{"id":40855,"date":"2025-02-27T01:43:53","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T09:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40855"},"modified":"2025-02-27T01:43:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T09:43:53","slug":"the-worst-years-of-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-worst-years-of-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Worst Years of My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our church was growing, and new people were joining all the time. In December 2011, I met a relatively new woman in our church who wanted to meet me in a coffee shop near our children&#8217;s schools. She produced some printed paper with Google definitions of different diagnoses, including narcissistic personality disorder, psychopathic and sociopathic personality disorders. She wanted to talk about concerns she had about her husband and wanted my professional opinion. Obviously, this is not how I work as a church leader or psychotherapist, so I gently explained the boundaries of the roles. Sadly, I failed to fully reflect on her concerns because I focused on my own fears around my professional regulation. Six months later, her husband decided that I had interfered in their marriage and sent me a death threat saying that he would destroy my name, reputation and all that I had ever done. He promptly purchased over forty thousand pounds of domain names in my name, sent out letters using email addresses in my name as if they were from me, and caused havoc and devastation to our church and further afield. The harassment lasted for over three years, and he was arrested on July 30<sup>th<\/sup> 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Everything within me wanted to run away. I felt like my whole world had been set on fire. Continuing to do all my roles as mum, wife, and CEO of a multi site trauma recovery charity and Senior Pastor was painful. I had to reframe the situation by assuming that something I was doing was irritating the devil because otherwise, why on earth would so much go wrong when I had no actions that I regretted?\u00a0 Friedman is encouraging when he says, <a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>&#8216;if you are a leader, expect sabotage.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a>Friedman also explores five aspects of functioning that early pioneers had that enabled them to lead an entire civilisation into a New World. In retrospect, these were central to my journey through my most awful season of leadership:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A capacity to get outside the emotional climate of the day.<\/li>\n<li>A willingness to be exposed and vulnerable.<\/li>\n<li>Persistence in the face of resistance and downright rejection.<\/li>\n<li>Stamina in the face of sabotage along the way.<\/li>\n<li>Being headstrong and ruthless- at least in the eyes of others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I needed to <a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a>\u2018be the leader in my life at that moment\u2019, and I needed Friedman\u2019s key leadership concepts of courage, managing anxiety, forgetting seeking quick fixes, and challenging larger systems. I needed supernatural leadership courage because people looked to me to navigate the organisations through this crisis, and I also needed to model faith, courage and calmness when sometimes my anxiety felt tangible. I had to take responsibility for my own emotional health whilst protecting and supporting those around me who were terrified despite the assault actually being against me. Friedman notes that <a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[4]<\/a> <strong>\u2018<\/strong>the climate of contemporary America has become so chronically anxious that our society has gone into an emotional regression that is toxic to well-defined leadership\u2019 and I believe this is an issue in the UK too.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[5]<\/a>Friedman articulates that the world needs leaders who possess the list above but also:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The capacity to obtain clarity about one\u2019s principles and vision.<\/li>\n<li>Self-regulation in the face of reactive sabotage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am personally not sure how this list could be achieved without a relationship with Jesus, the anchor, rock, guide, comfort, strength, provider and healer, but He enabled me to navigate through the assault against me and grow the organisations back to\u00a0 a state of thriving.<\/p>\n<p>As I reflect on Elijah as a leader who was called to see the defeat of the normalisation of child sexual abuse and self-harm which was found in Baal worship, I see a man who wrestled with the reality of the task, the sabotage from those who were seeking to destroy him and His dependence on God. He modelled his internal conflict of wanting to obey God and I admire his honesty as he explains his exhaustion with the words,<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[6]<\/a>\u2018<em>It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.&#8217; And he lay down and slept under a broom tree.\u2019 <\/em>He had to find emotional courage and confidence to suggest that the Baal worshippers could be challenged to be the first to light the fire on the altars. This is where leaders\u2019 subconscious reactions to negative experiences can be \u2018make or break\u2019. Throughout the book, Friedman emphasises his assertions that <a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[7]<\/a>\u2018leaders had to be willing to face their own selves.\u2019 I believe the world is desperate for leaders to be humble but not timid, bold but not proud, confident but not arrogant, self-assured but openly dependent on Jesus, and sure of their vision and values but without domination, force or control.<\/p>\n<p>Carey Nieuwhof writes in his regular blog that the Barna research evidences that <a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[8]<\/a>\u2018only 21% of pastors over the age of 45 say they are flourishing in their well-being, only 7% of church leaders under the age of 45 say they are flourishing.\u2019 My research aims to find some solutions for church leaders who have struggled with sabotage, the lack of research around the actual role definition, the impact of stress on families and the expectations of church members. I see a catastrophe brewing. Nieuwhof agrees and says that this is a \u2018major concern\u2019 He notes that \u2018as go the leaders, so goes the church\u2019. If the leaders aren&#8217;t healthy, the church won&#8217;t be healthy.\u2019 I believe Jesus is the hope of the world, and churches should be places of healing, freedom, community and hope, like an solidly built ark in a volatile age of the storms of uncertainty and anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Edwin. H. Friedman. <em>A Failure of Nerve. Leadership In The Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>. Church Publishing. New York. 1999. xiii<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Ibid. 200-201.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Ibid. 248.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[4]<\/a> Ibid. 53.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[5]<\/a> Ibid.134.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[6]<\/a> 1 Kings 19:4-5. English Standard Version.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[7]<\/a> Ibid. 23.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[8]<\/a> Carey Nieuwhof. 5 Disruptive Trends That Will Rule 2025. ttps:\/\/careynieuwhof.com\/church-trends-2025\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our church was growing, and new people were joining all the time. In December 2011, I met a relatively new woman in our church who wanted to meet me in a coffee shop near our children&#8217;s schools. She produced some printed paper with Google definitions of different diagnoses, including narcissistic personality disorder, psychopathic and sociopathic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[236],"class_list":["post-40855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-friedman","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40855","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\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40856,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40855\/revisions\/40856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}