I am a person who burns deeply for generating ministries that serve to bring hope and healing into the lives of people. As a leader I strive to fan the flames of passion and vision in others that result in hands-on opportunities for service and generosity into the greater community. I would love to be able to spend all my time in conversation with and investing in impassioned people who then turn their vision into reality.
In the midst of it all, the vital work of visioning can easily slip to the background. Yet for our congregations to truly thrive, we must remain faithful to the time and energy it takes to cast and live into a healthy, Spirit-led vision.
Lately, it seems, I keep getting pulled into necessary things that draw me away from the life-giving work to which I feel called. Here is a truncated list of things that I’ve had to address in recent weeks that made it quite difficult to focus on leadership:
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- The plumbing at the main facility became clogged causing an overflow of water in two bathrooms. It required that we dig through the concrete slab in our narthex at a cost of $8K. The culprit? Someone had flushed a ball of aluminum foil down one of the toilets.
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- A man showed up for a funeral wearing an open-carry side arm. We are now convening a “Safety Team” to discuss policy, protocol, and procedure for such things, including a plan should we have an active shooter on site.
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- We constantly experience attempts through digital means to defraud the congregation. Our full staff is now required to watch a new video about cyber fraud every week.
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- Portico has completely revamped their health benefits requiring congregations to re-examine our staff benefit structure.
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- We’d all agree that conducting funerals is an important and necessary function of any congregation. However, we’re finding that often the nature of how people have died is requiring much more of a need for pastoral care. Within a five-day span, we conducted three difficult funerals: a 50-year old non-member who died by suicide; another 50-year old man who died of a massive heart attack while jogging with his wife; and a 28-year old who died from a Fentanyl overdose.
As you’ve no doubt experienced, pastors often find themselves buried under the demands of daily ministry and the unexpected crises of pastoral care. In the midst of it all, the vital work of visioning can easily slip to the background. Yet for our congregations to truly thrive, we must remain faithful to the time and energy it takes to cast and live into a healthy, Spirit-led vision.
In my next few blogs, I’ll be offering encouragement to rise above the obstacles that so often weigh us down, so that together we can rediscover what it means to lead with health, vibrancy, and hope.
Take some time to assess the time and energy you commit to healthy leadership. How difficult is it for you to dedicate intentional, focused time to leadership? What do you do to budget your time between the things that will move the congregation forward missionally and the things that simply have to get done? How do you create boundaries around your leadership energy so that other responsibilities don’t detract from it?
God bless you!
