10 Things in Leadership I Wish I Knew Before Hand

5 Things I didn’t really prepare myself enough for

It’s emotionally, spiritually, physically draining

You’re always spread thin. Physically I find myself exhausted or stressed at times, just by merely running around, and due to a poor stewardship time, I’m not sleeping as much as I should be. Spiritually drained at times, and by error find myself trying to fill myself up on other people as opposed to God. Emotionally on a roller-coaster in tears at times, and other times filled with joy when seeing the work of my hands that God is bringing in to fruition. The lows can be dark, but never pitch black. There is the unceasing comfort in my Savior, and the unrelenting joy at the blackest of times. The reminder of the eternal prize encourages me to endure through hardship for the joy set before me.

It’s a huge responsibility over others

I read this and nearly freaked out. Keeping watch over other souls, and needing to give an account for God. My failure to call out and edify others and share the gospel is all answerable to God. If I cause another to stumble, if I lead people astray, it is God who I will have to answer to. The thought of it puts the fear of God in me.

You really have to step up

There needs to be a desire to act honourably and lead by example, be above reproach, and there is little room for error. Yes, I am just merely man, but where I fall short can easily give others permission to do the same. Jesus is the norm, the one person we need to judge ourselves by. Jesus is the measuring stick, and he lived a life that would be an example for us to follow. When Jesus washed the feet of His disciples he gave us an example and standard of how we should be to imitate that we might become more like Him. He said:-

I’m not sure whether I was drawn to being in positions of leadership in the past because I desired authority and the attention of having importance or impact. Things I have come to realise since then in that phase of immaturity that in actual fact,  you have to think of yourself less and more of others. It is constant sacrifice.

To serve others you have to die to your own needs and wants, it’s a constant of putting others before yourselves. To be a servant of everybody. You have to die to your name, your pride, your time, energy, money, everything. There is no room for worldliness. To be in leadership and ministry is to serve, is to sacrifice. The more people you lead, the more people you serve.

You come to realise that the more you lead, the more responsibility you have, the more you need to come under the authority of Scripture and the more you need to rely on God.

Warfare

Under bombardment of attack, whether it is criticism, argumentative people, thought life, idols, a lust of the world. At significant milestones along my walk with God, they have been punctuated with hyper spiritual dreams of the not nice sort. In times of pain, there is the temptation to tranquilize myself on an unhealthy amount of movies, shopping, facebook, blogging, and comfort eating. Worst of all, if the enemy can’t make you sin, he will make you busy.

It's an awesome journey, even if there's bird poo hitting the window.

5 Things I have learnt that has been really helpful

Asking for help from the Holy Spirit

Even for the most mundane things like being a coffee server on a Sunday morning needs all the help of the Holy Spirit. I need to Holy Spirit to shift tables and fold up bulletins. Without Him, I’m doing things on my own strength, and not His joy and cheerfulness in serving. There are times when I have gone about things on my own strenght and I end up really bitter, resentful or self-righteous about my works.

I need the Holy Spirit for my joy, for my inspiration, for strength, for a purity of heart. All I do must be for the glory and worship of God, and to worship God is to do so in spirit and in truth. I need to Spirit to worship  and glorify God in service and ministry.

Filling up on God and not other people

Being in ministry can be so draining -even the most mundane and small tasks, there is a temptation that you need to be spiritually filled. Filling up on people is the equivalent of eating sugar when what you really need is a meal; it’s dissatisfying and doesn’t really fill you. It leaves you disappointed, craving for more, aka needy.

Filling up on God means to take the time to spiritually nourish yourself, which means reading and praying through Scripture, sabbathing and spending some quality time with God. To fill yourself out on God that you can pour yourself out onto others.

Eating and sleeping properly

I am a finite being that needs sleep and food. It’s obivious, but there is a huge tendancy to skip meals, lose an hour of sleep here and there and rely on your youth to go on. I forget that sleep is a gift and a reminder that I am finite in what I can do. But God is infinite, he needs no sleep or slumber, He needs no rest. He can do everything without me.

John Piper pointed, in his book, ‘Desiring God’, Elijah’s emotional need for food and sleep in

. He expounds this way better than I can.

Losing all sense of worldliness and other distractions

The love of the money and the love of the world will blow your ministry apart, it’s so important to keep your eye on the real prize which is Jesus. If you love marriage more than Jesus, or Church Planting more than Jesus, you’re essentially making God in to a stepping stone to your idol. Jesus is the prize. Jesus is the reason we are doing what we’re doing. To have an eternal relationship with the Living God blows away anything we can have here on earth.

Sitting at the foot of the cross

Always when pride leers its ugly head, when I think it’s out of my good works, and I become self-righteous. Ever day I fail to acknowledge that I am living and redeemed, changed because the work of the Cross. The grace in which I stand, the transformation that has happened to me, the change in my heart, the new desires I have are all because of the work on the Cross. This new relationship I have with the Father is because Jesus had paid the price that I might be covered by His blood and forgiven for my sins and reconciled with the Father. Jesus is the only reason. It’s all about Jesus.