Gifted for Leadership

How Our Sacrifice Inspired Generosity and Commitment

During economic difficulties, we discovered the power of example

When my husband and I came to a new church plant immediately after seminary, we knew there were going to be some financial challenges for the small congregation. They had only 10 members and about 40 attending, including children. But they were a devoted, expansive-minded people, which gave us hope for the future of the church. And they offered us a livable wage, which was extremely important for a family of five. Because of their commitment, the church thrived in those early years. People gave sacrificially and the church grew.

The problem came several years in. We had grown by that point to around 200 people and had rented a larger, more expensive facility to hold everyone. And in the earliest days of the church, the pastor’s office was in our home, but it soon became clear that this was less than ideal since the church needed a secretary and extra space for Sunday school. So when office space opened up across the street from the community center where we met, it seemed the perfect solution.

But as any church plant grows, the congregation’s commitment to that church diminishes. The 200 did not feel as invested and determined to see the church grow as the original 40 who liberally gave of their time and money and who had a clear vision for the church. So after several months of increased expenses, our budget began to run in the red.

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Posted by Kevin Emmert at 8:00 AM | Comments (0)

It’s Complicated

Examining the leader’s personal relationship to money

Money complicates ministry.

Sure, there is the difficulty of talking about money in your organization – sermons and stewardship campaigns. Salaries and budget shortfalls. But that’s really the easy stuff.

What about a leader’s personal relationship with money?

I am a ministry leader and a pastor’s wife. While I earn money through my writing, teaching and leadership coaching, the bulk of our family’s income comes from my husband’s salary, paid for by our church. It has always been this way for us, nearly 17 years in full-time employment by one church or another.

I am accustomed to making our living through the church. Yet I continue to be troubled by the potential traps and trappings of this arrangement.

Sometimes I am aware that the people in our church watch what we do with our money. Most of the time, however, I don’t feel that they intentionally scrutinize. This is probably partly because we don’t live extravagantly, and partly because a certain standard of living has always been assumed in the communities where we have lived and ministered. If we don’t push the boundaries on either end of this standard, no one bats an eye.

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Posted by Kevin Emmert at 8:00 AM | Comments (0)

Finding Support in the Lonely Days of Leadership

Among the greatest gifts we can give others is a healthy version of ourselves

If I could name one word to describe the most surprising characteristic of life as a leader, it would be the word lonely. It’s not a word they prepare you for, by the way. Yes, I had heard people say that leadership was lonely, but I didn’t really believe them. The leaders who said they were lonely always seemed to be surrounded by plenty of people. They were needed, respected, and frequently sought out for wisdom and counsel.

Then one day I experienced it. With more leadership responsibility than I’d ever had before, I couldn’t shake the aching loneliness I felt. I too was surrounded by people, lots of them, but most of them needed me for something I could do for them. My circle of people who just wanted to be with me without needing me was shrinking fast. I didn’t want anyone and I wanted everyone at the same time.

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Posted by Kevin Emmert at 8:00 AM | Comments (2)

When the World Shakes

Suffering reveals the impotence of our idols

From our cabin in Wisconsin there’s a long, sweet swim to a raft anchored a few football fields’ length out. It belongs to the Reeves, dear generational friends who are like family. Their men do all the work of hauling the raft out and in each summer, of rescuing, repairing, and returning it to the depths when storms on Green Bay overpower it. Those four-foot waves can break the heavy chain to the anchor as if it were a string, carrying the six-hundred-pound raft to shore and tossing it up on the rocks as if it were a child’s plastic inner tube. Sometimes we stand inside the safety of our cabins and watch, in awe of the storm, in awe of the power of God.

When God shakes the world of a believer, it is no longer judgment, but mercy. We have stones in our hearts, and shaking can loosen those stones so that they may be removed. God’s purpose is healing.

Recently, dear friends of mine began walking through the wilderness. Ed was a pastor with a great deal of warmth who elevated Scripture, but when I visited his church and listened to him preach, his sermon seemed man-centered instead of gospel-centered. Man-centered sermons tend to focus on what we can do instead of on the glory and the power of God. Though this may not be the pastor’s intention, the effect is that individuals listening then try to change themselves mechanically instead of concentrating on intimacy with God. And basically—it doesn’t work. Unless Christ is continually exalted, our hearts remain cold, and we do not long to abide in Him, so we do not bear lasting fruit.

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Posted by Ashley Moore at 11:36 AM | Comments (1)

I’m Not Controlling

I just like my latte extra hot

When I go into Starbucks, I want my order to be just right. I prefer that my latte be made with one percent milk, two shots of espresso, and two shots of vanilla. I like it low foam and extra hot. But that’s a little what you might call high maintenance, so I restrain myself from asking for all five at once!

The same invisible force that nudges me to test the barista’s memory—and patience—is at work in you right now. The force determines what you say and how you say it. It is the crayon that colors your past and will write your future. It is a complicating factor in your relationships with God and other people. And it requires constant tending. Yet my guess is that you’ve never thought very deeply about how this force works, when it formed, and where you really stand with it. That force?

Control.

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Posted by Ashley Moore at 8:13 AM | Comments (1)

The Spiritual Practice of Saying Yes and No

Learning how to respond to life’s many invitations

I’ve written two books. If I were asked to write a third book, I don’t know if I would say yes or no. I would have to discern. I would have to listen to know what would give me life in this season. Right now, starting a book feels less appealing than the invitation to notice the myriad of transcendencies just out my door. Still, I have said yes to the invitation to write some “shorts” on spiritual practices for Gifted for Leadership. These short articles might leave me time to dabble in the transcendencies. But how did I come to the “yes?”

Saying yes is part of my nature. (Saying no is part of my husband’s nature). I came from the womb saying yes. It is a congenital propensity. My mother says I said yes to everything. Yes to climbing corn cribs; yes to hauling my brother onto farm equipment; yes to putting him under the gasoline spigot; yes to filling his overall pockets with eggs from the chickens. It hasn’t changed. I still don’t want to miss out.

Have you heard of the acronym FOMO? Fear of Missing Out? A chaplain at Harvard told me FOMO accounted for the compulsive busyness of students and faculty. I suspect FOMO fuels more than students and faculty. It fuels “yeses” of every possible ilk. FOMO keeps us at it. We accept every invitation we get. We burn the candle at both ends. We strive, we work, we travel, we win so we can say we’ve been there and done that. We have lived.

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Posted by Ashley Moore at 2:49 PM | Comments (1)

Letting My True Self Lead

My ministry is more powerful when I can be the person God made me to be

I would sit on our front porch, my lap filled with jean cutoffs and a bundle of embroidery threads. For hours I’d create sunflowers, peace signs, and butterflies across a canvas of Levi blue.

Back then I remember returning home stoned, to my family seated at the dinner table, “Leave It to Beaver” style, with my empty chair waiting. As I sat, I hoped against hope that my friends told the truth when they insisted that, unlike cigarettes, marijuana smoke was undetectable.

Last year, when a friend and I swapped rebellious-youth stories, I realized that when I stopped smoking pot, I stopped embroidering my jeans.

Creativity was a huge part of my childhood. I filled canvases with modern art and reams of wide-ruled notebook paper with Poe-like prose. Yet in my 14-year-old mind, when I came back to Jesus, I reasoned that I needed to flush my artistic bent down the toilet along with my stash. And the loss has taken a toll on what Thomas Merton might call my “true self”— the self that is made in God’s image to do what God has gifted me to do

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Posted by Ashley Moore at 9:44 AM | Comments (7)

New Year’s Anti-Resolution: Stop Setting Goals

Why I plan to live with less intention

My New Year’s resolution this year is unusual, really more of an anti-resolution. My hope for 2012 is to become less intentional.

Less intentional, you ask? Why on earth would a person want that? I’ll explain.

I’m a strategist by nature. I process things rationally, assessing situations, coming up with recommendations, tinkering mentally with life issues and circumstances. I’m also fast-moving leader and productivity-oriented, a fit-it-all-in, get-it-done kind of girl.

Put these two together and you can see that intentionality isn’t a problem for me. Coming up with goals and moving toward them is pretty much how God made me.

There are many upsides to these character traits, and I thank God for how he wired me. Lately, though, I’ve been seeing the downsides that such attributes can bring if left to their own devices.

Last fall I was talking with a friend about her son’s preschool teacher. She described the middle-age woman, well-known and respected in their community, as “very intentional but lacking in freedom.” On paper, the woman is inspiring–a remarkable gardener and excellent cook; a restorer of furniture and exemplary homemaker; a person who’d cultivated many talents and utilized her resources well. ”But she comes across as kind of joyless,” my friend said, “and her relationships with her (now adult) children seem strained.”

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Posted by Ashley Moore at 4:01 PM | Comments (7)

In Search of a Safe Harbor

After September 11, would we ever be free from terror?

Ten years ago my husband and I embarked on a year-long adventure at sea with our four sons. One leg of our journey took us to Albany, New York, where we docked our boat at a marina on the Hudson River. We’d planned to be in New York City by then, but we’d made a spontaneous decision to take a road trip to Boston for the weekend instead.

The morning after we returned to our boat, a jumbo jet flew directly overhead, unbeknownst to us, and minutes later crashed into one of the Twin Towers. Had we made it to the marina we’d planned to dock at in New York City, we would surely have had a front row seat to the entire catastrophe. The marina itself became a morgue for the bodies they extricated from the rubble.

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Posted by Ashley Moore at 4:24 PM | Comments (2)

What Shape Are You In?

A routine check-up for managing all of our life roles

When I start to feel drained of energy, or when I snap at people or feel resentful when I'm asked to help, these are my clues that my life is out of shape. Usually saying yes to too many opportunities is what pushes me over the edge. When life starts feeling like it's getting out of control, it's time to stop and assess priorities. Here's a check-up I use to assess the shape I'm in. Maybe it'll help you too.

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Posted by Marian Liautaud at 1:41 PM | Comments (1)

Chasing after Glory

It’s not about me.

Eleven months ago I stepped out of full-time ministry to give birth to my first child. After working for nine years as a pastor and one year as a hospital chaplain, I knew the transition from ministry to motherhood would be stretching; but I had no idea how stretching.

In place of writing sermons, I now change diapers. In exchange for developing and implementing new programs, I now help my son build towers out of wooden blocks. Instead of poring over commentary by Barth and Calvin, I now read Dr. Seuss. My presence is no longer needed at 8 a.m. staff meetings, but I am now required to show up for all 3 a.m. feedings. Needless to say, life is no longer about me! But, my son’s presence has encouraged me to reconsider the fact that perhaps God never intended my life to be about me to begin with.

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Posted by Ashley Moore at 8:00 AM | Comments (9)

Loving Your Prodigal

What can parents do to bring their prodigal back home, literally or figuratively?

With our daughter, we maintained a relationship with her throughout her struggle. I think keeping a connection is an essential part of loving your prodigal child. As difficult as it can be, parents need to stay in contact with that child. Don't cut them off. Show your love for them. That doesn't mean you accept what they're doing. In fact, we were always clear with Sheryl that we didn't like her lifestyle. Your child might say, "What I'm doing is me. If you don't accept that, you don't accept me." If that happens, it's important to say, "You are not your behavior or your lifestyle. You have value apart from what you do. And we love you as a person. We value you as a person."

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Posted by Bonnie McMaken at 2:50 PM | Comments (0)

How Our Sacrifice Inspired Generosity and Commitment

It’s Complicated

Finding Support in the Lonely Days of Leadership

When the World Shakes