I was remembering a moment on Leadership Training exercise form my first bible college.
It was my turn to lead the team (8-10 trainee church monkeys) through some random training exercise, It all went well, we got the thing done, all ok.
The couple running the thing did the review, I (on autopilot) reviewed my performance.
The lass then asked me a question that woke me up.
" why did you wait for things to get in a mess before sorting them out?"
She explained that after the initial planning chat, I'd sat back, let the team get to the point of failure and implosion and then expertly taken control, lead the team effectively and got the job done.
It's insignificant, but it;s one of those seminal moments of self revelation. I'm a bit lazy, well not lazy but easily distracted, I need a deadline, a motivator, an event, the clock etc...
Whilst doing a bit of navel-gazing i'm wondering how far this reflects a lot of Church leadership, the pastoral emergency, the big service, the festival, the event, the big meeting energise and enthuse, create the forum for activity. Otherwise a person who is so unaccountable in the moments of a day can easily do many things without actually achieving a great deal.
My new year challenge is to get things done so that the crises don't occur, however much miss them. Peace and job satisfaction, hope to find out what they feel like!
Oh and whilst i'm here a few goals for '09 three groups planted (new believers), get on the streets, get the church out in the miraculous, set up kids church and find some more workers to join us.
In factual news... we just stopped meeting on Sundays in the church to meet in a cosy hall next week and explore what being church really means till Easter. We'll go back into church for all age jamboree once a month.
This interestingly dovetails with Hannah J's blog about pagan buildings which I've commented on!
walking on
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About Me
- Dave
- Nottingham, United Kingdom
- I have some fancy Anglican title's. I get paid to do church, some others do it for love!
2 comments:
I'm with you on not leaving things until a crisis develops but there's another side to the whole crisis thing.
Some people are just good in a crisis - it brings out the best in them; they have the ability to think calmly and clearly whilst everyone around them goes into melt-down. Maybe you're one of those people; this isn't a bad thing.
One of my parishioners once told me thay had a dream about me where I appeared im the middle of all this anxiety and trouble with a mop and bucket. She then said "but that's what you do isn't it? You mop up spills". That was a revelatory moment for me because I hadn't seen the truth in it - it's not all I do but it's something I do.
So now you know at least one person reads your blog :)
I think there is alot to be said for this, we often seem to have a reactive state of mind, rather than being on the front foot about stuff.
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