Hi friends,
It has been a busy week, with a little too much Zoom time! But it has been good. Here’s why.
Monthly Musings: Shaped through Failure
This weekend is the hinge holding together two weeks of a doctoral intensive that I’m supporting in the background. Over these next two years I’ll assist this set of students who are either from the Pacific or ministering in the Pacific region as they complete their doctorate.
In this Year 3 intensive they are looking at their leadership failures. To prepare, they read Sherwood Lingenfelter’s Leadership in the Way of the Cross: Forging Ministry from the Crucible of Crisis, so, of course, I read it too. I didn’t expect to highlight half the book!
If you haven’t read this book, can I encourage you to stop right now and buy it. Truly. Go on. It’s that good. (I’ve just ordered 30 for a leadership intensive I am running in about 6 weeks. It’s a game-changer, although it dismantles all games.)
We may hear about leadership failures splashed on social media, but we don’t often hear about leaders sifting through their failures to develop in their leadership. Over Zoom, Sherwood, the author, has been facilitating these leaders to look long and hard at their failures. In writing up a Leadership Failure case study, these students have identified ghosts of their leadership past that sit submerged below the water line.
They have examined them and had them examined. They have questioned their actions, motives and missed opportunities, and had them questioned. They have been vulnerable. They have had epiphanies. They are being courageous. They are choosing a different kind of leadership as they move ahead in serving others.
As I think about my own sin, brokenness or unhealthy patterns of leadership, self-reliance bobs up to the surface time and again. There is reason for it: I’m a Third Culture Kid and my parents left the country again when I was 18 years old. I had to be independent, or so I thought. Perhaps that is why when I read the words of 2 Corinthians 1:9, they struck so hard, they sank so deep. Talking about overwhelming trouble that he had experienced, Paul writes:
But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.
I love these words. It was because of the hardship Paul faced that he learned this difficult lesson. Perhaps we can laterally apply it to leadership failures. It is because of our failures in life and leadership (or can be) that we can stop recycling patterns of behaviour (such as relying on ourselves and often only ourselves) and learn to rely on God revealed in Jesus, who raises the dead. I love that this final phrase is not past tense. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is the Spirit who is at work in each of us. Flip over to 2 Corinthians 3:18:
And the Lord - who is the Spirit - makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
Imagine. God has the grace to use even our failures of leadership (or life) to do His shaping work so that we may look and live more like Him through it all.
Book News: Endorsements and Vulnerability
I have been chatting with my new editor lately, which has been lovely, and, even though we are ahead of schedule, she has recently encouraged me to start seeking endorsements. Eek!
You have probably gathered that this year I have been slowly reading through 1 and 2 Corinthians, reading 2 Corinthians 3:1 only recently, where Paul talks about letters of recommendation. I know, Paul’s situation was vastly different, but none-the-less, as I consider asking for endorsements, it is an odd phenomena, a new situation for me, and causes pause. Questions bubble to the surface:
Is someone endorsing my book or the life behind my book, or both?
Doesn’t one emerge from the other?
How does someone endorse my life if they don't know me well?
Is it as significant or hold as much weight if that is the case?
Does it really matter or am I just overthinking? :-)
What do you think?
And so, with a deep breath and a good portion of holy courage, I’ll begin reaching out for endorsements. If you have a minute, could you pray with me that this will be a Spirit-led process? I would love that!
I hope this caused you to pause and reflect on ways that the Spirit has shaped you through failure. Or perhaps it has reminded you of how God’s Word is alive and relevant to all-of-life.
If it was helpful, please share it with others. That’s how this community will grow. Thanks so much!
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