bless Messianic Jews in Israel. 

You can bless this ministry work now, through: Online PayPal gifts

You can also send checks to the address below. Todah rabah! (Hebrew - Thank you very much.)

©2013 Steve Martin      Love For His People, Inc.  12120 Woodside Falls Rd. Pineville, NC 28134      

E-mail: loveforhispeople@gmail.com martinlighthouse@gmail.com

Facebook pages: Steve Martin  and  Love For His People       

Twitter: martinlighthous, LovingHisPeople and ahavaloveletter 

Blog: http://loveforhispeople.blogspot.com         Full website: www.loveforhispeople.org

YouTube: Steve Martin (loveforhispeopleinc)

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA organization. Fed. ID#27-1633858.  Tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation.

Note: To read the Intro, Chapter Listings and first six chapters, please use the Search Box in the top right hand corner of this Blog, and enter "Leadership Through Love." Be blessed in your reading!

Leadership Through Love

Chapter Listings

1.      A Gift for His Purposes

- The Early Years

- On the job training

2.      Use the Tools You Have, But Not the Staff

- Treasure the people, while digging the foundations

- Do unto them as you would…

- Bless and curse not: honor those who serve with you

3.      Right Man (or Woman!) for the Job

- All are created equal – make the most of this!

- If the Shoe Fits, Have Them Wear It

4.      Train and Let Loose

- It IS Who You Know and Are Known By

- Hire To Complement Your Strengths

- if you are weak, then they are strong

- Outsource as needed

5.      Burn Candles At Both Ends? – NOT!

- Rest and Sabbath Days

- Mornings with the Lord

- Trust in Him at all times

- We all are given 24 hours each day

6.       The Visionaries Need You!

-          They dream it - you make it happen

-          It takes a team

-          Head Won’t Get Far without the Neck

(or heads will roll)

  

7.      Field Trips and More!

- Staff Retreats

- Party Time!

- Birthdays and BBQs

- After Hours

8.      It Doesn’t All Depend On You

- The Lord is the Rock – Not You

- Whose strength  - yours or His?

   - Key Staff to Lean On

    - Trustworthy managers and assistants

9.      Practically Speaking…and Walking

- Handle each piece of paper once

- File so you can find it!

- Early morning – before the others come

- Take a Break

10.  Meetings – Time-manger or Time-waster?

- Do you really need all those meetings?

- Group or One-On-One?

- Why Morning and Mid-Week?

 - Prov. 24:6 “By wise counsel…multitude of counselors

11.  Acknowledge Him in All Your Ways

- Heart of Thankfulness

- Heart of Worship

- Heart of Service

12.  Another Man’s Vineyard

-          Follow & help fulfill their vision

-          Faithful with another’s

-          Learn and growth until your time

-          The proper way of moving on

Leadership Through Love - Chapter 6 - "The Visionaries Need You!" (Steve Martin)

           Chapter 6 

The Visionaries Need You!

-         They dream it - but you really make it happen

-         It takes a team. Not the Lone Ranger concept.

 -    The big head won’t get far without the neck

             (or heads will roll)

Did you ever see the Headless Horseman movie? The one who rides around in the woods on the horse during the night? (I guess since he can’t see, it doesn’t matter if it is day or night though, huh?)

Now imagine a head riding around on a horse without a neck, or without the rest of the body. Maybe it could happen in a sci-fi movie, but not in a business or ministry.

Visionaries dream the dreams, speak the dreams, share the dreams, and desire the dreams to come about. But without you, the other leadership, administrator and the support team (the rest of the body), not much will happen. The Lord has purposely set it in place that His whole Body will be needed for His work to be fulfilled.

You are a very vital part of the work, and without you doing your part, the visionary may not see his or her dream come to fruition. And without you realizing your importance and place in this part of the body, it most likely won’t happen. Or at least not to the extent that the Lord knows it can be, and wants it to be.

Without the neck to support the head, which will then allow the head to move about, the head may end up just “rolling around”, or being the Headless Horseman riding through the woods, trying to make the dream or vision happen. (Or is this the real picture when we hear or say that the “heads will roll”? A bit comical it is, I think.)

Visionaries need the administrators. They need the team. They can’t “move” without them – in the natural nor in the spiritual.

When I was a younger man, I was with the second ministry that I was blessed to work with, Mahesh Chavda Ministries. Early on in the job as the administrator, I was a bit shaky and lacking much needed confidence. Since 1978, when I first met Mahesh Chavda in LaSalles-Peru, Illinois, I had  a real desire to work with this ministry, but after a number of what I thought were “closed doors”, it looked like it was not going to happen.

(L-R) Andrew Maki, Art Maki, Bonnie Chavda

The Barn - 1995 in Charlotte, NC

The Lord had been the One who opened this door, in a very clear way earlier, but the right timing had to come to pass, and both sides involved needed to have confirming words that this was indeed the Lord. Unknown to me at the beginning, I would serve with this ministry team for 14 years. A good foundational building for the long term needed to be established, and it was important that we each realized this, as much as we were capable of knowing it.

We see in part, and know in part. So often the Lord needs to give us confirming words of encouragement along the way, to help us keep going, and do what is necessary to keep building the spiritual building.

Two prophetic words were spoken to me, one prior to my coming on staff with MCM, and one during the initial years. The first one occurred during the summer of 1990, in Kansas City, where I had gone with my family to assist Mahesh Chavda at a conference, while on our vacation. Nine months earlier I was supposed to have started with Mahesh Chavda Ministries, but what looked like a “death blow” to the connection had taken place, leaving me almost without a job either at Derek Prince Ministries or MCM. My family and I were thus preparing to move from Fort Lauderdale back to either the Midwest, in the land where Laurie and I grew up, or to Charlotte, NC, where things seemed to be happening spiritually.

At the end of the conference where we were at in Kansas City, I had gone up to the platform to help “catch” those who were “slain in the Spirit” during the prayer time. Jim Goll, one of the leaders and speakers of the host Kansas City Fellowship, and having a well known prophetic ministry, came over to me at the end of the prayer time, and spoke this very encouraging word, which put faith back into my heart.

“You are the very one whom this minister needs, to do that which the Lord wants to have done through him. There is not another at this time. It is you whom he needs as the administrator. You have what he needs. You are the man, not another.” 

Five months later the Lord’s time came to pass, for me to come on full time on the team of Mahesh and Bonnie Chavda, as the Administrator. But during that long five months (and even during the times of doubt that still came later), I made it a point to re-read this prophetic word that had kept me hoping and waiting for the right time to come.

(L-R) Steve Martin, Mike Adams, Mahesh Chavda, 

Jodie Goodman, Leslie Adams

Another encouraging word was spoken to me within the first year in this position. Wanting to do the best I could, with my heart desiring to see Africa, Israel, and the other nations touched that this ministry had an affect in, I had concerns that I still didn’t have what was needed for the job. With only one year of college, no degree, and other “lacks” and skills that the world says you need to be an administrator, the concerns seemed understandable and justified.

Bonnie, who I considered my pastor in certain aspects, believing she understood many things I was going through in trying to serve properly, spoke a word to me “out of the blue”. As I was doing yard work around their home, as part of my duties, she came up to me and said that my administrative skills weren’t just something I had learned in the natural, but was indeed a spiritual gift that the Lord had given me. I had a gift from the Lord, which was in administration. (The Scriptures call it the “gift of helps” as one description.)

That was the first time I had ever heard that. I thought the administrative skills, knowledge and wisdom that I had were strictly due to my upbringing, which certainly had its important part, or the “learning on-the-job” that I had received in my prior fifteen years of management.

What this did was reveal to me that the Lord had placed me in this spiritual position. It was His gifts given to me, for His purposes to be fulfilled, that enabled me to do the job that needed to be done. My lack of natural training was “overlooked” because His Holy Spirit, working in and through me, gave me wisdom and understanding to support the visionary and the ministry.

What I came to understand even more, as the Holy Spirit continued to bring understanding to this gift in my life, was that this gift is one of the foundational stones necessary to build a strong building, and support the work placed upon it. He continued to show me the need that exits within the body of Christ, requiring this gifting, and even more specifically, those who are called to be the visionaries and whom serve in the apostolic work, need this gifting.

The head needs the neck to rest on, move about with, and be a connector to the rest of the body in the church, or the business staff.

Hey, the visionaries need you, the administrators, staff leaders and all the rest! Do your part!

Ahava ("love" in Hebrew) and shalom!

Steve Martin
Founder/President
Love For His People, Inc.

Love For His People, Inc. truly appreciates your generous support. Please consider sending a monthly charitable gift of $5-$25 each month to help us bless Messianic Jews in Israel. 

You can bless this ministry work now, through: Online PayPal gifts

You can also send checks to the address below. Todah rabah! (Hebrew - Thank you very much.)

©2013 Steve Martin      Love For His People, Inc.  12120 Woodside Falls Rd. Pineville, NC 28134      

E-mail: loveforhispeople@gmail.com martinlighthouse@gmail.com

Facebook pages: Steve Martin  and  Love For His People       

Twitter: martinlighthous, LovingHisPeople and ahavaloveletter 

Blog: http://loveforhispeople.blogspot.com         Full website: www.loveforhispeople.org

YouTube: Steve Martin (loveforhispeopleinc)

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA organization. Fed. ID#27-1633858.  Tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation.

Note: To read the Intro, Chapter Listings and first five chapters, please use the Search Box in the top right hand corner of this Blog, and enter "Leadership Through Love." Be blessed in your reading!

Leadership Through Love

Chapter Listings

1.      A Gift for His Purposes

- The Early Years

- On the job training

2.      Use the Tools You Have, But Not the Staff

- Treasure the people, while digging the foundations

- Do unto them as you would…

- Bless and curse not: honor those who serve with you

3.      Right Man (or Woman!) for the Job

- All are created equal – make the most of this!

- If the Shoe Fits, Have Them Wear It

4.      Train and Let Loose

- It IS Who You Know and Are Known By

- Hire To Complement Your Strengths

- if you are weak, then they are strong

- Outsource as needed

5.      Burn Candles At Both Ends? – NOT!

- Rest and Sabbath Days

- Mornings with the Lord

- Trust in Him at all times

- We all are given 24 hours each day

6.       The Visionaries Need You!

-          They dream it - you make it happen

-          It takes a team

-          Head Won’t Get Far without the Neck

(or heads will roll)

  

7.      Field Trips and More!

- Staff Retreats

- Party Time!

- Birthdays and BBQs

- After Hours

8.      It Doesn’t All Depend On You

- The Lord is the Rock – Not You

- Whose strength  - yours or His?

   - Key Staff to Lean On

    - Trustworthy managers and assistants

9.      Practically Speaking…and Walking

- Handle each piece of paper once

- File so you can find it!

- Early morning – before the others come

- Take a Break

10.  Meetings – Time-manger or Time-waster?

- Do you really need all those meetings?

- Group or One-On-One?

- Why Morning and Mid-Week?

 - Prov. 24:6 “By wise counsel…multitude of counselors

11.  Acknowledge Him in All Your Ways

- Heart of Thankfulness

- Heart of Worship

- Heart of Service

12.  Another Man’s Vineyard

-          Follow & help fulfill their vision

-          Faithful with another’s

-          Learn and growth until your time

-          The proper way of moving on