A mid-year check-up for church leaders
What gets you out of bed in the morning? The sound of the alarm clock, the promise of coffee, and the demands of the day may work for awhile, but external answers to internal issues are short lived. And getting out of bed is an internal issue.
What do you care about so much that staying in bed is not even an option? What?s the change in the world you so want to see, that you feel energized as you think of giving your day to it? Is that where you?re focusing your time and energy? Life is too short and too precious to live it any other way.
Regard this article as a leadership checkup. Seasonal activities fill our time ? new programs and initiatives in the fall, Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. On top of that are the ever-present pastoral demands and institutional crises. All are, or seem to be in the moment, important and all come to us with a 'don?t-ignore-me' urgency. Before we know it, we're lost in the details. Space for the important but not urgent is eaten away. We become controlled by the externals, losing our personal sense of mission and purpose.
It?s true that congregations need a pastor who can perform pastoral duties and institutional functions and help them be present with the rhythms of the year. Congregations also need a pastor who leads authentically, grounded in and working from a deeply held sense of their identity and calling. Over and over we hear parishioners longing for this in their own lives. A pastor who lives and leads this way provides to parishioners what they most need: a living witness of what?s possible.
This requires standing outside the busyness and the details, seeing the bigger picture, and then making the decisions about the details that will serve that bigger life.
We offer you a simple process for conducting your own leadership checkup. The process is summarized in three words: clarity, boundaries, structure.
Clarity: What is your purpose in the world, your mission, your destiny? What really matters to you? What are you called to give yourself to in this life? What calls to your heart and deeply moves you?
Your answer may be one short sentence or it may be several sentences. Make sure it is short enough to fit on a 3 X 5 card. Write it out and carry it with you until it is firmly etched in your memory. You may resist coming up with an answer, not sure if it is the 'right' answer. Come up with it any way. You will only know whether it is right as you live with it and test it out. Revise it as you learn.
Boundaries: Do you feel consumed and overwhelmed by the desires, expectations and requests of others? Is pleasing people more important to you than your commitment to your God-given life purpose?
Many of us live without effective personal boundaries. Those in the ordained ministry often feel that they have to say 'yes' to whatever need or request comes our way. Clarity about our life purpose, mission, destiny, calling, provides both a foundation and a picture of the results we?re here to achieve. Honoring them demands we set boundaries, leading us at times to say 'no' to what others regard as extremely important.
During the next week be aware of what you say 'yes' and 'no' to. At the end of each day reflect on the times your mission called for a no or a yes but you responded with the opposite. Notice when and with whom you tend to 'sell out.' Commit to practice allowing your life purpose to reverse your natural response the next day.
Structure: Good intentions easily disappear in the busyness of a day. Creating an external structure to bring you back on purpose connects behavior and decisions with the deeper commitments. Structures do not replace commitment, but strengthen our ability to be aware of and at choice with our 'yes' and 'no.'
Some place a visual reminder of what is deeply important to them in their car as a focus while driving. Others find a physical object placed in a pocket or purse helpful. Some set a time piece that beeps periodically throughout the day. Find a structure that works for you. Use it to ground yourself throughout the day so that you live in a way that keeps you true to your calling.
You are a leader, placed by God in this world with a unique purpose. The world and the church need you to lead from who you are. Our prayer is that your real reason for getting out of bed each morning is the eagerness and energy you feel for the new day and how your life will make a difference.
This article is excerpted from Courageous Space, a monthly newsletter on leadership and congregational development.
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