Healthy Leaders | Issue 8
Failure, forgiveness, and bite-sizing your elephant buffet. Also: an upcoming training on women and leadership.
Welcome to Issue 8 of Healthy Leaders.
In this issue ‒ forests, failures, forgiveness, and bite-sizing your elephant buffet. Also: four biblical responses to governmental authorities. Let’s dive in.
Standing Strong in Affliction
Let’s open up with Karen Wade Hayes on trees and how we can learn from their reaction to tribulations they encounter.
“One of the best ways to survive and thrive through pestilence and peril is by simply absorbing what has already been offered to us and taking it in more deeply to our core. Trees do this via osmosis and capillary action. One way humans can do this is through Biblical meditation.
Psalm 1:1 says, "Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither…"
Standing firm in faith to the end and experiencing the fruit of the spirit is primarily made possible by sinking roots more and more deeply into the Bible. By thoughtfully, prayerfully studying its words in context, we begin to understand what God is actually saying rather than what we wish He were saying.”
Failure as Christ-Shaped Leadership
Speaking of failure, C. Kavin Rowe doesn’t just think there’s something we can learn from it – he points out that it’s central to Christian leadership.
“Failure is at the heart of what Christian leaders have to offer the world. Leaders who want, therefore, to cultivate a Christ-shaped background must build or develop practices that teach us how to fail….
Consider from the medical world, for example, the practice of weekly M&M – “morbidity and mortality” – conferences at academic hospitals around the U.S. In these gatherings, physicians candidly discuss their failures… Cases are presented, questions are asked, responsibility is assumed, and efforts to eliminate the cause of error are made… Doctors are not simply left on their own to develop a sense of their individual successes and mistakes; they are actively taught that their profession is one that regularly fails.
Christ-shaped leadership should recognize the necessity of practices, such as the M&M conferences, that routinely acknowledge the reality of failure. Yet unlike the M&M conferences, which address failure in only one significant area of life, Christian practices that teach us how to fail will need to reach much further…. Christianity is a total way of life, whereas medicine is not. Christians therefore need to think of failure as intrinsic to life, not simply to this or that sphere of action.”
Rowe also encourages practices of forgiveness, truth-telling, and healing in the process of being educated by our failures.
Coming Soon: Global Training on Women and Leadership
The role of women in ministry and leadership in the church is a very controversial issue about which much has been written. We can identify two major extremes of teaching and practice:
In some circles women are not allowed to occupy any position of leadership or fulfill any formal ministry in the church – except for those involving children or other women. This position holds that women are simply never called by God to leadership; leadership is exclusively a male domain.
In other circles, women are constantly found in the very highest positions of authority. This teaching maintains that one should find as many women as men in leadership roles including the very top positions – leadership is a 50/50 proposition when it comes to gender.
Of course, between these two extremes are many shades and nuances. Furthermore, emotions run high on this matter – on both sides. It is an extremely important issue that directly affects everyone in the church.
On September 29 from 12-2pm GST, LeaderSource will be hosting a free training on Women and Leadership. You are welcome to join us!
This is what leaders are saying about these trainings:
“This is the most biblical and balanced teaching we’ve ever heard on the issue of women and leadership. It has sufficiently addressed our longstanding confusion and struggle in this area.”
“This has revolutionized the way that we in our church network think about women and leadership. It’s a breakthrough for us.”
“This teaching has brought deep healing where there has been division, accusation and condemnation, and so much hurt and pain for so many years.”
Join us for this virtual global training on Women and Leadership, examining what the Bible says about the role of women in Christian ministry and leadership!
Tim Keller Wants You to Forgive
Intrinsic to a life learning from failures is the importance of seeking forgiveness (and granting it). The late Tim Keller had some thoughtful insights on what biblical forgiveness should look like – from the inside out.
“Forgiveness is granted (event) before it’s felt (process). It’s a promise before God not to take revenge on a wrongdoer for his or her sin against you. Making that promise entails three practical commitments. You promise (1) not to constantly bring the sin up to the wrongdoer in order to browbeat and punish her, (2) not to constantly bring the sin up to other people in order to hurt the wrongdoer’s reputation and relationship with others, and (3) not to constantly bring the sin up to yourself—not to keep the anger hot, not to replay the video of it in order to cherish the feeling of nobility and virtue that comes from having been treated unjustly.
At first, when you make those commitments—granting forgiveness—you don’t feel forgiving at all. You are still angry. That’s natural. But if you keep the commitments in a disciplined way (which will be hard)—and you remember the “vertical” dimension: that you’re a sinner living wholly by God’s grace—then slowly but surely you will feel the forgiveness you have granted.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to feel forgiving before you can grant it. If you try to do it that way, it will never happen. You must grant forgiveness in order to feel it.”
How Does Your Team Eat That Elephant? One Bite at a Time
So you’ve figured out your challenges and opportunities, and you have a common vision for your team. What’s next? How do you move toward that vision? Malcolm Webber outlines the “why” of shared goals.
“Problems and opportunities that are conceived of too broadly overwhelm us, but anybody can take ‘just one more step.’ Thus, when the journey is broken down into achievable goals and milestones the task is more easily understood and accomplished.”
Common goals provide flexibility, momentum, and increased morale. But ultimately: they inspire.
“[Common goals] challenge the people on the team to commit themselves, as a team, to make a difference. The excitement and urgency of the goal drive the team forward. Impossible for individuals to achieve but attainable by the team, it becomes their special challenge.”
That’s all for this one, friends. If you found something encouraging in this letter, share it with a friend. If you’ve found something encouraging outside of this letter, send it our way. We love to share what our leaders love.
Until next time, we’re with you!
— Chris
(for all of us at LeaderSource)
Thank you for this. I have recently taken my leadership knowledge here to strive for better work culture in America. It can be challenging to hold yourself accountable to failures and learn from them. Remembering that God has placed you there because He knows your potential helps tremendously. "You must grant forgiveness in order to feel it." That was a powerful statement.