The winter months provide unexpected inconveniences in our life – delays, closings, etc.
Each one is an opportunity to slow down; stop the hectic pace and center again: spending time with Abba and quieting our soul.
What if I took advantage of winter’s interruptions?
From Henri Nouwen – We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of silence.
“And so the holidays begin…the season when superficial wants get confused with the deeper longings of the human heart. When giving the latest techno-toy gets confused with giving love. When magical thinking prevails, suggesting that spending money on others or ourselves can somehow make up for whatever else is lacking. ‘Tis the season when the kingdom of consumerism seems to reign, even as the kingdom of God draws near.” – Ruth Haley Barton
As Transformational Leaders you have spent a year practicing the journey to pay attention to the deeper desires of your heart.
As you journey in the midst of the seasonal distress lured prematurely from practicing gratitude to the frenzied scramble for the perfect gift at the lowest possible price, may you be ever drawn closer to Solitude.
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you, I put my trust. Lead me in your truth and teach me…For you I wait all day long. (Psalm 25)
What would it mean for me to be aware this season to the deeper longer for the kingdom of God?
Marcus Buckingham writes in Go Put Your Strengths to Work:
Each of us is at our most creative, our most innovative, and shows our best judgment precisely in our areas of greatest strengths.
As you lean into learning and engaging more with your strengths what are you noticing?
What might be preventing you from approaching your activities from a strengths perspective?
What would it mean to more intentionally approach your activities with your strengths?
Why would does it mean – practically – for me to be INNER-DIRECTED and OTHER-FOCUSED?
Inner-Directed
Other-Focused
How are you seeing some of these characteristics in your life?
What is the impact?
“As change agents we are much more likely to be transformational – that is, truly making room for change – if we are inner directed and other focused.”
What gets in the way of transformation? The more pointed and personal question should be, “Who gets in the way of be transformational?” Unfortunately, we are culprits. Why is that? What holds us back?
Throughout the book the author points us to Jesus as someone who lived truly as a transformational person. And Jesus invites us to that type of life.
Think of ways you have been a detriment to being transformational…
…how have you “gotten in the way of” your spiritual formation?
…how have you avoided being transformational because of fear?
…how has God given you clarity about being a transformational person?
Each day we find ourselves in many different relationships and in those relationships there is a certain environment; defined by Websters as…
: the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded
: the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community
Do we let the environment totally shape our perception or do we bring a certain set of principle that might shape the environment? Who or what shapes our perception, thinking, and ultimately our behavior?
Robert Quinn suggest that transformational leaders have the unique opportunity to “envision and enact a new form of community, one in which ordinary people can generate extraordinary results.”
What would it be like to be a co-creator of a new type of community – where people work with a common purpose for the benefit of all?
It would take people of influence (the common definition of leadership) who by their sheer principled behavior shape productive communities. “When people become members of a productive community they tend to become more inner directed and other focused. They tend to be motivated by a calling that they feel deep within. They make contributions that exceed narrow self-interest…they want to be connected to reality.”
What do I bring to my environment?
How am I contributing to a productive community?
The Module Three Interim Guidelines (dates and assignments) are found on the Link above “Interim Guidelines”
Altering our behavior to reflect what we really value is revolutionary because principle-driven actions tend to be outside the boundaries of exchange and transaction. In normalized relationships, we ask, “What does the group expect?” Around those group expectations we construct a set of rewards and punishment designed to bring conformity.
Engaging in a new behavior based on principle challenges the norms. The person with a moral purpose is usually willing to endure punishment in order to pursue the purpose. Such principled behavior sends the dreaded signal that perhaps “the emperor has no clothes.”
Recall a time when you were aware of what the group expected and knew the consequences if you did not conform?
What would it mean for you to endure some form of punishment (confrontation, challenge, etc.) to pursue your deeper purpose and principles?
As we wrap up the first six months of the Transformational Discipleship journey – Spiritual Foundations: Personal Discipleship – we shared with you that the goal would be that the Transformational Leaders would be transformed to love God more deeply and to love others as they love themselves.
One of them, an expert in the law, tested Jesus with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22)
This is the foundation for the rest of the leadership development program. It is the foundation that we will shape the rest of our time together. It is the foundation that will be given intentional effort as we move forward.
So as you grow more deeply in loving, consider these words from Henri Nouwen:
Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.
Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.
Transformational Discipleship 