By: Annie
When we talk about serving at church or leadership, it’s often focused on what people aren’t doing. Look at all these vacancies. Why aren’t more people stepping up? If you’d only put your trust in God, you could do great things. I’m not saying there’s no value in that line of thinking, but what’s another way of looking at it? What are people doing?
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The question of how I ended up in leadership has crept up in different conversations and here’s what I’ve come up with: God created and molded me in a very specific way. My parents instilled a strong sense of duty, I’m hell-bent on improving things, I’m fascinated with how organizations function, and I get personally invested in a lot of things. The people God has placed in my life have had a profound impact on how I perceive and process things and the job offer was the result of a series of relationships.
As I listen to other people talk about how they ended up serving, while the journeys vary, they all have a vested interest in ET. In HR, this mindset is called citizenship; in political theory, it’s self-actualization. It’s where an individual takes on the needs and values of others as their own. With leadership, you take on the vision and needs of ET, internalize them and make it your responsibility to address them.
This isn’t an accusation that those who don’t serve don’t care. It’s about awareness which is probably why this entire series is focused on being open about where we’re at as individuals, as congregants and leaders, and as a church. When we elect others to be leaders, sometimes we become complacent and dissociated. Even I forget that they’re all volunteers, amateurs who are still learning the ropes. The heavens don’t open for a dove to drop off ministry blueprints when leaders get elected (EB, EMC) or ordained (DB). As members and congregants, you have a very active role to play in all of this.
I’m constantly racking my brain and other peoples’ brains to figure out how to better inform you. We’re all busy so we all forget, so how can we help you connect with what’s going on at church? Personally, I’ve adopted Tim’s relational approach. I am actively making time to meet one-on-one (because I’m an introvert) and to feed people to make this Page 2 section a conversation.