On Leadership...

"Many years ago", as in almost ten, I was told "You are a natural leader." I laughed, I would still today if it wasn't for where I am now. As a fifteenths year old the idea was laughable, I just followed whoever would take me. Prophetic statements seem strange or laughable at the time that they are spoken, but when the reality of them comes true you can not deny it.

Now, I've never ever ever openly said, "I want to be a leader!". I've said "I prefer to follow", "Just tell me what I need to do", and basically have jumped from one service position within churches to another and have never truly felt fulfilled and satisfied in my labors. Surprisingly, I found myself suddenly in a leadership position... and it is hard work.

I understand now why we're called to pray for our pastors, and even our world leaders. Leadership is hard work, it takes thought, energy, intentionality, passion, awareness, strength, and wisdom. Leadership is about giving and giving and giving until you've got nothing left to give and you still do,  it's about inspiring others to more then they thought they could or what others thought they could, it's about empowering people in the abilities God has given them personally, and creating environments that inspire success and growth.

Leadership is also about giving grace in the times that need it, and firm fair judgement in times of conflict. And I am not a natural at many if ANY of those things! So, I laughed at my friend. But now, I think about my life and I look back at times with friends, and just the situations of life. And I see that being a Natural Leader doesn't mean that leadership comes naturally to you, it means people naturally gravitate towards your leadership. Good or bad, they will lean towards it.

Natural leaders are magnetic and they can't help but gather people to themselves. I'm not... A Outwardly excited happy rainbows and butterflies kinda guy that makes people feel good, but I can't deny the influence I have. That means I get choices, I can keep running from group to group, I can lead begrudgingly and miserably, or I can accept my struggles and strive to excellence with joy.

I've been through the first, I'm coming out of the second, and am going into the third. What changed? I got tired of moving around for the first, it became exhausting to keep running. On the second, I realized the effect that unhappy begrudged leadership has on the people following you.

Also, my eyes had to be opened to what all my teams and I do. We build a stage every single week, we put together sermon slides, and utilizes our graphics and creative teams efforts, and the combined efforts of the different teams creates something amazing. I had to see that, nothing physically changed about the work, but I could finally see what other people saw in it.

I still don't exuded butterflies and rainbows, but I can smile, laugh, and enjoy the place I've come to lead. It doesn't change the work, but I think it changes the weight of the load.