Top 10 in 2011

I know it’s a little late to be serving up a 2011 retrospective. The new year? That was so three weeks ago.

Well, I would have done this earlier, but we’ve been making a big transition here at Gifted for Leadership, and quite honestly, it’s taken me a few weeks to figure out where everything is. Now that I have found my way to the computer, I’m actually writing this post for two reasons: to tell you which blog posts and downloads were most popular among our readers in 2011 (as promised in the title) and to (re)introduce myself.

Second things first.

Some of you may recognize my name; many of you are new to Gifted for Leadership since I last served at the editorial helm. Back in 2007, when Gifted for Leadership launched, I was the editor who started and oversaw this blog. I also wrote frequent posts myself. During the next few years, other editors took responsibility for Gifted for Leadership while I worked on other projects in my role as an executive at Christianity Today.

Not long ago, I moved into a new role here at Christianity Today, dropping my executive responsibilities and working part-time in an editorial capacity so I could have more flexibility to be with my children and to work on some writing projects. Around the same time, our most recent editor, Marian Liautaud, found she had some other projects that were threatening to take all of her time. Long story short, she hasn’t gone anywhere but she has handed responsibility for Gifted for Leadership back to me.

So here I am, back to overseeing the editorial plan for a resource I dearly love and dreaming about what the future might hold for this publication. I have so much respect for you, our audience of gifted women serving in the church. I feel privileged to serve you as you seek to serve Christ and his church according to your gifts. And I am committed to bringing you the best possible content on a weekly basis. I hope what we’re doing here challenges you, encourages you, and helps you to feel that you’re not alone.

Speaking of great content, I haven’t forgotten my plan to introduce you to the list of our most popular blog posts and downloads in 2011. If it’s been a while since you read these resources, or if you haven’t yet seen them, check them out. These are the ones that this community downloaded and read most frequently during the last year¬—so they must be worth a look, right?

Top 10 Blog Posts

1. Ideas for Women's Ministry
By Amy Simpson

2. 4 Tips for Time Off
By Jenni Catron

3. God Will Make a Way
By Leanne Dzubinski

4. The “Gender Ghetto” in the Church
By Marlena Graves

5. Five Tips for Creating a Mentor Program
By Vonna Laue

6. Leading in the Midst of Woundedness
By Suzanne Burden

7. Why I’m Giving Up Prayer for Lent
By Margaret Feinberg

8. Heading Home After Holy Moments
By Caryn Rivadeneira

9. 4 Ways to Prevent Unintentional Gossip
By Margaret Feinberg

10. A Pink Flamingo in a Sea of Blue Herons
By Suzanne Burden

Top 10 Downloads

1. Fresh Ideas for Women's Ministry
2. The Theology of Women in Leadership
3. A Personal Retreat
4. Rethinking Women’s Ministry
5. Energizing Ministry Workers
6. Finding a Mentor
7. Times of Transition
8. When Your Authority Is Challenged
9. Why Modesty Matters
10. Identifying and Developing New Leaders

As we’re looking forward to 2012, we’re making plans based on what is most popular and also what we hear from you. If you have ideas for how we can serve you better, please drop us a line by email.

Fear Not the Old Testament

The Bible I’ve owned since college is coffee-spill-stained, underlined in a rainbow of colors, re-bound with packing tape. Margin notes sit like altars erected along the journey, commemorating encounters with God.

A curious phenomenon: pages of the last third of this book are worn, dog-eared, dingy, graffiti’d with yellow highlighter and pencil. The first two-thirds, not so much. I’m much more comfortable navigating the New Testament than the Old. But in recent years, that’s been changing, slowly but surely, as I discover the hidden treasures of the text Philip Yancey called, “The Bible Jesus Read.”

If we claim to be “Bible-believing Christians,” we cannot ignore the first two-thirds of that book, or only dabble in Psalms and Proverbs. As leaders, if we are to teach a Bible study or preach a sermon, do we always default to the Gospels or Epistles? What if we were brave enough to excavate the gems of the Old Testament?

Let’s be honest: the Old Testament has some troubling passages. It seems to advocate genocide (Joshua 6:20-21, and in fact most of the book of Joshua). It has stories of incest and drunkenness (for one example initiated by Lot’s daughters, see Genesis 19:30-38). It offers some extreme (not to mention currently illegal) parenting strategies see Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

How do we address the elephant in the room—that many people simply do not read the Old Testament, or misinterpret it? (Perhaps it’s not an elephant in the room but a talking donkey (see Numbers 22) or a lion carcass filled with honey (see Judges 14).)

How do we overcome the Old Testament’s reputation for violence and misogyny? What can we learn from details about rituals we no longer participate in, a culture so far removed from our own? Most important, how can we get those we lead to read and understand, and even love, the Old Testament?

If we are leading people toward fuller devotion to God, we need to embrace the Old Testament. Countless techniques exist; here are a few that work for me as I write and teach about the Old Testament: inferring meaning from stories, doing word studies, and finding the threads in the larger story.
Inferring Meaning
If we see the Bible solely as an “answer book,” what are we to do with the poetry, history, story, symbolism, prophecy, living metaphors (see Hosea)? The word “testament” means “covenant,” and that is key: the Old Testament is the story of God’s covenantal relationship with a people he has chosen as his own.

While some portions of the Old Testament contain clear directives (“thou shalt not kill,” for example), other portions follow the rule of good literature: “Show, don’t tell.” So, for example, the last chapter of Judges describes the Israelites committing genocide, then sexually trafficking women from Jabesh Gilead. The only value judgment is in the final verse, a somewhat obtuse commentary: “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” In other words, it was a time of anarchy. The book of Judges does not “contradict” the Ten Commandments; it shows us what tragedy and terror result when God’s people disobey those commandments.

Old Testament prophets and rabbis taught by answering a question with another question (Jesus followed this style). Just as Jesus told parables, God tells us stories (true ones) in the Old Testament. We must infer meaning and interpret their significance.

Those you lead need to see that there is more to the story than the words convey. Your leadership and example can inspire them to dig deeper. Ask questions, not just to get answers in response, but also to teach them how to ask their own questions.

Word Studies

After looking at the big picture, we can focus in on key words. By diving in deep into one word, we shed light on the context and on the story as a whole.

For example, the word “tabernacle” in the Old Testament is a rich word in Hebrew: mishkan. It means a dwelling place. It is the noun form of shakan, which means to dwell. God uses it to speak of himself and his desire to dwell among his people. If you look up all the verses that use this word, you see not only a promise from God, but a longing—he aches to be in a loving relationship with his people. That ache eventually becomes the Incarnation. The words point us back to the bigger story.

The word skekhina derives from this word, and refers to God’s glory or presence. It includes both his transcendence and his omniscience. It’s also closely related to the Hebrew word for neighbor (those who dwell nearby), shaken.*

Teach the technique of word study, but then challenge those you lead to let those words “dwell richly within” them. God’s word, and all of his words, are transformational, and as a leader you have the opportunity to facilitate that growth and transformation.

Finding Threads

Because it was the Bible they read, Jesus and the New Testament writers often quoted the Old Testament. A seemingly ordinary passage can come alive when we understand their method.

This morning I read Matthew 4:13-14, “He went first to Nazareth, then left there and moved to Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This fulfilled what God said through the prophet Isaiah…” Following these verses, Matthew quotes a short passage from Isaiah 9.

Quoting one little bit of a Scripture was a first-century Jew’s way of referring to its context. Matthew’s quote is a shorthand reference for all of Isaiah 9, a famous prophesy that includes, in verse 6, “For a child is born to us, a son is given to us.”

Matthew was not just telling us where Jesus decided to live. First, he was hinting at a unique mission: Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, moved into a Gentile neighborhood. Second, Matthew was making the case that Jesus is the Messiah, simply by saying he “moved to Capernaum.”

Encourage those you lead to look for threads in the big story. This can begin with the simple exercise of noticing the footnotes that refer to the Old Testament verses quoted within the New Testament. Direct those you lead to actually look up those references and study them.

Faith in Action

These techniques can help us teach and interpret. But the Bible itself calls us to more than just intellectual understanding.
One of the big ideas of the Old Testament is that God can use imperfect people to accomplish his purposes. Noah was considered righteous, but after nearly a year on the ark, he came home and got drunk. David was called a man after God’s own heart, but he committed murder and adultery. Jeremiah was charged with calling God’s people to repentance, failed to accomplish that mission, but did not fail to be obedient. Jonah ran away from God, then accomplished his mission but got angry and pouty about his own success.

The Old Testament judges people’s faith not by what they assent to intellectually, but by the way they live out their faith—however imperfectly. Do they do what God asks? Do they trust him? Their activist faith offers us a model for putting our faith into action (see Hebrews 11).

Today the church is beginning to embrace a “whole gospel” in which we both preach the good news and work for the justice it demands. Although this may feel new from our limited perspective, this is an Old Testament type of faith. As Jesus said, quoting the Old Testament, “I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices” (Matthew 9:13, and Hosea 6:6).

As a leader, your goal is not just to increase the knowledge of those you lead, but to help them grow in wisdom and understanding. By instructing and inspiring them to dig deeper into Scripture, you can help them access its power to change their hearts and lives.

*These ideas are unpacked in more detail in my book Deeper into the Word: Reflections on 100 Old Testament Words. (Bethany House, 2011).

Keri Wyatt Kent writes and speaks about connecting faith and real life. Her books and teaching focus on helping people slow down in order to listen to God. Her newest book, Deeper into the Word, explores 100 words from the Old Testament. More at www.keriwyattkent.com.

Lonely Leadership

I walked off the stage, the title to my presentation—Community in Leadership—in bold at the top of my speaking notes. I had just spent 40 minutes convincing women leaders of the power and importance of being intimately involved in community with others.

Ironically, or perhaps hypocritically, I was the loneliest, most isolated person I knew. Mentally, I knew leadership and relationships weren’t mutually exclusive. I just couldn’t convince my lonely heart. As I battled feelings of loneliness, I realized I harbored several patterns of thinking that kept me feeling alone.

Lonely for God. I was doing all the right things–praying, reading my Bible, serving Jesus in ministry. Yet here I was, lonely. It seemed like God had abandoned me. Wasn’t he supposed to meet all my needs? Had I done something wrong? Or not done enough for him?

Oddly, for all the praying I was doing, the one thing I didn’t talk about with God was my loneliness. It seemed bringing it up would be tantamount to accusing him of not being able to meet my needs. For some reason, I thought I should be able to take care of loneliness on my own.

One morning, as I was dutifully reading my Bible, I came across the familiar verse in Philippians that reminds us to present our requests to God in every situation. I took God at his word and bared my soul. God, would you bring me some friends to fill the void? God, is there something wrong with me? Do I need to adjust my expectations? Is this simply a season? What are you trying to teach me? Just being able to share my feelings was a relief.

Lonely Expectations. All through grade school, I wanted a little girl exactly like me to move into our neighborhood. I wanted someone who would understand everything about me–what it was like to look different from everyone else, to be too embarrassed to admit I was a Christian at school, to want respite from an annoying little brother as much as I did. I wanted a best friend.

Life isn’t so different as an adult, even if you are a leader. I still want a BFF. But I’ve discovered no one can understand all of me. My mom-friends can commiserate with me about the daily grind of mothering. Ministry friends understand the unique struggles I have reaching women for Christ. My Asian American friends resonate with the cultural pressures I feel. But I have yet to find a friend who gets all of it.

Friends struggle alongside me as I try to understand God’s ways. They rejoice as he changes my perspective. But they cannot understand all of me, nor can they fully process my raw emotions.

The truth is, only Jesus has me figured out. He made me, gave me my story and sees how it all plays together. Only he can fully sympathize and explain it to me. I’ve learned to change my expectations of those around me. I appreciate the friends I do have and understand that each plays a significant, yet different, role in my life. But I fight to keep unrealistic expectations at bay.

Lone Ranger. “How are things [in ministry] going?” A gesture of friendship, a new friend knocks at the door to intimacy. But I am hesitant to open the floodgates. My head is stuck several months in advance. I don’t want to inundate her with all the sticky details. She wouldn’t understand.

A natural part of being a leader is thinking, planning and working months or even years in advance. Influencers generate ideas and forge ahead into new territory. There is inherent alone-ness in this aspect of leadership. It becomes easy to believe the lie that you’re the only one—the only one who cares, the only one who knows how to do ministry, the only one who really loves Jesus.

As I processed these feelings with God, and spent time with those serving alongside me, I discovered many people had a passion to serve God. Yes, much of my leadership position requires thinking months ahead. But many others had walked the road before me. The reality is, we’re all serving together.

I respond to my friend by sharing some of my feelings of frustration, being overwhelmed, and the need for discernment. She encourages me to persevere, and prays for wisdom. She also blesses me with practical ideas. Even as a leader, I am not alone.

Strong, but Lonely. Someone once said to me “You seem like a very powerful woman.” At the time, I was a stay-at-home-mom. The only thing I had control over was naptime, and sometimes, not even that!

As I spoke with him, I realized I carried myself in a way that made it seem like I had my life together. “Fake it till you make it” is helpful in many situations, but it doesn’t work when it comes to relationships. Casting the image that you have it all together isolates you.

Perfection doesn’t breed intimacy—authenticity does. I began to risk looking weak, immature, and ignorant in many areas of life, including areas of leadership. Being honest about my weaknesses, my needs, and moments of desperation actually draws others near, giving them permission to take their masks off too.

Reaching out of Lonely. A friend suggested we have lunch together, for the third week in a row. I smiled and put her off yet again. I thought, I can’t just be going out to lunch and coffee all day long! At the very same time I complained to God about being lonely, I rejected offers to build relationships.

There are many reasons we refuse to reach out of loneliness. In this particular instance, it was overachieving work-a-holism at its best. Sometimes it is self-righteousness, fear, or just plain laziness that keeps me from exerting the effort needed for a relationship.

After a few rejections, my friend (if I could still call her that!) stopped inviting me out for coffee. I realized that coming out of loneliness required stretching myself. I had to make relationships a priority if I wanted to soothe my lonely heart.

I sheepishly called my friend, offering to make her lunch. As we caught up with each other’s lives, I rediscovered the joy and fun of connecting heart-to-heart. I don’t know why I waited so long.

As I fought these misconceptions that kept me from friendships, I experienced God’s grace and love in others. Indeed, it was important to be in community; there was power in knowing and being known. Even as I grow in relationship, it’s easy to lapse into these lonely thoughts. But God promises to help me transform my mind so I can experience deep, authentic relationship.

How do you keep from becoming isolated and lonely in leadership?

Esther Feng lives in Central New York with her husband and two daughters. She serves as a Community Developer for MOPS International, and has been published in Fullfill, Connections, and various online publications and blogs at www.estherfeng.com

New Year’s Anti-Resolution: Stop Setting Goals

My New Year’s resolution this year is unusual, really more of an anti-resolution. My hope for 2012 is to become less intentional.

Less intentional, you ask? Why on earth would a person want that? I’ll explain.

I’m a strategist by nature. I process things rationally, assessing situations, coming up with recommendations, tinkering mentally with life issues and circumstances. I’m also fast-moving leader and productivity-oriented, a fit-it-all-in, get-it-done kind of girl.

Put these two together and you can see that intentionality isn’t a problem for me. Coming up with goals and moving toward them is pretty much how God made me.

There are many upsides to these character traits, and I thank God for how he wired me. Lately, though, I’ve been seeing the downsides that such attributes can bring if left to their own devices.

Last fall I was talking with a friend about her son’s preschool teacher. She described the middle-age woman, well-known and respected in their community, as “very intentional but lacking in freedom.” On paper, the woman is inspiring–a remarkable gardener and excellent cook; a restorer of furniture and exemplary homemaker; a person who’d cultivated many talents and utilized her resources well. ”But she comes across as kind of joyless,” my friend said, “and her relationships with her (now adult) children seem strained.”

The description gave me pause. At the time I was just beginning to observe a noticeable trend toward joylessness in my own life, especially in relation to mothering my three young children. I was so focused on trying to parent well—attending to character development, employing consistency—that I was losing the joy of daily life with my kids. My mind continually went to assessing scenarios and diagnosing methods for improvement—skills I employ in my work world. Rarely did I just sit back, relax, and enjoy the moments for what they held (or my children in them). Goals were trumping relationship.

Sometimes an intentional spirit can hamper freedom, and even love. This, I believe, is a big part of why Jesus rebuked Martha for her demeanor when visiting her household. She was so focused on what needed to be done that she couldn’t relax and be in the moment with him, putting first things first. Her task list and its priority in her mindset were endangering the freedom Jesus had for her. The joy found in engaging with the most important person in her life (as my own) was taking a backseat to lesser things.

Life in the modern world can exacerbate the tendency to prize intentionality and productivity over full, free living in the moment. The priority given to efficiency and multi-tasking are enormous in our culture. The rise of the cell phones alone is enough for many people to throw things out of balance. I can answer e-mails on my phone sitting in a parking lot, but do I know what my five-year-old just said in the backseat as we wait? For a person whose struggles are flightiness or disorganization, the tools an iPhone provides are a blessing; for a person with a bent toward over-productivity, they can be anathema.

Jesus calls us to careful stewardship, and too he calls us to a life of surrender. Stewardship means intentionality and setting goals; surrender means letting go of both to God’s greater purposes. These two things are in tension—opposing ends of a spectrum. The sweet spot is smack in the middle; too much of either one is trouble.

Since God revealed that I generally err overmuch on the stewardship side, high on intentionality and low on freedom and joy, surrender is in order. Letting go of some of my diagnostic and achievement tendencies with the help of Christ are merited. As I set aside my urges to assess and improve things around me, I’ll look to God to help me be present and joyful in the moments he gives. No doubt this will feel counter-intuitive in settings where I’m called to lead.

What about you? Do you need to get out of the goal-setting mindset for a while? What anti-resolutions have you made for the new year?

Susan Arico is active in her church and among local Christian women. She has worked with faith-based nonprofits, such as Prison Fellowship, The Salvation Army, Promise Keepers, and others, developing programs to benefit high-risk populations, such as ex-prisoners, street children, and traumatized youth. Currently, she runs her own consulting company, Pray Creek Consulting LLC.

When the Passion Fades

I’m in the midst of leading a project I don’t feel particularly passionate about. It didn’t start out this way. I launched into it with great enthusiasm. I was confident I was following God’s will by pursuing the project, but as time has passed and I’ve grown less enamored with it, I’m wondering whether I misread the signs.

Truth be told, the project isn’t meeting my expectations. I feel defeated that it’s not as successful as it ought to be. In essence, my interest is waning because it doesn’t feel worth my time. My ebbing interest makes me wonder: Is passion always an indicator of God’s will? I’m pretty sure that God has called people to things they weren’t necessarily passionate about. I’m sure they felt defeated and unsuccessful too. (Insert Moses, David, or nearly any biblical character you can think of as a prime example.)

Why do we do this then? Why do we equate passion—or a lack of it—with God’s will or plan for our lives? Why do we so easily throw in the towel when we lose passion? Why are we quick to walk away from a job or project when we find ourselves a little defeated?

I see this a lot in ministry work (I’m guilty of it myself)——wondering if I’m doing the right thing on those days when everything seems to be going wrong. Recently I had to make a very unpopular decision that resulted in a lot of questions, accusations and long conversations. It would have been far easier to have not made the decision, but I knew that it was what God was leading me to do. Navigating this issue wasn’t easy, and I wasn’t even confident that it would bring about the change I hoped for. But I sensed that it was the right thing.

God’s will doesn’t mean endless passion or constant success. God’s will is that we live out his plan for our life. And his plan isn’t always warm and fuzzy or fun. Sometimes living out God’s will is hard work. Sometimes living out God’s will means pushing through when you don’t have an ounce of passion, but others are counting on you.

Are you struggling to embrace what he’s given you to do? When I feel this way, I’m often reminded of my favorite scripture from Galatians 6:4:“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given and then sink yourself into that” (The Message).

On the good days and on the bad days remember what he’s gifted and called you to, and sink yourself into it!

Jenni Catron is a contributing editor for GiftedforLeadership.com. She serves as executive pastor of Cross Point churches in the Nashville area.