Leadership that heals & doesn't enable?
From going through the process of adopting a older child, one of the most powerful things our family has learned is the idea of 'being an enabler'. We learned (sometimes the hard way) that some behaviors we thought were cute or loving were actually sometimes cute and loving, but sometimes they were actually good old fashioned manipulation used to avoid an uncomfortable situation that really needed to be dealt with. To enable someone means you make it possible for them to be able to do a certain behavior or to think a certain way. Through how you interact with them, what you say, what you encourage or discourage in them, etc, you make it possible for them to grow in a good and healthy direction. The opposite is also true in that you can can also encourage them to move along a path that is unhealthy or even bad or sinful through what you say, do, accept, etc.
When you think about being a leader in the church, what are things that you see in yourself or in other leaders to that paves the way for (or enables) good following/followers? And vice versa, what are some things that you see that enable people in church to continue in a lifestyle of sin or perhaps at least 'ignorant bliss' about their non-Christlike lifestyle?
posted by Wade Poe at 5:48 AM
2 Comments:
Feelings need to be experienced and acknowledged but controlled....be angry and sin not is our guide from scripture. As human beings emotions that are just supressed often times harbor resentment , and grow to abnormal proportions. Finding healthy, Godly ways to deal with emotions is the challenge.
Hmmmm...what would controlled anger look like to you? Would Jesus clearing out the temple with a whip be a situation that he needed to control and find a healthy, Godly way to express his emotions? When Paul defended himself and his ministry in 2 Corinthians 10 and told the Galatian Judaizers that they ought go all the way and cut their 'manhood' off - do you get the sense that he was being too forceful?
And what about when something wrong is happening or an outright untruth or lie is being told and everyone is simply sitting on their hands and need to see and hear the seriousness of the situation?
I remember watching a news clip (with the sound turned off) of Bill Clinton on tour in Africa while still president. There was a large gathering of people and from what I saw, it looked like people were crowding him and getting too close and he (and the guards around him) were yelling and forcefully pushing on and against people for a few moments. My initial reaction was - what a jerk! Why would he act that way? So I went over and turn the sound up and heard that he saw in the pressing crowd a woman was knocked down and being trampled on and he and his guards where desperately trying to get people's attention so they could help the woman.
Way to often we hear reactions of emotion (anger and otherwise) and assume we know better how that situation could have been handled. What we don't often know is that there is a whole other perspective that we are ignorant about and that if we knew it, we'd be really embarrassed that we so judged.
How do you think most people watching Jesus would have perceived his actions in clearing the temple?
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