{"id":22638,"date":"2019-04-12T07:57:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T14:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=22638"},"modified":"2019-04-12T07:57:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T14:57:38","slug":"leading-is-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/leading-is-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading is hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Picking up Brene Brown’s\u00a0 book\u00a0Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.<\/em> I was intrigued because of the excitement shown by my fellow members of the Elite 8. The first quote given to the reader from Teddy Roosevelt about willing to fail caught my attention in introducing the reader to what she calls “the physics vulnerability”\u00a0[1]\u00a0The willingness to fail has been coming up in my discussions about how to change a church’s culture from inner focussed to outward focus time and time again. In talking with pastors who have begun the transformation in their church to pastors who are struggling to find the right path to change one thing seems certain. We have to be willing to fail for the kingdom and to do that we have to be vulnerable with those around us.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The beauty of Brown’s work is that it not only fits into the executive world but into whatever you have been called to lead through. Mary Beth Albright writes “Brown’s research translates to many fields because it’s about having successful interpersonal — and intrapersonal — relationships. Knowing oneself, having and enforcing boundaries and recognizing limitations are leadership requirements but also requirements for having fulfilling relationships in general. To paraphrase Brown, we’re all just people.”\u00a0[2]\u00a0 The idea that we should be vulnerable also can dovetail into ministry as well. Brown defines vulnerability as “the emotion that we experience during times of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure”\u00a0[3] So think about that for just a moment, there are times in ministry when I have no answer as to why God would allow something to happen so awful that it causes a crisis of faith for someone. I can start by quoting scripture like \u201cAnd we know that\u00a0all things work<\/b>\u00a0together for\u00a0good<\/b>\u00a0to those who love\u00a0God<\/b>, to those who are the called according to His purpose.\u201d\u00a0 from Romans 8:28, which is true and I believe it with all my heart, but sometimes rings hollow to a parent who has just lost a child in a car wreck. I can assure them that God will walk them through this time, as I know he will. Or, I can be vulnerable with them, cry, hold a hand, listen to their heart and know that there will be time for all the other things to be said. As pastors, we are expected to be the super spiritual, always covered in the armor of God so as to turn away the fiery arrows of the enemy but as we all know, we are no different than any other Christian and to allow our selves to be vulnerable is to allow our selves to hurt when others hurt, rejoice when others rejoice.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the hardest parts about changing a church’s culture is the doing away with programs which are no longer effective. As a pastor, the hardest conversations I have had to deal with are the ones shutting down what someone perceives as a vital ministry. I have gone through many iterations of how to do this, from just coming out and saying we are not doing this anymore, to just slowly removing resources until the program dies on its own, and none of them are easy. They say just ripping a band aid off quickly is the best way to do that and this is how many pastors see as the best way to shut down an ineffective program but we are not dealing with a superficial wound, this is someone’s passion. All to often a new pastor will come in and do a “clean sweep” of things they do not like and they make enemies very quickly. I liked Susan Mann’s advice, “give people a ‘way out with dignity'”\u00a0[4] While Mann is speaking of the process of either laying off or just firing someone, we can take it to heart in ministry. The fact that a ministry is no longer effective for the church does not mean that the people who work it and support it are wrong, it just means we have to give them a way out of it without making them feel as if they have failed. At one time, revivals where the one of the most effective ways to reach a community, sadly, while there is still room for them, they are not as effective as they once where. Yet, there are many in church today who remember fondly the revival and want desperately to see the Spirit move again as they did in those days. As leaders we have to be vulnerable enough to listen sometimes we want to clear cut the forrest because we have a vision of what could be, an yet, in the process we hurt many people. We have to walk with them through the process, maybe not as fast as we would like it to be, and help them catch our vision for what God is planning to do, you never know what you can learn just listening without an agenda. Being vulnerable also means being able to hear when you might be wrong. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I loved the way Brown took us through her growth with time table for projects. “You’re not good at estimating time”\u00a0[5] It takes a strong leader to hear what they are doing wrong and not react with a harsh word such as the “must be nice”\u00a0[6]. This is a new time for anyone who wants to be a leader, especially if we want to be effective in what God has called us to. If we are to be leaders we need to hear when we have not been effective, be able to take the idea and then work to be better. As a pastor it cannot be my way or the highway we seek God’s will, give those he has given us to lead a chance to see that vision and work through it together. This does not mean there will not be hard conversations, but we can navigate them as an effective leader to work towards that goal of reaching the lost for God.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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[1]\u00a0Brown, Brene\u0301.\u00a0Dare To Lead: Bold Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts<\/i>. London: Vermilion, 2018.<\/span> 19.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Albright, Mary Beth. “Brene Brown knows what makes a great leader — and most politicians wouldn’t make the cut.”\u00a0Washingtonpost.com<\/i>, 15 Oct. 2018.\u00a0Academic OneFile<\/i>,\u00a0http:\/\/link.galegroup.com\/apps\/doc\/A558503954\/AONE?u=newb64238&sid=AONE&xid=e1bcb2bf<\/span>. Accessed 12 Apr. 2019.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0Brown, Brene\u0301.\u00a0Dare To Lead: Bold Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts<\/i>. London: Vermilion, 2018. 19.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[4] Ibid. 133<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0Ibid. 46.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[6] Ibid. 47<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Picking up Brene Brown’s\u00a0 book\u00a0Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. I was intrigued because of the excitement shown by my fellow members of the Elite 8. The first quote given to the reader from Teddy Roosevelt about willing to fail caught my attention in introducing the reader to what she calls “the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22711,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22638\/revisions\/22711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}