I recently finished Ruth Haley Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry (IVP,2008).  I enjoyed it thoroughly and found a number of valuable insights for my own leadership at New Life. I recommend it to you.  One unique insight was to clearly articulate the values of your  leadership team as you enter into  challenging, difficult discussions.  The following is my first draft for our NLF staff team (Her team’s can be found on pp.176-178 of her book).

1. Personal Spiritual Transformation – We consistently labor to maintain balance in our lives as leaders, ensuring that we have time for prayer, rest, healthy relationships (play) and work. Our rhythms are our first work and foundational for both our lives and leadership. 

2. Community – We are a microcosm of the larger New Life and seek to maintain and build unity in our relationships as Christ did with the Twelve. While the work itself can easily distract us away from this, we labor to slow down for healthy relationships between us.

3. Discernment – We are committed to the discipline of discerning God’s will among us.  We bring this to our strategic planning/thinking process and are committed to the time needed for this.  We seek to intentionally bring the gifts of the examen process (consolations and desolations) to our decision-making.

4. Truth-Telling –“We believe all truth, no matter now delicate or painful, or seemingly inconsequential, contributes to the discernment process.” The Holy Spirit is the author of all truth and we resist exaggerations, denial and our fears. We are committed to both the data before us and hearing God together.

5. Spiritual Warfare – We remember that we are in a battle with demonic powers and principalities that seek to destroy and divide the work of God in and among us. We recognize there are seasons of great intensity when we are under great pressure. So we commit to support one another and “not give the devil a foothold” (Eph. 4:27).

6. Brokenness and Vulnerability – We affirm God’s power is made perfect in weakness.  We acknowledge our need to self-confront and do our own work so that we can create safety in conversations foundational for healthy life together.

7. Celebration – We believe celebration is critical, and we look for every opportunity to note God’s grace and activity among us.

8. Kindness – We treat one another as image bearers, seeking to be kind to one another and to others as we lead.

 9. Grieving – We affirm our humanity and the challenge of the unique losses that come to us in our life together in leadership. We aim to give ourselves space for this, both personally and as a group. We choose to humbly learn from our mistakes and wait on God through that process.

10. Limits – In carrying out the mission, we gladly embrace our God-given limits as His gift. We seek to remain prayerful around God’s will as opportunites present themselves to us. At the same time, there are times God places limits before us that we are called to break through. Again, we recognize the discernment process in this.   

11. Conflict as Means for Transformation - We will have conflict and disagreements in our life together.  Difficult, challenging times around staff roles, future directions, and key decisions are inevitable. We remain committed to grow into emotionally mature adults, embracing these challenges before God’s presence, remembering this is one of God’s primary means to mature us.

What might you add? Delete?

What might it mean for the leadership of a church or ministry to embrace the lamenting of loss as part of her life together?  What might it mean for your life or mine?

I have spent the last two weeks absorbed in the book of Lamentations, reading, meditating, pondering, and praying the words of Jeremiah as my own. The exercise was transformative and, yes, quite painful. What is most interesting is that in I have written chapters on grief and loss in two different books. Yet I felt like I was approaching the theme for the first time.

What did God show me anew?

1. Both the love of God and suffering are foundational paths to genuine transformation. Suffering opens us up uniquely to God, ourselves and others, forcing us to slow down and reflect. I have missed transforming moments from God, both personally and for New Life, because of my unwillingness to remain in the losses. I want to move on as quickly as possible to the next “new thing” from God. In doing so I miss the next “new thing” from God.

2. Loss and suffering must be swallowed and not simply tasted. Jeremiah swallows the suffering and loss of Jerusalem’s destruction in 586 BC. He allows the loss to do God’s work in and through him. I prefer to taste my losses and not swallow /digest them.  That takes time alone with God, reflection, and thoughtfulness. It is very hard, if not impossible, to do that while busy and distracted.

Two weeks ago I lead a strategic leadership day with some of our staff poorly. I rushed and violated my own values around integrating prayer and the contemplative into our planning. I also failed to listen to consolations and desolations for guidance throughout our time together. I left  the day filled with regrets and exhaustion. As I grieve that minor loss before God, the “hard to swallow” riches continue to flow. God continues to speak to me about me, about Him, and about how He wants to guide and work in New Life.

3. The amount of time needed to wait in the “confusing in-between” of loss is much longer than I care to admit.  The unrelenting demands and needs of others can obscure the precious gifts of God has for us in the losses and setbacks  He allows. Slowly unpacking these gifts takes a lot of time.

The implication of living a theology of grief and loss for leaders is far reaching. What else do you think must die for us to embrace the lamenting of loss as part of our lives –both individually and corporately?

Intro to the EH Leadership Conf – 04.29.10 from New Life Fellowship on Vimeo.

Pastor Pete & Geri Scazzero introduce the 2010 Emotionally Healthy Leadership Conference.

What are your Thoughts? Perspectives?