Trust Issues?

I've come to realize in my nearly 10 years of doing YM, I realize and own up to the fact that I'm a control freak when it comes to how things get done. If you're reading this and in charge of a group of people, you are either one yourself or you've figured out how to lead people well.

I've been a late bloomer in just about every area of my life. I'm slow to get it, but eventually I come around and grasp things. I try to be a bit more strategic in some of those approaches, but I feel as though I'm finally starting to learn what it means to lead people.

For the first time ever, I took a retreat with my team of volunteers for 2 days to evaluate everything we are doing in ministry. I just finished four years here and aside from monthly meetings have never done such a thing with my volunteers. We had our ministry covered for the weekend and focused on the specifics together. Before I get into that, I'll tell you how it felt.

I knew this retreat was necessary, but I hated it at first. I like the fact that I've planned everything and run our ministry together with me in the driver's seat the last four years. Deep down I knew in order to lead effectively, I'd need to invite others to take the wheel. It also scared me. It meant I may hear things about what we're doing that need to change and for someone who wears his emotions on his sleeves, this may not be easy to take.

When we don't give our volunteers a voice, we begin to lose them. When I started the retreat by saying we were in this together and their voice was just as valuable as mine, something began to happen with us. As we began to break out into small groups and talk about specific areas, I avoided being a group, but floated to hear the conversation.

I found myself overcome with emotion as I began to realize many of my hopes for the future of YM were happening in those groups without my control. Four years of my own voice yielding to people that have great thoughts on the same thing was equating to a more successful team dreaming together.

We had dialogue about what it meant for us to not just be another team that looks at what everyone else is doing, but to dream into the future of YM and be a team that other churches can look upon because we were in this together and thinking in ways that began to look beyond the confines we place on what a "successful" YM looks like. 

Upon the completion of the weekend we had planned an entire year's events with a volunteer taking ownership of each of those events. We had committed together to some changes that needed to happen within us so we can move forward with students. We came home with a sense that we were in this together and we were no longer a group of people hanging out with teenagers, but a team committed to the Kingdom of God focused specifically with a students.

I come away from something like this more convinced that our job is to work our way of a job and trust those that commit week in and week out to the areas that we lead. All the little things that tend to get put aside when we're in control and can now make us a better because I'm no longer the control freak, but just another team player working in the Kingdom with others.

You're loved.

Comments

[moncler netherland]

Very, very nicely done!