Leadership

Shining From The Inside Out: Leadership Lessons From Ruth

Shining From The Inside Out: Leadership Lessons From Ruth

When you think of the book of Ruth, what comes to mind? Most likely, you think of it as a beautiful love story. It’s got the original “Happily Ever After” fairy tale ending. But if you just see it as a love story, you’re missing out. There’s so much we can glean from...

God’s Persistent Love

God’s Persistent Love

When I was discerning what to do after seminary, the verse that recurred to me was “The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.” I could not have received a more powerful word for what would come. As I interned and interviewed in different churches, sometimes I...

Women in Leadership? Well, why not?

Women in Leadership? Well, why not?

Often the Bible seems to place women in lower position than men and focuses on the achievements of men more than those of women. In chapter 5 of the book of Genesis in the 2nd verse it says, “He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were...

God’s Space for Our Transformation

God’s Space for Our Transformation

A liminal space—that in-between space of waiting, of not knowing, of presumed inactivity, expected to be short-lived! Most dread that liminal space. I, for one, who likes things organized, leaving nothing to chance, am mortally afraid of such spaces of uncertainty....

Re-engage. Really?

Re-engage. Really?

The day after the elections, I walked into my elevator, and a big, tall young man the age of my daughter said, “It’s gonna be tough.”  I looked at him and replied, “We’re gonna watch out for each other.”  He gave me a smile, a soft “Yeah,” and a friendly punch on the...

WOW! Teaching 1 Timothy 2

WOW! Teaching 1 Timothy 2

WOW! Teaching on I Timothy 2 Let a woman learn quietly and with full submission [to God’s word]. I do not permit a woman to teach that she is the author of man.* Initially, my reaction to an exegetical treatment of this particular Biblical text was mixed.  It...

Freedom in the Spirit

Freedom in the Spirit

Ministry is an extroverted business. It requires prolonged periods of energy exertion. Whether you are the leader or the participant, the church is a community that thrives off of social interactions and connections. So if you’re an introverted person, church involvement can drain you, and quick. At such times, activities that are meant to be life giving and geared towards encouragement can become suffocating and cause social anxiety.

Introversion doesn’t mean shy or unfriendly or a person that doesn’t like people. In fact, many introverts are very social and can appear on the outside to be extroverts, because they enjoy people a lot. Introverts are people that draw energy from their inner lives, and so even though they have a good time socializing, they also need to withdraw and be alone for large spaces of time to refill the well. Such retreating from the world isn’t often understood or appreciated by church communities that like to sign on their members to every activity.

Being a pastor’s wife and having been a church planter’s wife, I understand deeply the concern for both numbers and wishing that church members would commit more time and energy to help grow and cultivate the church. My job description was to welcome strangers and make conversation. As much as I often ended up enjoying those conversations fter getting over a deep struggle with many levels of anxiety, I would return home and plop down on the couch exhausted. I felt like a wet towel that had been squeezed out and left to dry.

Because my efforts never seemed good enough, and I never felt smart enough or accomplished enough to play my role, I decided to meditate on and memorize 2 Corinthians 3. It was a great comfort to me that Christ is my confidence and that my competence comes from being a minister of “a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit.” Being an introvert in an extroverted sphere often felt like losing my “self,” but it was a great encouragement to know that it was the Spirit creating and recreating and building and accomplishing the goal of the church and its community. “ruly, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Not by my righteousness or righteous acts or trying to be the “right” person for the job, but through Christ’s righteousnes, I could rest in my identity in Him. What freedom and comfort there is when “we, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, and are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.