{"id":30128,"date":"2023-01-19T17:25:20","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T01:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30128"},"modified":"2023-01-19T17:25:20","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T01:25:20","slug":"when-to-say-yes-and-when-to-say-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/when-to-say-yes-and-when-to-say-no\/","title":{"rendered":"When to Say Yes and When to Say No"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Reading Mining For Gold<\/em> by Tom Camacho reminded me of a time when I was planting a new church and my husband was planting a new community center. When anyone would approach me or my husband with a new idea my husband\u2019s first instinct would be to say, \u201cYes! That\u2019s a great idea! Let\u2019s try it! What do you need to make it work?\u201d My first instinct was usually, \u201cOh, heck no!\u201d I mean, what if the idea failed? What if the person with the idea wasn\u2019t capable? I wanted the idea and the person to be well vetted before I was comfortable engaging in ministry together. My husband, on the other hand, felt that you never knew what opportunity or new ministry might sprout because we said yes!

After a few years of working together I was struggling. Working from a place of fear, my ego at stake, I resonated with how Camacho felt when his church plant ended, it was a \u201cdifficult and crushing process for his ego and his confidence.\u201d[1] Watching the community center flourish while my church plant limped along, I began to see how I was operating from a place of scarcity whereas my husband, from a place of abundance. Over time I began to say yes more often than no. I began to see that as Camacho says, \u201cGold is everywhere\u201d[2] and part of my call as a new church pastor was to draw out the gold within the people asking to serve!

As I learned to see the \u201cabundance\u201d[3] of \u201craw material for developing leaders\u201d the stress I felt to perform and do it all lessened. I was able to step back while others stepped forward, bringing creativity and new life to this struggling community. As I \u201clet go of the reins I was freed up to pursue my own growth and development.\u201d [4]

However, I still struggle with what Camacho calls, \u201cclarity\u201d[5] in my call as a pastor. I have clarity about who God is \u2013 well, as much clarity as anyone can have about God but that\u2019s a whole other blog post! I have a good sense about who I am as a beloved child of God. I know I am designed to create and be in relationship with people. Even the pain in my life has brought clarity about how I can best serve in the world. Yet, what I struggle with is the \u201ctyranny of the urgent!\u201d [6]

According to Camacho, this calls for better \u201cboundaries\u201d[7] and yet, I think I have pretty good boundaries! I say no when I don\u2019t want to do something, especially at work, but I\u2019m not going to pretend that I don\u2019t feel guilty. I will often try to figure out how I can do it all instead of simply saying no.

What I am discovering though is that my job description is very broad making it easy for people to point to me whenever something needs to be done! We need someone to preach? Ask Kally. We need someone to teach a class? Ask Kally. Someone needs to be visited? Ask Kally. We need table cloths and cookies for the memorial service? Ask Kally. We need to start a support group, to welcome folks, to lead the session meeting\u2026ask Kally. You get the point.

I understand that many if not all of these jobs can fall under the role of pastor, however, the tyranny of the urgent leaves me feeling like nothing ever gets accomplished. This is probably because nothing ever gets accomplished! Most of these tasks do not fall in my \u201csweet spot\u201d[8] and leave me running from one thing to the next, only rarely in the direction of where I actually want to go!

I want to build a mental health ministry that serves our church and our larger community. I have the support of the leadership of the church to build this ministry. However, it is going to take time, perseverance, and apparently, some pretty strong boundaries.

I wonder, if Camacho was coaching me through this process if he would ask me \u201cwhat would happen if I gave myself permission to make a change and move towards my sweet spot?” [9]

It\u2019s a question I am pondering.

1] Tom Camacho, Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching(London: InterVarsity Press, 2019).166

2] Camacho, 17.

3] Camacho, 17.

4] \u00a0Camacho, 43.

5] Camacho, 61.

6]Camacho, 185.

7]Camacho, 185.

8]Tom Camacho, Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching.160

9] Tom Camacho, Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching 162<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Mining For Gold by Tom Camacho reminded me of a time when I was planting a new church and my husband was planting a new community center. When anyone would approach me or my husband with a new idea my husband\u2019s first instinct would be to say, \u201cYes! That\u2019s a great idea! Let\u2019s try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"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":[2489,1555],"class_list":["post-30128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp02","tag-camacho","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30128","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\/170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30128"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30276,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30128\/revisions\/30276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}