That profound thought changed the way we “do radio” and share Jesus with our community. But perhaps more importantly and foundationally, it pierced my heart. It was the genesis of understanding our purpose and calling, which shapes everything we do as a radio and media ministry. 

In honor of National Radio Day on August 20, I’d love to share our 10 core ministry beliefs at JOY FM and BOOST RADIO. This is our “why”: 

• We believe that Jesus is the Hope of the world
• We believe that Jesus changes lives, families and communities
• We believe that we should love and act differently than the world
• We believe in doing the right thing whether it is popular or not
• We believe in being honest, including about our weaknesses and needs
• We believe together is better than alone
• We believe that following Christ is fun and not boring
• We believe in building people up, not tearing them down
• We believe in forgiveness

I’m not suggesting that your ministry should adopt these core beliefs. But there is something very helpful and constructive about knowing who you are and what your purpose is. 

What do those 10 beliefs have to do with radio? For us, everything. 

*They fuel our passion for people in our community

*They shape our priorities

*They guide our hirings

*They keep us laser focused on Kingdom building and not our own

In a nutshell, they help us do good “radio.” 

What do you believe? What is your passion? Who has God called you to reach? What is standing in your way? 

Some questions to ponder on this National Radio Day!  What if God hasn’t called you to radio? What if He has called you to a mission?

The post What if God Hasn’t Called You to Radio? first appeared on CMB.

The post What if God Hasn’t Called You to Radio? appeared first on CMB.

“But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask.” – James 1:5

The most famous story of asking for wisdom in the Bible was Solomon, who asked for knowledge and wisdom (instead of wealth, riches, and power). God blessed him with knowledge, wisdom, riches, and wealth because Solomon was humble enough to ask for knowledge and the insight to apply that knowledge effectively. Solomon realized that as a leader, he was in a position of power, but only through God’s grace could he govern justly. 

Currently, businesses attempt to reestablish themselves in a volatile economic and political global environment. Wisdom and patience will be needed more than ever. Decisions must be made that will impact the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people across the globe.

We should all ask for wisdom and pray for it daily. In the article, Defining Spiritual Wisdom for Yourself, everydayhealth.com outlines their seven tips for achieving spiritual wisdom:

1. Choose wisdom
2. Trust your Instincts
3. Set boundaries
4. Surround yourself with wisdom
5. Learn from your mistakes
6. Learn from other people’s mistakes
7. Choose it daily

While God provides wisdom if we seek it, there are steps that we can take to be in a position to receive it. Learn from the past while focusing on the future. Great leaders will need wisdom to ensure that we can improve our future.

FaithSearch Partners can secure those differential leaders for Christian media, nonprofits, higher education, ministries, and faith-driven organizations. Contact Elaine Welcome, SVP, Christian Media, for more information.

The post Great Leaders Seek Wisdom first appeared on CMB.

The post Great Leaders Seek Wisdom appeared first on CMB.

This article said, “Online communities have become pivotal for engagement. Marketers face challenges navigating between owned channels and social media. The evolution of community-building resources provides great ownership and purpose rather than solely relying on the influence of external platforms.” This piqued my interest because we’ve been having this same discussion over the CMB Forums. Over the past few years, people have asked us to consider moving them to an alternative platform, such as Facebook Groups. This article by TINT noted that 67.4% of consumers feel more connected through community than social media. After much research, discussion and prayer, we decided to make a concentrated effort on our Forums. 

We all crave a sense of belonging, a place where we connect with others who understand what we are going through. That is why the CMB Forums were created over 20 years ago (shoutout to Bob Thornton). They bring our radio community together offering support, shared resources, problem-solving, connection, authenticity and more. Each forum is tailored to meet the specific needs of radio. 

If you are looking for community, we hope that you’ll consider joining us on one of our eight topic based forums. Get started here >> 

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25

“Not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Philippians 2:4

The post Community first appeared on CMB.

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I excused myself and went to the restroom. Locked the stall. And quietly called out to God. “What’s wrong? Where is the joy?” I honestly admitted something that He already knew. My joy was depleted. Gone.

I had noticed that my joy was “leaking” for quite a while, but thought that Christmas, or vacation, or family time would be the spark to bring it back. That wasn’t the case.

From the restroom, I could hear the music begin in the sanctuary. But I lingered to finish the honest conversation with God. “I don’t want to feel this way. I want to celebrate You and this season with joy. Where can I find my joy again, God?” 

I’ve never heard God’s voice audibly. But I recognized His response. He reminded me that JOY IS FINDABLE.

It is found in His presence. 

“In your presence there is fullness of joy”….Psalm 16:11

He gently acknowledged that we hadn’t been spending much time together. And He tenderly invited me to spend more time being present in His presence. My heart needed that reminder.  Joy is findable because it is a byproduct of spending time with Him. I was lacking joy because I was neglecting time with my Father.  There is no substitute. And my heart knew it.

You may be sensing the same thing. A longing for more joy. Or peace. Or rest. God loves us enough to not offer substitutes. He loves us enough to offer Himself. And the time we spend with Him changes us. Refreshes us. Fills us. 

I will never forget the time spent with God that night in the church restroom stall. He met me. We spent time together and it brought me joy. My kids have asked that I never share that story. Or at least change the “where.” But, I like being honest. With you and with God. It does my heart good. It brings me joy.

JOY is findable. Because He is findable. That’s the message of Christmas.

The post Message of Christmas first appeared on CMB.

The post Message of Christmas appeared first on CMB.

I have heard many ask: Where is the power? Where is the peace? Many have doubted and stopped believing because nothing seemed to work. Some who want an escape from their afflictions and sin give God a timeline to answer and then turn away from Him because He didn’t respond by their prescribed deadline. They believe God has failed them. 

I get it. I understand some verses read out of context could imply that we should just stop what we are doing and turn away from it, but turning away from wrongdoing is not that easy. Paul writes in Romans 7: 22-24, “I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me, oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? “

Paul illustrates in Ephesians 6:12 the reality of the war raging in each of us as we battle against our sinful nature. “For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” He goes on to exhort us to arm ourselves with the truth of the cross. 

Putting on the mind of Christ requires a surrender over and over again. It requires being anxious for nothing, praying about everything, and thanking God during the hardest times. It requires each one of us to turn our attention away from the self-gratifying ways of this world by rewiring our minds to align with the selfless mind of Christ.

Galatians 5:19-21 states, “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.” The fascinating thing we now know (due to science catching up with the Bible) is that these things can get us stuck in a self-pleasing, anxious neurological state. This neurological state activates our survival mechanism, causing us to be more reactive and less likely to emotionally regulate, reason, and evaluate our choices. It becomes a vicious neurological loop. We will find ourselves stuck here if we choose not to heed the warning in 1 Peter 5:8-9, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith.”

Satan tries to take us out of our calling and destroy our witness by exploiting our weaknesses. He will use doubt, discouragement, and division to keep us in a destructive cycle of sin, causing us to doubt what our Heavenly Father has already provided for us, a Savior and the Holy Spirit, to address the very sin nature we find ourselves caught in. Jesus said in John 14:27, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” 

We would have to set our minds on all things good, lovely, true, and honorable to have the neurological flexibility to be in an emotionally regulated state that can acknowledge a God like ours — a God who would choose to send His only Son to take our sins upon His back and to the grave so that we may have life. Putting on the mind of Christ requires us to focus on Christ, who He is, and what He did so that we may have freedom from what we do.

For additional audio and visual resources to encourage your listeners, please visit Liberty.edu/CMB and scroll to the “Radio Resources” section.

Dr. Jeanne Brooks
Liberty University Professor

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The post Putting on the Mind of Christ appeared first on CMB.

That is the desire of every Christian parent, of course. But it is bigger than simply parents making decisions about college for their children too. It is a pivotal question confronting the church as a whole. How is the Christian faith effectively passed on to the next generation? Because sadly, the current picture is grim. In the last decade, the Barna Group published findings into the lives of [JCL(D1] 18-to-29-year-olds who grew up Christian. Although 70 percent still claim to be Christian, close to two-thirds have left the church, and 20 percent have left the faith entirely. Only 10 percent make up what Barna terms resilient disciples.

Can anything be done to reverse the trend? On one level, of course, the only hope is Christ. He is the one who said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing.” But the late Christian teacher, Dallas Willard, once noted how that statement from Christ also works in the inverse. “If you do nothing, it will be without Me.” In other words, a dependence on Christ does not mean a lack of effort on the part of the believer.

But from my own experience of working with Christian young people, I have found that while there is often a sincere desire to grow in Christ, there is also a lack of awareness of the role a believer plays in that process. This is because any sense of effort is often eyed warily as a form of legalism. In an attempt not to be a legalist, however, it seems to me many well-intended Christians have thrown out this most basic understanding of human formation. I will become what I do. That is not legalism. That is a fact.

If I watch what the world watches, listen to what the world listens to, and behave as the world behaves, I should not be surprised when I wake up to find that I have become the world, regardless of what I might claim. But here is the point. The reverse of that is also true. If I pursue Christ, I will become like Him. I know that because He promises it.

It is my belief then that the path to reversing the trend among young people abandoning the faith is to take seriously once again the expectation of obedience in the life of a believer. In his address to the Galatians, Paul writes, “It is for freedom’s sake that you have been set free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” The point is that for Paul, the freedom a Christian possesses in Christ is fundamentally not a freedom to behave like the world. It is a freedom not to. It is a freedom to pursue Christ.

That’s what I told the mother who emailed me. No, I cannot promise you will not lose your daughter. Her soul is not in my hands. But I can promise to hold up Christ in front of her and continually encourage her to, “run with endurance the race set before [her], fixing [her] eyes on Christ, the author and perfector of [her] faith.”

For additional audio and visual resources about how to encourage your listeners as they support their student’s faith journey or to schedule an interview with Josh, please visit Liberty.edu/CMB and scroll to the “Radio Resources” section.

The post How to Stand Firm in an Unstable World first appeared on CMB.

The post How to Stand Firm in an Unstable World appeared first on CMB.

You may have seen the old TV commercial from UPS, where a business owner listens to two consultants give him a list of specific, jargon-y, recommendations, and after hearing them out, the owner says … “Great! Do it!”

“Uh, we don’t actually do what we propose … we just propose it …”.

Let’s start with the idea that as a leader, your number one job is not to maintain things as they are. And it’s not to propose change. Your number one job is to create actual change. If they’d wanted lower ratings, or less mission impact, or revenue that doesn’t go any higher than it is now, or if they’d wanted the maintenance of the status quo, then they wouldn’t have hired you, right? 

If we do the things that we’ve always done, then we’ll get the results that we’ve always gotten. 

And when you lovingly push on an organization, by introducing change, it pushes back – the people, and the systems. 

Systems are designed to work in an internally consistent way. They self-reinforce. There are no bad motives on the people side, it’s just that existing systems (even really bad ones) are perfectly crafted to give the organization the exact results that it’s getting right now. When you lead change well, with the best of intentions, you are still upsetting the apple cart. Which means that every station you ever work at, will be change resistant — to one degree or another. 

“That’s not the way we do things here … “

So you make change. Your job is to create change through things like vision, teaching, prayer, momentum, culture change, tapping into untapped talent on your team, new systems for doing things, and occasionally, purposely and lovingly, throwing some sand in the gears of the old systems to help them break quickly. (Sometimes the fastest way to break a bad system is to use it, a lot). All while bringing people along, and acknowledging the dignity of their contributions. You navigate the space between what is, and what could be. You replace one way of thinking, with another way of thinking. You leverage both pain and vision for the worthy cause.  

Your business card might as well say “Cashier” on it, because your job is to make change.

*Clay Scroggins has a great book on this — “How To Lead When You’re Not In Charge”.

The post Great! Do It! first appeared on CMB.

The post Great! Do It! appeared first on CMB.

The last few years have put that struggle into hyperdrive.

Whatever has been left in the leadership landscape has been twisted so badly it’s unfamiliar, and leaders have been left scrambling to find the skills and strategies they need to make progress.

Maybe you’ve read material about how to be aware that you’re struggling or how to get out of it.

But what almost no one talks about is the temptations that come to leaders who are struggling. While ‘moral’ temptations are part of the equation, it’s more nuanced than that.

It’s so easy to get addicted to making progress or at least maintaining the status quo that you’ll be tempted to cheat in ways that seemed unthinkable even a few years ago.

I’ve been through more than a few seasons of struggle—personally and in leadership. And regardless of the source, when you’re in a slump, you’re tempted to cheat in a way you simply aren’t when things are going better.

I’m going to run this post through a set of temptations church leaders face, but you could imagine similar dynamics in almost any endeavor. After all, human nature is human nature.

Here’s what you’ll likely be tempted to do when you hit a season of struggle:

1. Move the goalposts

This is a deep temptation for performance addicts and leaders who are used to leading growing organizations.

What do you do when charts and graphs that used to give you dopamine hits start to show decline instead of progress?

An early reaction is to stop looking at them. And that stinks.

Many leaders who track their progress when their organization is growing become immediately tempted to stop tracking it when the growth stops. That’s a mistake.

Even worse, some leaders will start moving the goalposts.

Well, I know we used to track how many new people we reached, but that’s not really important is it? Quality over quantity, I say.

So, let’s be honest, you never used to say that. Ever. And everyone around you knows it.

When you pretend the things aren’t growing don’t matter anymore, you’re setting yourself up to grow even less in the future.

Soothing yourself by moving the goalposts is a terrible leadership strategy.

2. Redefine the mission

Another temptation you face when you’re struggling as a leader is to redefine the mission.

Worse than moving the goalposts and changing how you keep score, this means you’ll be tempted to just ignore the aspects of the mission you can’t seem to conquer.

This happens in many ways, but two predominant ways it surfaces in the church are when leaders say they’re about discipleship or when they claim faithfulness.

Example?

We’re about discipleship, not evangelism around here.

Translation: We’ve stopped trying to reach people.

It’s not about being successful, it’s about being faithful.

Translation: Well, true, faithfulness is critical, but faithfulness is not synonymous with failure, nor are success and faithfulness mutually exclusive.

The best way to get off mission is to redefine the mission, especially regarding the church.

3. Blame everyone but yourself

Poor leaders blame. Great leaders take responsibility.

t’s so easy to blame other people, and it’s so easy to do the moment things stop going the way you hoped.

Here’s a partial list of things leaders blame when things go south:

• COVID
• Lockdown
• The economy
• Nice weather
• Bad weather
• The church down the street
• Your city/region
• Culture
• The White House
• The Supreme Court
• Their staff
• Their board
• Anything but themselves

Often when you blame others, the dynamic at play is you’re in too much pain to blame yourself. Deep down, most leaders know they’re at least in part responsible.

Blaming others is a clear sign of weakness, not strength in a leader.

Poor leaders blame. Great leaders take responsibility.

4. Imagine yourself in a new job (or career)

When you’re struggling as a leader, it’s completely natural to want to escape.

You start to imagine yourself in a new job—any new job will do—and think about how much easier it would be if you did that rather than what you’re doing now.

The challenges with that line of thinking, though, run deep.

First, that new job is going to have its own share of difficulties. No work is effortless. Every team has its dysfunctions. And often the reason the grass looks greener on the other side is that you haven’t gotten close enough to see the brown blades interspersed with the green blades, not to mention the root rot.

Second, you bring yourself everywhere you go. This also means you bring all your unresolved pain, challenges, unhealth, and unresolved issues with you. In many ways, leaving a job you’re unhappy with is like leaving a marriage you don’t like anymore. You imagine this new partner is going to be perfect, which is completely not true (see above). And second, you bring all of your dysfunction into whatever you decide to do next.

There are definitely times you might be called to leave. No one stays in a job forever.

You want to quit on a good day, not a bad day. And seasons of struggle are filled with bad days. If you’re not thinking clearly (and you’re not when you struggle), then you’re likely to make a decision you’ll regret later.

And because pain isolates, you probably haven’t discussed this carefully with wise people. You may be the only one who thinks leaving is a good idea. And if you’re the only one who thinks it’s a good idea, it’s probably not a good idea.

5. Slide into a new way of medicating your pain

Usually, when I ask busy leaders how they’re doing personally, they admit they don’t take great care of themselves. This is surprisingly true of church leaders too. Often more true actually than it is of business leaders.

When you don’t take great care of yourself, guess what you end up doing in almost every single case?

You end up self-medicating—you soothe the pain with anything from alcohol to sex to overeating and over-medicating to burying yourself in more work. You can also self-medicate by over-exercising. The list is endless. Self-medicating simply involves doing anything you can to numb the pain without actually addressing the pain.

When stress and life overwhelm you, you will either respond to it in a healthy way (self-care) or an unhealthy way (self-medication).

The alternative to self-medication is self-care. And while the choice is yours, self-care is so much healthier than self-medicating.

But here’s the stinger: If you don’t intentionally choose self-care as a leader, you’ll end up self-medicating.

Naturally, the key to getting out of the struggle begins with recognizing you’re in it.

Understanding your temptations makes it easier to avoid making the struggle worse.

Link to Original Source

The post The 5 Temptations of a Struggling Leader first appeared on CMB.

The post The 5 Temptations of a Struggling Leader appeared first on CMB.

I think that advice is often short-sided. Here’s why:

There is a difference between imposter syndrome and self-awareness. Self-awareness is the recognition that your skill level may not be sufficient for the task at hand. For example, while I have some experience leading designers, I would never take on a project that requires me to design a campaign for a major brand. That’s not imposter syndrome, it’s wisdom. 

However, fear often comes disguised as wisdom also, and it can show up in the form of imposter syndrome.

This is when you perpetually feel like a fraud, or you become paralyzed when you are called upon to perform a task. You may even turn down opportunities you are perfectly well suited for because you fear that you will be “found out”. 

We must learn to distinguish between good, genuine self-awareness and imposter syndrome. This happens best in community, where people can speak truth to you about who you are and what you’re truly capable of. 

Who has permission to speak truth to you?

LEARN MORE about Todd Henry, a Momentum 2023 main stage speaker.

The post Imposter Syndrome vs. Self-Awareness first appeared on CMB.

The post Imposter Syndrome vs. Self-Awareness appeared first on CMB.

One of the greatest of these challenges in our industry for growth today is the generational gap between seasoned station leadership and blossoming talent. We must find a way to grow intelligently without being overcautious and killing the motivation of our most precious commodity, content creators.

A leader with a limited mindset can be detrimental to any team, as it stifles creativity and innovation and limits progress. It is important to recognize the problems caused by this type of leadership and take steps to minimize their impact. This limited approach can lead to problems at your radio station, such as a lack of innovation, difficulty dealing with change, and decreased job satisfaction. But there is hope!

Here are 3 common issues caused by this type of leadership and how you can overcome them in order to unleash your radio station’s true potential.

Problem 1: A Lack of Innovation

The biggest problem that arises from a limited mindset is a lack of innovation. Leaders with this kind of narrow view often fail to recognize new opportunities or consider different ways of doing things. This can lead to stagnation within the company, which can cause employees to become frustrated and unmotivated. When was the last time you tried something new?  Can’t remember?

Solution 1: To counter this issue, leaders should focus on expanding their knowledge base. By reading books, attending conferences, and talking to experts outside the company, they can gain valuable insights into new techniques and strategies that can help their radio station succeed. It’s also important for leaders to encourage their teams to think outside the box and come up with creative solutions. By giving employees freedom to experiment, they will be more likely to come up with effective ideas that could revolutionize the organization’s productivity or profitability.

Problem 2: Difficulty Dealing With Change

Another problem associated with limited mindset leadership is an inability to adjust easily when changes occur within the business environment or organization structure.  Are you prepared for a direct competitor in your market? Are you expanding into podcasting? Leaders who don’t recognize potential disruptions or are resistant to making necessary adjustments may find themselves struggling when faced with unexpected challenges or shifts in strategy or operations. This could lead them down a path towards failure if they don’t take steps quickly enough.

Solution 2: For leaders in this position, it’s essential that they remain open-minded and flexible when it comes to changes in their organization. They should schedule time each day (or week) to review current trends and plan ahead for potential disruptions so that they are prepared for any eventuality. Additionally, being proactive rather than reactive when dealing with change will help ensure that any adjustments are made swiftly and effectively before any major damage is done.

Problem 3: Decreased Job Satisfaction

A final consequence of limited mindset leadership is decreased job satisfaction among team members due to inflexibility or an unwillingness to try new things. Leaders who stick too closely to traditional processes may find that morale drops among their staff as employees become disengaged with their work due poor direction from management or a lack of resources necessary for success in certain tasks.

Solution 3: To combat this issue, it’s important for leaders to provide clear instructions on how tasks should be completed but also give employees some room for creativity as well as feedback on how well those tasks were achieved so they know what areas need improvement next time around if needed . Additionally, providing incentives like bonuses or rewards can be a great way to not only keep morale high but also improve productivity overall as employees strive for excellence in all areas of their work life.  Printing a certificate with an employee’s name on it for another year of service and impersonally sliding into their mailbox is not showing appreciation.  Personally, recognizing their service in an all staff email on their anniversary highlighting their accomplishments will create loyalty and earn respect.

Limited mindset leadership has many negative effects on your radio station including decreased innovation, difficulty dealing with change, and lowered job satisfaction.  This can lead to a crash in your radio station’s ratings, and most importantly your ability to make a difference in the lives of your audience. Their lives are always changing.  Are you?

In my opinion, radio is the best form of media to innovate because we can turn on a dime.

• Something crazy in the world happens, we stop the song, turn on the mic and crack open our heart. We tell our listener first. You become trusted.
• Your local team wins a championship, you join the parade. You bring her joy.
•  You partner with a local charity and help single moms get free oil changes. You become beloved.

Radio is about having an emotional impact on your listener.  You make her laugh, cry, or even just raise an eyebrow, you have made a friend.  Serving in new and unique ways, raises eyebrows.

Talent needs to have the freedom to do that.  Talent that has a growth mindset leader will thrive with that freedom, and the radio station will too.  Talent that has a limited mindset leader is too scared to do anything except announce the same promotion that runs year after year, and they end up miserable and making everyone around them miserable, especially your listener.  That’s when radio stops being fun.

The good news is, these issues are not insurmountable – by staying abreast of industry trends and actually trying them, remaining flexible when facing external forces, encouraging creative thinking amongst staff, and incentivizing hard work, leaders can successfully unlock their team’s true potential.

With these strategies in place,  even those who have been stuck in a rut will be able to set new goals, exceed expectations, and drive growth for their radio stations, and more importantly raise some eyebrows.  That’s when radio becomes fun again.

The post Overcoming Limited Mindset Leadership first appeared on CMB.

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