In this season of stepping further into a leadership role there are some things I'm learning. Here they are:
1. If you are bringing someone alongside and asking them to take a bigger role, give them constructive and positive feedback. Focusing constantly on weakness or perceived failure causes that person to no longer feel able capable or interested in what they are being asked to do. You discourage. Build up, don't tear down.
2. Remember that an opinion is an opinion, not a word from the Lord.
3. When you are talking about someone who is being considered for more leadership, talk TO them as well as about them.
4. Communicate vision consistently and don't depend on other people to do that for you.
5. If God has called you to it, walk on. Persevere when the going gets tough.
6. Ask for objective, godly counsel from trusted friends and advisors.
7. Check your heart to see who's vision or agenda you are serving in your pursuit of leadership.
8. Stand your ground when it's important.
9. There is a time to step up and ask for something to happen. Don't shrink back from that moment.
10. Support unselfishly, be wise, be gentle, be bold.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Servants and Lovers
I read a blog tonight criticizing the church. The author had a lot to say about what was wrong with his experience from the form of worship to the way he was treated. He was choosing to walk away.
Valid. It makes sense to leave what you don't like. What has hurt you.
I've been hurt by the church.
I've experienced her from the inside out. Her various flavors. Her harsh conservatives and her easy going hipsters. People in the church are mean, and angry, and prideful.
So are people outside the church. What sets us apart from the rest of the human race is not our perfection but our forgiven-ness. Our state of redemption. Hypocrites exist in and out of the church. The church works when we admit who we are. Yes we are hypocrites. Yes we are hurtful and broken people. Jesus heal us and make us different. When we allow space for honesty, and truth, and put Christ in his rightful place as Boss and Father the church is the most beautiful, healing, and holy place to be.
It's easier sometimes to point fingers at problems than to get up, forgive the hurt, dust off and follow Christ back into the church and into the world it exists to serve. If you and I can be a little better than the church we've left then we have a good thing going on. If I can talk about a song you sing a certain way and what's wrong with that, then it's better than looking at how far I've drifted from how God loves people. The problem is that you and I are not any better than the person we point a finger at who has hurt us. I can't do more to save myself by liking to sing a song a certain way. I obviously can't forgive people for hurting me the way I have been forgiven. I am less like Christ and more like that hypocrite I want to criticize.
We are only in the church because we are broken and need a Healer. Those who leave forget that as much as those who are in it.
The church was the idea of Christ. The idea of God. He calls her his Bride, his lady, his love and talks about how he can't wait to pick her up and make it official. He calls the Church his body and himself the Head of it. He calls his church his children, and reminds us to call him Daddy. He talks about how each one in the church is purposeful, meant to be, and placed exactly as he desired.
We forget on all extremes of arguments on our human level what God's heart is for his church.
It's not about a building. It's not about a form or function of worship. The church is liturgical and solemn. It is choirs and getting down on Sunday morning in Brooklyn. It is hymn books and praise bands. It is wooden pews and chairs in a school building or gym. It is progressive and traditional. It is all of those things and more because wherever the scripture and the gospel are, wherever Christ is loved, it's the church. It's Spanish and English and French and Swahili and every language on earth.
It's people.
I love the church. Not because she is perfect and always gets it right, but because God is in the business of changing hypocrites into lovers and servants one day at a time.
We can become a room full of people pointing fingers at each other.
Or we can do what our God, our Dad, our Lover calls us to:
Valid. It makes sense to leave what you don't like. What has hurt you.
I've been hurt by the church.
I've experienced her from the inside out. Her various flavors. Her harsh conservatives and her easy going hipsters. People in the church are mean, and angry, and prideful.
So are people outside the church. What sets us apart from the rest of the human race is not our perfection but our forgiven-ness. Our state of redemption. Hypocrites exist in and out of the church. The church works when we admit who we are. Yes we are hypocrites. Yes we are hurtful and broken people. Jesus heal us and make us different. When we allow space for honesty, and truth, and put Christ in his rightful place as Boss and Father the church is the most beautiful, healing, and holy place to be.
It's easier sometimes to point fingers at problems than to get up, forgive the hurt, dust off and follow Christ back into the church and into the world it exists to serve. If you and I can be a little better than the church we've left then we have a good thing going on. If I can talk about a song you sing a certain way and what's wrong with that, then it's better than looking at how far I've drifted from how God loves people. The problem is that you and I are not any better than the person we point a finger at who has hurt us. I can't do more to save myself by liking to sing a song a certain way. I obviously can't forgive people for hurting me the way I have been forgiven. I am less like Christ and more like that hypocrite I want to criticize.
We are only in the church because we are broken and need a Healer. Those who leave forget that as much as those who are in it.
The church was the idea of Christ. The idea of God. He calls her his Bride, his lady, his love and talks about how he can't wait to pick her up and make it official. He calls the Church his body and himself the Head of it. He calls his church his children, and reminds us to call him Daddy. He talks about how each one in the church is purposeful, meant to be, and placed exactly as he desired.
We forget on all extremes of arguments on our human level what God's heart is for his church.
It's not about a building. It's not about a form or function of worship. The church is liturgical and solemn. It is choirs and getting down on Sunday morning in Brooklyn. It is hymn books and praise bands. It is wooden pews and chairs in a school building or gym. It is progressive and traditional. It is all of those things and more because wherever the scripture and the gospel are, wherever Christ is loved, it's the church. It's Spanish and English and French and Swahili and every language on earth.
It's people.
I love the church. Not because she is perfect and always gets it right, but because God is in the business of changing hypocrites into lovers and servants one day at a time.
We can become a room full of people pointing fingers at each other.
Or we can do what our God, our Dad, our Lover calls us to:
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Eph 4
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Fight or Flight
My husband argued with me tonight over whether or not I am an introvert.
I say I am.
He says I'm not.
I guess the fact that my most intimate friend thinks I'm an extrovert shows how far I've come from the book loving wallflower of my childhood. Which is good news in most ways.
Lately I've been noticing the introvert inside me raise her head again. I've been a whirling vortex of thoughts and emotions and confusion that has coagulated into one thing- FEAR.
I'm afraid. I feel the changes coming. Like the wind that blows before a storm rolls in, I feel it on my face, in my heart. One season of life is closing and another is beginning. And I want to put my head down, and crawl into the safety of a still small corner and let it pass me by.
You see I know me. I know my inadequacies. My foolishness. My vanities. My failures.
I know this new season will require more. More dying to self. More cross carrying. More refining. It's always worth it. But the journey to looking more like Christ is painful and the stretching tears my ligaments and beats my heart a thousand times faster and cracks my bones. And yet what is true is that I have suffered nothing for him, really. So why the fear?
He is faithful.
He is here before me in the storm and the wind and the change.
His hand is before me outstretched and I have to, I must, follow my good Shepherd. I strain to hear his Voice right now. My own treacherous heart is deaf and cold.
It's time to put the introvert aside-the girl that wants to hide, and step out as the woman who follows.
I have been spending quality time lately with my favorite poets and writers. This from Martha Medieros sums up my heart tonight:
I say I am.
He says I'm not.
I guess the fact that my most intimate friend thinks I'm an extrovert shows how far I've come from the book loving wallflower of my childhood. Which is good news in most ways.
Lately I've been noticing the introvert inside me raise her head again. I've been a whirling vortex of thoughts and emotions and confusion that has coagulated into one thing- FEAR.
I'm afraid. I feel the changes coming. Like the wind that blows before a storm rolls in, I feel it on my face, in my heart. One season of life is closing and another is beginning. And I want to put my head down, and crawl into the safety of a still small corner and let it pass me by.
You see I know me. I know my inadequacies. My foolishness. My vanities. My failures.
I know this new season will require more. More dying to self. More cross carrying. More refining. It's always worth it. But the journey to looking more like Christ is painful and the stretching tears my ligaments and beats my heart a thousand times faster and cracks my bones. And yet what is true is that I have suffered nothing for him, really. So why the fear?
He is faithful.
He is here before me in the storm and the wind and the change.
His hand is before me outstretched and I have to, I must, follow my good Shepherd. I strain to hear his Voice right now. My own treacherous heart is deaf and cold.
It's time to put the introvert aside-the girl that wants to hide, and step out as the woman who follows.
I have been spending quality time lately with my favorite poets and writers. This from Martha Medieros sums up my heart tonight:
He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience,
dies slowly.
He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones "i"
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience,
dies slowly.
He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones "i"
rather than a whirlpool of emotions,
the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face of mistakes and feelings,
dies slowly.
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face of mistakes and feelings,
dies slowly.
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