Being a leader isn’t easy. Sometimes you feel like there’s nobody you can talk to that really “gets it.”
Often it’s extremely lonely. People can think you’re too busy to join something they’re doing, so they never ask. Other times nobody talks about everyday life with you because they feel they need to have some deep spiritual conversation because you’re there. Regardless, you feel on the outside of things.
Leadership is busy. Very true, however we can often feed this perception because we like being busy. There’s something inside us that likes a ton of phone calls, e-mails, and voice mails. We feel wanted – or needed. But this eventually wears off. You start to shut off your phone more, and you may even put on an automatic e-mail reply so you don’t have to respond immediately. In other words, once you actually are busy, you wish you weren’t.
Leadership has some real dangers. There are many, but I’ve been thinking about one danger I want to address here. As leaders, our minds and mouths are used a lot. We think and pray through things and then communicate the vision for where we feel God is taking us. The danger in this? When our mouths are used to such a capacity, our ears often shut down. This is very dangerous. We think we always have something to say when we should probably be listening more than speaking.
May we be humble, having ears to hear what God is saying – directly to us and through the mouths of others.
Chuck Bomar became the planting pastor of Colossae in Portland, OR after more than eight years as the student/university pastor at Cornerstone in Simi Valley, CA.
