Resolve To Grow

The Status Quo is the leader’s enemy.

We can never take for granted that the same thing that we’ve been doing is going to keep working, or that the newest methods are going to fall flat.  We can never be complacent with our level of expertise, knowledge, or wisdom.  

It’s very difficult to grow in the day-to-day of leading.

But we have to.  It’s hard to eek out time to read, reflect, and scrutinize what we do when we are in the middle of it, or when what we really want to do is take a day off or spend time with our loved ones.  

The hardest part of growing is changing.

When we read and reflect and do all those things that lead to growth, we have to have the courage to carry through.  Sometimes that leads into strange new territory.  Change is almost always scary.

We have to make time to grow.  

The rest of the world is going to continue to grow.  People around us are continuing to grow.  The organizations that we work for are continuing to grow.  We have to grow to.

This year I resolve to grow.  By the grace of God, I will make time to reflect, listen to God, read, and change where I need to.  I pray that God gives me the courage to change when He calls for it, and to go faithfully wherever He leads me.

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today

Matt

The Change Agent

I know a lot of people who believe that they are the defining element in the lives of young people.


I hope this isn’t you.

As a youth worker, and as a developer of young leaders, if we’re not careful we can somehow get the idea that we are the change agents in the lives of young people; and nothing could be further from the truth.

We have no power to truly change a person. Most people would tell you that a person will only change if they want to, and to an extent, I would agree with them.

But to another extent, I wouldn’t; mainly because our God is bigger than any person, and having made us, He can certainly change us. I am a living example. I was not what you would call a people person before my conversion. Even after my conversion, you probably would have found in painful to be in my presence for any length of time, but not more painful than I would have found it.

By the grace of God, I am no longer as introverted as I used to be, and not from my trying to become an extrovert. I fought God tooth and nail every step of the way of my introversion.

What I’m trying to say here is don’t get cocky. God may be using us to affect the lives of many youth, but it is God, not us, that in the end is the Agent of Change. Their success is due God. Their change is due God. You are but another faithful servant that God uses to bring this about.

So the next time that you find yourself surveying your little kingdom and start mumbling something like “his success is due to me,” or “look at the affect I’m having on such-and-such a person,” remember a certain Chaldean king and the time God humbled him by driving him into thinking he was a wild animal. I’m just saying.

Training Tomorrow’s Leaders Today,

Matt