Year 2 in Review

A little less than two years ago, I embarked on a new (and scary) journey. For the needs of my family, I had stepped away from 30 years of ministry in Christian education, with 24 of those years as a principal or superintendent/head of school. I wasn’t retiring, but my personal family circumstances necessitated making a change so that I could be at home every day. So, I stepped down from my position at the place where I had served for 8 years as the Head of School to start a new journey using my experience and abilities to serve God and develop people. And that led first to this venture at www.LeadershipEzra.com. At the same time, God was gracious in providing work to teach an online graduate course on leadership and an undergraduate online course on education, and to mentor doctoral students in their dissertation and research project work. What made all of this scary was that I was starting something completely new in my life, while still needing to provide for my family, with no idea of what the outcome would be. Along the way in the process, I accumulated what I began to call “Joshua Stones,” those unique and specific events that were clear evidence of God at work that would stack up to be my memorial marker to remind me of God’s divine presence and leading in my steps. In the end, where God primarily directed and placed me was in working for two different universities, one with a focus of responsibility on education and the other on organizational leadership.

My desire with the website, though, was that God would use Leadership Ezra in a much greater way to grow others in their leadership. The initial idea for this had come about out of a lot of prayer, and in that process, what the Lord had made clear to me was that I needed to connect faith, wisdom, and leadership in a way that would help other followers of Jesus grow in their leadership and make an impact. That original dream of an idea turned into three things: the self-publication of a book on Amazon (Leadership Ezra), the creation of the Leadership Ezra website, and the initiation of a corresponding podcast, streaming on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The overarching theme became “Faith. Wisdom. Leadership.: Connecting biblical truth with wisdom for leadership.” As an added bonus, I included a weekly feature on the website called “Quote Your Dad,” where I simply shared wisdom-filled quotes that I would often hear from my dad.

In year two of both the website and the podcast, I shared three series. The first was called “Who’s in Charge Here?” and it was a review of the ideas I covered in my book, Leadership Ezra. Over 15 episodes I talked about the big idea of the book, and then the main idea of each chapter. The second series was called “The Five Be-Attitudes of Better Leadership.” In this 22-part series, I talked about five groups of attributes that are essential to good leadership, and these groups were: Be Genuine, Be Relational, Be Trustworthy, Be Knowledgeable, and Be Excellent. The third and final series of the year (and one that I may continue in the future) was called “The Character of Leadership.” This series was focused on identifying a character trait representative of a biblical character, and learning from it.

So now, I am heading into year three. As always, what’s in store for the next year is in God’s hands, but my current plan is for a year-long series called “Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life,” where I will be sharing a typical, everyday experience or life event, and connecting it to a leadership lesson. Beyond that, what I would hope for is that God would bless this work and put it in front of more people who would benefit from what He has given me to share. So, if you have read the book, followed the website, or listened to the podcast, and have found any of those to be good for your leadership, would you tell at least three other people? With your help, I believe that God can use these resources to better equip leaders who will make an impact for His Kingdom.

Thank you for following and listening! On to the next year!

God Bless,

Jeff McMaster