SPIRITUAL FITNESS FOR CONGREGATIONAL LEADERS DURING TRANSITION
Article by Judy Turner
People who set out to run a marathon start training months in advance. They know the race will be challenging, and they need to develop new capacities of body and mind, or they will not make it to the finish line. It is not so obvious to church leaders when we begin an intentional effort to renew the life of our congregation that the process will challenge us to the max. If we are visionaries, we can see the exciting picture of our congregation’s future and devote lots of time and effort to communicating that picture. But often we discover that some congregation members can’t see beyond “the way we’ve always done things.” Visionary leaders can get disillusioned and frustrated with people who lack vision, and give up. “Get things done” leaders can get impatient with all the meetings and conversations (formal and informal) it takes to get people on board with the new vision. We get worn down by resistance. We may decide to find another church where we can accomplish goals. Leaders who are easily hurt or sensitive to criticism can get chewed up in the transition process. Criticism comes from expected, and unexpected, sources. Sometimes the hurt of being misunderstood and unfairly criticized is so deep that church leaders become church dropouts.
We often underestimate the rigors of the “marathon” of leading a congregation through transition. When we are not intentional about spiritual training to increase our capacity to run with Godly strength, wisdom, love, and joy, we can burn out and drop out. But leaders who train by practicing spiritual disciplines can clearly see the exciting vision of the future toward which God has for the congregation and persevere through challenges until the vision becomes reality.
A Spiritual Training Program
The purpose of spiritual disciplines is first and foremost to help us grow in our relationship with God and in Christ-likeness. The disciplines create space in our lives where our love for God grows and God develops in us the qualities apparent in the life of Jesus. There are typical dangers to our spiritual well-being that leaders face as we lead congregations through transitions. The particular disciplines described here can keep us from those pitfalls and help us experience the fullness of life Jesus promised his followers, even as we face challenges.
The Discipline of Creating Margins
People called by God to lead a church through transition will experience additional demands on our schedules. Those schedules may already by full. We need to make sure that time for God, our families, and those activities which give us joy are not crowded out. The practice of creating margins involves prayerfully examining our commitments and saying “no” to things that are not necessary for the well-being of our souls and the welfare of others. Creating margins means saying “yes” to the things that bring greater awareness of how good our lives in Christ really are. Some suggestions for creating margins in your daily schedule: refrain from checking cell phone or computer until after you’ve had some prayer time; plan to get to a meeting 10 minutes early, just to have time to breathe and look around; set a time in the evening to stop working, so you have time with your spouse. Once a week, try setting aside a couple of hours for an activity that you and God enjoy doing together, such as hiking, creating, or reading.
The spiritual danger this practice guards against is becoming loveless and joyless. Leaders who do not practice care of our own souls end up resenting the people we serve. We feel angry toward the people who oppose us and also toward the people who are apathetic. “Here I am sacrificing everything, and they are either making it hard for me, or not doing a darn thing!” Whoa! Did God ask us to make those sacrifices? There are sacrifices leaders must make as we lead congregations through transition, but God does not ask us to sacrifice our spiritual wholeness or our family relationships. Having margins in our lives helps us to make the right sacrifices.
The Discipline of a Daily Appointment with God
The practice involves establishing a time each day to be alone with God. Ask God when and where God wants to meet with you. It could be on the deck in the mornings, a walk in the evening, finding a quiet place during the lunch hour. This daily appointment can become a time in your day you eagerly anticipate. Read a short passage of scripture and reflect on it. Pray by simply sharing what is on your heart and mind with God. Spend some time just being with God and listening for what God might want to communicate to you. When we take the time to be with God, our souls are refreshed and our strength is renewed.
The danger this practice guards against is ego-centeredness. Unless leaders take time to seek the wisdom and leading of God, we may be led by our own ego needs and misguided desires. Regular time with God helps us develop healthy detachment. Although we give our best effort to the process of church renewal, we leave must leave outcomes in God’s hands. God’s idea of congregational “success” may look different from our ideas. Even with the best leadership humans can offer, outcomes are beyond our control. We are dependent on God’s mysterious work and timing. The journey toward congregational renewal involves going through some hard places. The more we pray, the more we can trust that God is in control and working according to God’s plan and purpose, even when it looks like our efforts have failed and things are falling apart. The more time we spend with God, the more secure we become in God’s love for us and the less we need the approval of other people. The more we can approach congregational renewal as God’s project and not ours, the more we can serve with joy, freedom, and effectiveness.
The Discipline of Forgiveness
We practice the discipline of forgiveness by asking God to take from us any desire to retaliate when someone hurts us, and to give us the grace to let go of, and not dwell on, the offense. Then we ask for the grace to be able to pray for the total well-being of that person. We can write out our own general prayer for the grace to forgive, and carry it with us, looking at the prayer and inserting the name(s) of the people we need to forgive as soon as the offense occurs. The spiritual danger the practice guards against is bitterness. The aim of the discipline is that forgiveness becomes our automatic response to offense, and that we waste no mental, emotional, or spiritual energy in resenting people who resist and hurt us. Even talking about change can create fear in some congregation members’ hearts. Some people react to anxiety by criticizing leaders and saying false things about the proposed changes. When leaders are under attack and false rumors are circulating, our human nature wants to hit back. But when we retaliate from an inner state of anger and resentment, we decrease our ability to influence people toward God’s future. We may need to confront people who are saying false things and creating dissention. But we first need to pour out to God our feelings of hurt and anger and receive from God the ability to let go of any desire for retaliation. We let God defend our reputation. Then, from an inner state of peace, in touch with Godly wisdom, we can “speak the truth in love”.
The Discipline of Rest
At first it may not seem like a spiritual discipline to get enough sleep. But when leaders are exhausted, we do not love or lead well; we have little awareness of God’s presence with us or of God’s leading. Jesus said, “Abide in me,” which is an invitation to rest, and to learn from him how to work from rest. The practice is to go to sleep at a consistent time each night and aim to get at least seven hours of sleep 3 times a week. Once a week (probably not on Sunday morning!), give yourself permission to sleep until you can’t sleep any more.
The spiritual danger this practice guards against is weariness. When we are physically tired, everything becomes hard, and we are more vulnerable to whatever temptations we struggle with. We operate under the weight of feeling the success or failure of the church is all up to us, and that burden becomes more than we can bear. We can even dread going to the church or being with church people. When we sleep we are enacting a spiritual truth that sets us free from this burden: it’s not all up to us! When we sleep, we let God be in charge of the universe (and even the church) while we rest. We can wake refreshed, perhaps with a different perspective. Instead of approaching church renewal as our project for which we ask God’s help, we approach it as God’s project for which we ask our assignment for the day. We can “run and not be weary” and actually start looking forward to doing our little part toward fulfilling God’s great purpose.
The Discipline of Getting Out of Your Box
The process of leading a church through transition can be consuming. The spiritual danger is narrowness. Our world narrows to the people and processes we are working with. We start thinking our project is the only thing going on in God’s world. To restore perspective, we need to intentionally get beyond “the four walls” of our church. The practice involves regularly doing something with another congregation, or in mission. These are some suggestions: Many congregations have worship services at other times than your church worship services. Go and worship with other congregations, especially those that serve a different culture than yours, or that have a different worship style. For leaders who carry weekly responsibility for planning and leading worship services, being able to worship without being responsible for the service, restores perspective on how wonderful God is. Get involved with hands-on mission: volunteer to work at a free health clinic, help work on a habitat house, go on a mission trip. Getting away for spiritual retreat is also helpful in combating narrowness. You discover God at work beyond your little world, and your vision becomes more God-sized.
Training to Win the Prize
In I Corinthians 9:25, the Apostle Paul compares leadership in God’s mission to running a race for a prize. Paul says, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.” Training is what we can do right now to develop greater capacity for spiritual leadership today and tomorrow. Training moves us into deeper intimacy with God and results in more Godly wisdom, love, patience, courage, and joy flowing in us and through us. Training develops greater capacity for endurance when difficulties arise and conflict hits. What we actually do in our training is not necessarily hard. Practices mentioned in this article can actually be quite enjoyable. The hard part is choosing to give spiritual practices priority in our busy lives. The hard part is choosing to get started in training and continuing on the course day after day.
So what is the reward for choosing to enter a spiritual training program and staying with it? To paraphrase Paul, athletes on the track run for a prize that perishes, but leaders in God’s mission run for an eternal prize. Seeing a congregation making progress toward transformation, growing, and fulfilling its God-given purpose is a joy that lasts forever. Knowing that we have faithfully done our part, that we have grown in our love for God, and that Christ has grown in us, is a satisfaction like no other.
Article by Judy Turner
People who set out to run a marathon start training months in advance. They know the race will be challenging, and they need to develop new capacities of body and mind, or they will not make it to the finish line. It is not so obvious to church leaders when we begin an intentional effort to renew the life of our congregation that the process will challenge us to the max. If we are visionaries, we can see the exciting picture of our congregation’s future and devote lots of time and effort to communicating that picture. But often we discover that some congregation members can’t see beyond “the way we’ve always done things.” Visionary leaders can get disillusioned and frustrated with people who lack vision, and give up. “Get things done” leaders can get impatient with all the meetings and conversations (formal and informal) it takes to get people on board with the new vision. We get worn down by resistance. We may decide to find another church where we can accomplish goals. Leaders who are easily hurt or sensitive to criticism can get chewed up in the transition process. Criticism comes from expected, and unexpected, sources. Sometimes the hurt of being misunderstood and unfairly criticized is so deep that church leaders become church dropouts.
We often underestimate the rigors of the “marathon” of leading a congregation through transition. When we are not intentional about spiritual training to increase our capacity to run with Godly strength, wisdom, love, and joy, we can burn out and drop out. But leaders who train by practicing spiritual disciplines can clearly see the exciting vision of the future toward which God has for the congregation and persevere through challenges until the vision becomes reality.
A Spiritual Training Program
The purpose of spiritual disciplines is first and foremost to help us grow in our relationship with God and in Christ-likeness. The disciplines create space in our lives where our love for God grows and God develops in us the qualities apparent in the life of Jesus. There are typical dangers to our spiritual well-being that leaders face as we lead congregations through transitions. The particular disciplines described here can keep us from those pitfalls and help us experience the fullness of life Jesus promised his followers, even as we face challenges.
The Discipline of Creating Margins
People called by God to lead a church through transition will experience additional demands on our schedules. Those schedules may already by full. We need to make sure that time for God, our families, and those activities which give us joy are not crowded out. The practice of creating margins involves prayerfully examining our commitments and saying “no” to things that are not necessary for the well-being of our souls and the welfare of others. Creating margins means saying “yes” to the things that bring greater awareness of how good our lives in Christ really are. Some suggestions for creating margins in your daily schedule: refrain from checking cell phone or computer until after you’ve had some prayer time; plan to get to a meeting 10 minutes early, just to have time to breathe and look around; set a time in the evening to stop working, so you have time with your spouse. Once a week, try setting aside a couple of hours for an activity that you and God enjoy doing together, such as hiking, creating, or reading.
The spiritual danger this practice guards against is becoming loveless and joyless. Leaders who do not practice care of our own souls end up resenting the people we serve. We feel angry toward the people who oppose us and also toward the people who are apathetic. “Here I am sacrificing everything, and they are either making it hard for me, or not doing a darn thing!” Whoa! Did God ask us to make those sacrifices? There are sacrifices leaders must make as we lead congregations through transition, but God does not ask us to sacrifice our spiritual wholeness or our family relationships. Having margins in our lives helps us to make the right sacrifices.
The Discipline of a Daily Appointment with God
The practice involves establishing a time each day to be alone with God. Ask God when and where God wants to meet with you. It could be on the deck in the mornings, a walk in the evening, finding a quiet place during the lunch hour. This daily appointment can become a time in your day you eagerly anticipate. Read a short passage of scripture and reflect on it. Pray by simply sharing what is on your heart and mind with God. Spend some time just being with God and listening for what God might want to communicate to you. When we take the time to be with God, our souls are refreshed and our strength is renewed.
The danger this practice guards against is ego-centeredness. Unless leaders take time to seek the wisdom and leading of God, we may be led by our own ego needs and misguided desires. Regular time with God helps us develop healthy detachment. Although we give our best effort to the process of church renewal, we leave must leave outcomes in God’s hands. God’s idea of congregational “success” may look different from our ideas. Even with the best leadership humans can offer, outcomes are beyond our control. We are dependent on God’s mysterious work and timing. The journey toward congregational renewal involves going through some hard places. The more we pray, the more we can trust that God is in control and working according to God’s plan and purpose, even when it looks like our efforts have failed and things are falling apart. The more time we spend with God, the more secure we become in God’s love for us and the less we need the approval of other people. The more we can approach congregational renewal as God’s project and not ours, the more we can serve with joy, freedom, and effectiveness.
The Discipline of Forgiveness
We practice the discipline of forgiveness by asking God to take from us any desire to retaliate when someone hurts us, and to give us the grace to let go of, and not dwell on, the offense. Then we ask for the grace to be able to pray for the total well-being of that person. We can write out our own general prayer for the grace to forgive, and carry it with us, looking at the prayer and inserting the name(s) of the people we need to forgive as soon as the offense occurs. The spiritual danger the practice guards against is bitterness. The aim of the discipline is that forgiveness becomes our automatic response to offense, and that we waste no mental, emotional, or spiritual energy in resenting people who resist and hurt us. Even talking about change can create fear in some congregation members’ hearts. Some people react to anxiety by criticizing leaders and saying false things about the proposed changes. When leaders are under attack and false rumors are circulating, our human nature wants to hit back. But when we retaliate from an inner state of anger and resentment, we decrease our ability to influence people toward God’s future. We may need to confront people who are saying false things and creating dissention. But we first need to pour out to God our feelings of hurt and anger and receive from God the ability to let go of any desire for retaliation. We let God defend our reputation. Then, from an inner state of peace, in touch with Godly wisdom, we can “speak the truth in love”.
The Discipline of Rest
At first it may not seem like a spiritual discipline to get enough sleep. But when leaders are exhausted, we do not love or lead well; we have little awareness of God’s presence with us or of God’s leading. Jesus said, “Abide in me,” which is an invitation to rest, and to learn from him how to work from rest. The practice is to go to sleep at a consistent time each night and aim to get at least seven hours of sleep 3 times a week. Once a week (probably not on Sunday morning!), give yourself permission to sleep until you can’t sleep any more.
The spiritual danger this practice guards against is weariness. When we are physically tired, everything becomes hard, and we are more vulnerable to whatever temptations we struggle with. We operate under the weight of feeling the success or failure of the church is all up to us, and that burden becomes more than we can bear. We can even dread going to the church or being with church people. When we sleep we are enacting a spiritual truth that sets us free from this burden: it’s not all up to us! When we sleep, we let God be in charge of the universe (and even the church) while we rest. We can wake refreshed, perhaps with a different perspective. Instead of approaching church renewal as our project for which we ask God’s help, we approach it as God’s project for which we ask our assignment for the day. We can “run and not be weary” and actually start looking forward to doing our little part toward fulfilling God’s great purpose.
The Discipline of Getting Out of Your Box
The process of leading a church through transition can be consuming. The spiritual danger is narrowness. Our world narrows to the people and processes we are working with. We start thinking our project is the only thing going on in God’s world. To restore perspective, we need to intentionally get beyond “the four walls” of our church. The practice involves regularly doing something with another congregation, or in mission. These are some suggestions: Many congregations have worship services at other times than your church worship services. Go and worship with other congregations, especially those that serve a different culture than yours, or that have a different worship style. For leaders who carry weekly responsibility for planning and leading worship services, being able to worship without being responsible for the service, restores perspective on how wonderful God is. Get involved with hands-on mission: volunteer to work at a free health clinic, help work on a habitat house, go on a mission trip. Getting away for spiritual retreat is also helpful in combating narrowness. You discover God at work beyond your little world, and your vision becomes more God-sized.
Training to Win the Prize
In I Corinthians 9:25, the Apostle Paul compares leadership in God’s mission to running a race for a prize. Paul says, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.” Training is what we can do right now to develop greater capacity for spiritual leadership today and tomorrow. Training moves us into deeper intimacy with God and results in more Godly wisdom, love, patience, courage, and joy flowing in us and through us. Training develops greater capacity for endurance when difficulties arise and conflict hits. What we actually do in our training is not necessarily hard. Practices mentioned in this article can actually be quite enjoyable. The hard part is choosing to give spiritual practices priority in our busy lives. The hard part is choosing to get started in training and continuing on the course day after day.
So what is the reward for choosing to enter a spiritual training program and staying with it? To paraphrase Paul, athletes on the track run for a prize that perishes, but leaders in God’s mission run for an eternal prize. Seeing a congregation making progress toward transformation, growing, and fulfilling its God-given purpose is a joy that lasts forever. Knowing that we have faithfully done our part, that we have grown in our love for God, and that Christ has grown in us, is a satisfaction like no other.
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Excellent article--may we all use this as part of our spiritual discipline as we grow.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is certainly helpful.
ReplyDelete