Paper on Spiritual Leadership... What do you think?

Identity
There are many people that call themselves leaders, some even call themselves spiritual; spiritual leadership for the Christian is a task that must consider, first and foremost the leadership of God, before making any conclusions dealing with technique or application. This brief thesis will consider the leadership of God, the process of leadership formation according to Jesus and the consequences of such leadership as seen in my story of Vibrant.

God’s leadership is presence. The entire biblical record is an account of God’s presence in and with humanity. God decided to create, draw near, to be present with, and continues to be near to us.
We begin our study of God’s leadership with the story of creation found in the first two chapters of Genesis and the first Chapter of John’s Gospel. In each account we find God the creator present in the process of creation. God initiates the process of creating the world and all things in it, and continues to be present by not only creating, but also, relating with the created.

God’s presence is best seen in the relationship between God and humanity, and prior to the fall, humanity with one another. Relationships can only be sustained and grow by being present with those you are in a relationship with. Presence is crucial to our growth from birth to death, and beyond. God was present with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God was present with Adam and Eve even in the narrative of the fall of humanity.

The fall of humanity, found in Genesis 2-3 (and dealt with throughout all of scripture) captures the breaking of the relationship we have with God and one another. The fall of humanity found in Genesis is an act of objectification and consumption. According to the narrative, Adam and Eve objectified the fruit on the tree, consumed what they were forbidden to eat and suffered the breaking of relationship (trust, hope, union) between them/our-selves and God and with one another.

The complexity and simplicity of the creation and the fall of humanity narrative compel me as a leader to take seriously being present with others as God is present with us.

Here's my brief take on the fall of humanity:
God was in relationship with Adam and Eve. Adam was in relationship with God. Eve was in relationship with God. Adam was in relationship with Eve. Eve was in relationship with Adam. There was relationship and connection with the creation and the creator... (Note: “was”) The relationships broke apart in a selfish act of possession and objectification by Adam and Eve and thus, a rejection of God’s presence with them/us. The outcome of possession and rejection intermingle to instigate mistrust between humanity and one another and a tragic rejection of God’s presence with humanity. Humanity rejected an identity forged in relationship and opted to objectify, the forbidden fruit, one another and God. This objectification is best seen in their shame response by the awareness of their nakedness, covering themselves, and hiding from God.

For Adam and Eve the selflessness of relationship was trumped by the selfish act of possessing the forbidden fruit in order to have objects rather than relationships define them. We often use objects; status, possessions, ideas, philosophies and perceptions define us as well. Leaders, especially spiritual leaders, run the risk of focusing on outcomes rather than presence, our values shift from thinking that the means are the ends in and of themselves (presence), to thinking that the ‘end results’ justify the ‘means’ in which we get there. Means and ends seems to be a philosophical exercise, except that we often focus more attention on outcomes, rather than the process/relationships that make us who we are. Relationships according to a biblical understanding of God’s leadership are both the means and the ends.

As spiritual leaders we must value relationships over and above outcomes based on success, financial sustainability, or destination/arrival thinking.

Here's the way I see the ‘value’ narrative played out in scripture: I don't have what I want, therefore I don't know who I am, maybe if I had another 'possession' or ‘object’ I would know who I am. Right? Adam and Eve reached out to be identified by something other than relationship to God, one another and all of creation. The object became the focus, not the relationship (with one another or with God). We seek (and continue to seek) possessions and objects in our culture to define us. The question becomes, what possesses what? Or who possesses whom? Love is not possession. Love is presence.

Spiritual leadership is driven by love, not possession. God’s love for us is best revealed in Jesus’ presence in humanity. Jesus continued to draw near to us, continuing to be present with us, often saying, “I do what my father does,” in other words; Jesus loved out God’s presence in humanity. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s loving presence with us. Spiritual leaders, like every individual on the planet, are not objects of God, nor are people possessions or commodities. The value for the Christian is not perception, pride, or performance driven; the value is being God’s child. As spiritual Leaders we must see ourselves as dearly loved children.

God communicated creation into being, just as we must be present to hear spoken words: we must also be willing to listen to the words that are spoken by God about who we are as God’s dearly loved children (1 John 4). When we know ourselves as dearly loved children, we will no longer live in fear. God’s perfect love drives out all fear. Spiritual leaders must lead others out of their identity as loved children of God and because of God’s love, purged of all fear, guilt, shame, or any other violence.

God spoke creation into being; therefore speaking and language are vital. John 1 states that the Word was God and the word was with God. God is the word, and is present in creation; God’s presence is in relationship to creation. Jesus, according to John 1 was the word that became flesh and dwelt among us. In essence God literally became the relationship that we were meant to have with God all along. Jesus’ identity was rooted in the relationship with the father. Our identity is now, because of Jesus, rooted in the same relationship with God that Jesus revealed to us. The Spiritual Leader, who often has words to express, must be willing to lead with presence, prior to expressing words or ideas. The identity of the spiritual leader established in God’s presence, may take the form of silence rather than voice.

Spiritual leadership is founded on the relationship and new identity we have in God through Christ. Leadership comes out of the spiritual relationship we have with God and one another. Jesus knew who he was in relationship with the father (Abba), his identity was founded, defined and grew from who he knew himself to be, in light of the Father and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our challenge as disciples of Jesus is to know who we are in the same relationship that Jesus had. In fact, our identity is the same identity Jesus had in the world, we are Christ in the world, that is who we are, defined by to whom (God) we belong.

Spiritual leadership for Jesus was being present. There is plenty of theology, ideas, leadership conclusions and techniques that get in the way of the reality that we lead out of our identity as Christ in the world. We would rather learn spiritual practices, disciplines, and techniques than to live into the identity Jesus lived into.

There is a difference between presence and availability. Some theology and leadership styles are rooted in the idea that Jesus was always teaching and preaching, rather than being present in the process of life. A prime example of Jesus being present is when he fell asleep in the front of the boat while the storm raged in Mark 4: 35-40. The disciples, thinking they were going to die in the storm, woke Jesus. Jesus’ presence allowed him the ability to sleep during a storm, heal the hemorrhaging woman, exhibit patience with the disciples, enjoy parties and weddings, endure the cross, and be present through the resurrection.

The difference between Discipleship and Christian Education
Being a disciple is different than being a follower of Jesus. Disciples are willing to be confused, curious, and content in the mysteries of God. Followers on the other hand, often like short answers and easy, non-faith inducing challenges to feel good about their perceived “relationship to Jesus.” Jesus commanded the disciples to go and make disciples, not mere followers or converts. The difference between followers and disciples is most keenly stated in John 6.

Discipleship is the process of giving up your individual comfort values rooted in your identity (conclusions, expectations, and competencies) for the faith inducing (and often painful) experiences of being transformed into Christ-likeness. Discipleship is the transformation of identity. Values shift when we are willing to allow God to transform us, we must want to be like Jesus. God’s love for us will not let us stay the same, nor will God’s love for us tolerate the injustices in the world. We participate in the love, grace and hope of God in the world by being a part of the body of Christ.
We are not merely (just) the hands and feet of Jesus (according to I Corinthians 12:27 NLT), we are Christ’s body on earth, and in essence we are Jesus in the world. Discipleship cannot happen outside the context of Christian community, otherwise known as church. Discipleship is individual growth in Christ in the context of church.

Although there is value and merit to Christian education, history, and theology, it is not the same as discipleship. Christian education often avoids the difficulty and faith inducing challenges of being in community. Christ came to reestablish our relationship to God and to one another. Spiritual formation must go beyond knowledge about Jesus to actually living as Christ. Spiritual formation and discipleship are always in the context of relationship, not solely based on education; therefore any program, strategy or proposal must be contextualized in relationship.
The Spiritual Leader must embody the identity of a disciple, prior to any other ideas of leadership. When the issue of leadership came up for those disciples closest to Jesus, he washed their feet and told them to do like-wise. The first shall be last and the last shall be first rarely resonates with leadership models. Humbleness is a rare attribute of leadership, but necessary according to Jesus. Servant-hood is an essential part of being present. We are called to serve as disciples of Jesus.
Spiritual Leadership according to Jesus is presence through service, acknowledging our identity as God’s daughters and sons, and being willing to have our values transformed are the ways to become greatest in the kingdom.

Servant-hood; however, doesn’t sell many books, nor is it populist to value humbleness. In fact, the value of leadership (spiritual leadership included) is competency, education, technique and pride. Opposite from the biblical narrative, we commandeer leadership values and expectations taught in business and endorse them as Christian. The church rarely celebrates the ones who consistently participate in serving the “least of these.” We celebrate the designers of the programs, the ones who come up with the economically sustainable program that helps people: rather than the ones who ‘love their neighbor’ because that is who they are according to God.
Servant leadership

The greatest among you will be the one who serves, is a lesson that is difficult for us to accept simply because the outcomes are not quantifiable. We are called to serve one another out of love. Love is a commitment to be present in relationship. God’s promise to us is a commitment to be present with us, never abandoning us, participating with us in celebration and despair. Love is presence. We are Christ in the world, meaning Christ is our identity. As leaders we are called to serve others by being Christ.

The redemption of Peter after the resurrection found in John 21: 1-22 is a fascinating glance into the difference between Peter’s emotion and the way we are to participate in servant-hood. Peter’s redemption is directly connected with living out his faith as a leader by being a servant.

Peter’s emotional response to Jesus question about his love for him (Jesus) is striking, in that we must move beyond defining love as a feeling to love being defined as a commitment. Jesus is leading Peter into a restored identity, established in commitment and lived out in service. In order to be a Christian Spiritual Leader we must move from God’s love being only emotive, to a restored identity and lived out in service.

Spiritual Leadership is established in the identity of ‘who’ Jesus is in relationship to God the father, the Holy Spirit, and to all of humanity. We find ourselves in Jesus. We need relationship with God, in order to have relationship with one another (Note: relationship is without the plural, relationships). Our identity will never be found in our ability to lead; only in Christ do we have an identity. Serving alone will not give us an identity either; only in Christ do we have an identity. Jesus’ identity and subsequent leadership was established in his relationship with the Father (God), while continuing to be present in humanity. Divinity wasn’t his only identity, nor was leadership; his primary source of identity was in relationship to the Father (God). In order to lead, we must first recognize our identity in Christ.

Many leaders, even spiritual leaders depend on leadership for their identity, not God. We miss the whole point of servant-hood when we bypass identity and immediately attempt to find ourselves in serving, leading or any other way. Imagine if Peter, feeling guilty for rejecting Jesus three separate times the night Jesus was arrested, tried illegitimately, and sent to Pilate was only motivated by penance and guilt to serve tell others about Jesus? Peter was restored by love in order to serve by Jesus. The motivation Peter felt, prior to his restoration, would be from feeling guilty, ashamed. His perceived need was to perform as the leader he thought he should be because he would feel like he owed God penance, rather than living into a restored identity. Peter’s motivation came from his identity founded on love and, after being restored, living into that love identity through serving, feeding, and being present.

Sources
Most of the books written on leadership fail to address the underlying motivations we have as leaders. More times than not, Christian leadership authors focus attention on technique, how to(s), and performance based philosophies to compel their readers to behave differently, completely missing the point that we are restored by Jesus to be present in order to ‘love’ into our identities as Christ in the world. The traditional disciplines, or practices are encouraged for answering the question, “what does Jesus want me to do today?” as opposed to, “how am I, (motivated) with love being my identity, to be Christ in the world today?” Motivation through restored identity is virtually non-existent in most Spiritual Leadership books due to a conclusion that Jesus wants us to be better people in the world and that we should feel guilty about the cross, our sin and the brokenness of the world.

The measures of success are the primary indicators of motivation; in other words, if you want to know the motivation of a leader you look for what they use to measure success. The ‘Missional’ church’s motivation can be clearly seen in Darrell L. Guder’s book, Missional Church: A vision for the Sending of the Church in North America as understanding the culture, cultivating, calling, and equipping people to go and do something for Jesus, reducing the church to an activity, rather than being Christ in the world. Technique is often a disguise of the motivation of power and control of an organization. Although technique can be helpful in discussions about organizations there is absolutely, positively, no benefit to technique if the only value is numerical growth and financial gain. The value of a new identity in Jesus is being, love(d). Love must be the identity that compels us, who we are in light of who God is allows us to be, as Jesus would put it, “Salt and Light in the world.”

OFF-ROAD Disciplines: Spiritual Adventures of Missional Leaders by Earl Creps screams (upper case font in the title) that the Spiritual Leader must be relevant in the post-modern church and post-Christian culture in order to navigate the changes that are inevitable for the leader in order to remain ‘in power’ by using the very disciplines to simply ‘be’ with God. According to Creps the motivation is for the leader to figure out how to wrap spiritual language around technique in order to disguise the need power and control of an organization. Note: Most books that use the word ‘Missional’ in the title are merely an attempt to maintain the structures that be, by adopting ‘relevant’ language so that power and control can resume. Creps attempts to describe the spiritual practices as pathways to God for individuals and organizations; however, it’s difficult not to see the motivation is to manipulate people to do what they are supposed to in an organization.
Most Christian Leadership books written on the subject of implementing Spiritual Disciplines end up highlighting the disciplines as performance for God or focused on tangible outcomes. Campolo and Darling’s collaborative work THE GOD OF Intimacy AND ACTION: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism, and Justice is a prime example of ‘if, then” theology. The book’s author’s basic premise is that if we practiced the spiritual disciplines more, then we would be more prone to act Justly in the world. This farce seems to lead the reader to, yet again fall prey to the idea that if I were a better person, performing better practices, then I would be a better person in the world. The practices are valuable in that we more know who we are by spending time with the source of our identity.

Tony Campolo reiterated performance and guilt-ridden motivation during our face-to-face time in class. We are called to be Christ in the world, not pretend or behave how we think God wants us to. We cannot behave, we must be. God’s love for us is freedom, not a new set of rules for us to follow and therefore get others to assimilate to (evangelism). We must live into our identity as new creations, transformed by Jesus. Leaders who are not transformed and don’t know who they are will continue to preach ‘if, then’ theology. Guilt and shame may work momentarily to get people to behave differently: however, the motivation will quickly die (or needful of semantics change) in order to remain relevant.

The king of changing semantics in the Christian sub-culture is none other than Leonard Sweet. Although Sweet, in other literary works, is fascinated by ‘word-smithing’ new words into being for Christian leaders to wrangle with, The Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church that he wrote with Frank Viola is actually helpful to the identity motivation this thesis is attempting to draw attention. The Jesus Manifesto is primary to our understanding of who Jesus is, and makes a strong case that the church has fallen away from Jesus, and therefore, must be Christ in the world. The value of such a document is that God invites us back to discipleship, transformation, and identity through it. Sweet and Viola simply state truth, the consequences are significant if we move away from ‘how to’ techniques, performance values and success motivation and embrace our identity as Christ’s loved daughters and sons. Moving away form technique demands that we let go of our perceived outcomes. “If” we value business success models outcomes, “then” we will be forced to perform to the standards, motivated by our desire to achieve: however, living into our identity as Christ in the world we are made complete, by the grace of God. The Jesus Manifesto gives us a mirror in which our motivation is reflected back to us, according to Paul the mirror is darkly in 1 Corinthians 12: 13. Our values and motivations are not only reflected to us, but our values and motivations are reflected in the world in which we are called to live as Christ. No wonder our world sees through our motivation to an identity that is founded on performance, not as Christ, The Jesus Manifesto is helpful as a mirror.

The small but thought provoking book written by Tony Campolo, Which Jesus?: Choosing Between Love and Power is another helpful book to help us see our motivation and identity. The Jesus that we choose to follow is also the Jesus that we choose to emulate. Spiritual Leadership is founded on an identity; the book captures the idea that we might actually be following, emulating and identifying ourselves with the Jesus of power, rather than Jesus who embodied love. The motivation for some leaders, especially spiritual leaders is often power, not love. Those leaders who choose power over love are often paraded, celebrated and admired for their accomplishments and successes. While a loving leader’s value is established on a clear identity, founded on love and motivated by presence.

Although the book, Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony deMello, was not assigned for the class on leadership, it has had a profound impact on my life and ministry. deMello actively pursues the sources for our motivation and concludes that our primary motivation is that we are addicted to power. In fact he states on the last page of the book:

What kind of feeling comes upon you when you’re in touch with nature, or when you’re absorbed in work that you love? Or when you’re really conversing with someone whose company you enjoy in openness and intimacy without clinging? What kind of feelings do you have? Compare those feelings with the feelings you have when you win an argument, or when you win a race, or when you become popular, or when everyone is applauding you. The latter feelings I call soul feelings. Lots of people gain the whole world and lose their soul. Lots of people live empty, soulless lives because they are feeding themselves on popularity, appreciation and praise, on “I’m o.k., you’re o.k.,” look at me, attend to me, support me, value me, on being the boss, on having power, on winning the race. Do you feed yourself on that? If you do, you’re dead. You’ve lost your soul. Feed yourself on other, more nourishing material. Then you’ll see the transformation…

Our motivation as leaders, more times than not, come from being perceived a certain way by others. Spiritual Leadership according to God is being present, living out our love (d) identity, and serving others. deMello challenges our motivations and, more importantly, our conclusions we have made about who we are to be as leaders. Spiritual Leaders, like any leaders are more times than not motivated to continue leading, not out of calling, but out of accolades. The challenge for us is to remember our identity in love and, although affirming at times, accolades have their place they cannot be our motivation.
The biggest challenge to leadership is power. Our job as leaders is to love, be present, and experience life with our people. The more expectations we have on people (even ourselves) the further away we are from our identity. When we depend on anyone other than God for our identity the only path will be performance, self-absorbed, and co-dependent relationships. Once we are aware of our identity in Christ, as Christ in the world we no longer need to be liked to know who we are. Christian Spiritual Leadership is founded on the love of Christ not power, control or techniques.
Vibrant’s History in Brief
In the summer of 2004, Vibrant Covenant Church began in east-side urban Portland with the goal of being community to one another and Christ in our neighborhoods as described in Acts 2:42-47. We started with a young, mostly twenty-something group of nine transplants from First Covenant and Trinity Covenant (Salem) who were abundant in passion, vision, and energy, but short on financial resources.

The collective vision was to be a church that centered on small community groups (C-Groups) that would be the hub of caring for one another and the community at large. These groups started in August of 2004, and have currently grown to five groups of eight to ten people that meet weekly in homes and public places across urban Portland. C-groups not only focus attention on the Bible through questions from the previous week’s gathering, but also on praying for one another and serving with one another once a month in a ministry of compassion at food banks, shelters, and schools.

Our preview services started in September 2004 with 55 people (consisting mostly of supportive friends and family from other congregations) and concluded in November 2004 at Sunnyside Environmental School with 19 participants. During that three-month period, we engaged the community door-to-door and served the school through work projects to build momentum and raise awareness about our upcoming weekly gatherings. In December of 2004, we began meeting weekly at the Sunnyside location. Due to the expense of rent with the Portland School District and the immense workload on a small number of committed participants, we collectively made the decision to meet in First Covenant’s basement space during the spring of 2005 in order to grow our base and focus on becoming a sustainable ministry.

Initial attempts to raise awareness and publicity in the neighborhood were met with opposition in the form of “hate mail” and public efforts to engage the city to prohibit us from displaying directional signage to our gathering. However, we did experience slow growth via word of mouth and through an online presence, which has brought us 33 active members and 50-55 regular attendees. These attendees reflect our initial core- group of young, transitional and financially strapped individuals. Many in our congregation work in helping professions (medical, education, social services), have or are pursuing graduate degrees, and are actively involved in the outdoors and/or the arts.

In 2006 and 2007, many of our ministries were launched with lots of energy, but lacked the resources to fully live into the vision that we had for them. Our members became exceedingly weary and disheartened. In early 2008, we experienced additional hardship due to the surprising departure of our church chair and a part-time worship staff member. Our community felt their absence deeply and grieved family members who we believed to have shared our vision and values. Thanks to God’s grace, our community has healed over time. Recently, we have had two of our young families move out of state to complete medical fellowships and some of congregants have lost employment, further stressing our tight financial stability.

Despite these difficulties, we have sustained a number of solid ministries, including Children’s Ministry, JAC, Worship and C-groups. Vibrant continues to have a unique voice in Portland. We are devoted to Christ and care for one another, yet still desire to be active in Portland life. We are unusual in that we reach the population that is most unreached by the Church as a whole: twenty and thirty year olds, many unmarried and without kids. We differ from other young Portland churches in our commitment to endorsing women in all aspects of ministry, downplaying an entertaining gathering and physical structure, and our intentionality in doing life together. Our story began five years ago in the hearts of a few individuals.

Today, many in our congregation can’t imagine life apart from the Vibrant community.

Practical Outcomes
Being a disciple is different than being a follower of Jesus. Disciples are willing to be confused, curious, and content in the mysteries of God. Followers on the other hand, often like short answers and easy, non-faith inducing challenges to feel good about their perceived “relationship to Jesus.” Jesus commanded the disciples to go and make disciples, not mere followers or converts. The difference between followers and disciples is most keenly stated in John 6.

Discipleship is the process of giving up your individual comfort values rooted in your identity (conclusions, expectations, and competencies) for the faith inducing (and often painful) experiences of being transformed into Christ-likeness. Discipleship is the transformation of identity. Values shift when we are willing to allow God to transform us, we must want to be like Jesus. God’s love for us will not let us stay the same, nor will God’s love for us tolerate the injustices in the world. We participate in the love, grace and hope of God in the world by being a part of the body of Christ.
We are not merely (just) the hands and feet of Jesus (according to I Corinthians 12:27 NLT), we are Christ’s body on earth, in essence, we are Jesus in the world. Discipleship cannot happen outside the context of Christian community, otherwise known as church. Discipleship is individual growth in Christ in the context of church.

Although there is value and merit to Christian education, history, and theology, it is not the same as discipleship. Christian education often avoids the difficulty and faith inducing challenges of being in community. Christ came to reestablish our relationship to God and to one another. Spiritual formation must go beyond knowledge about Jesus to actually living as Christ. Spiritual formation and discipleship are always in the context of relationship, not solely based on education; therefore any program, strategy or proposal must be contextualized in relationship.
My spiritual leadership journey has taken me on quite the faith inducing adventure as of late. I feel hopeful in ministry with an underlying sense of fatigue. Long gone are the days of deep passionate experiences of elation in relationship to Jesus. Now, I find myself sensing God’s presence in the everyday and mundane. Until four or five years ago I based my faith on how close I felt to Jesus. Now, I know that Jesus is close, however, I have a sense of grief and loss over the “all is right with the world” euphoria I experienced in my youth. I’m becoming more familiar with recognizing the areas that God wants to change in me, rather than a continued experience of giddiness’.

The last five years I have struggled through differentiating my egocentric need to perform to my standards and a messiah that has plans for me to relinquish my rights of being who I want to be perceived as. Five years ago my wife, Stacy, and I planted a new church called Vibrant on the east side of Portland. I never knew how much of a struggle it would be to start a church. We had limited resources and only 9 under 25-year-old core group members. As I leaned into what I thought would be the “next new thing in Portland” I found that what God wanted was to grow us in depth, not numbers. I have come to the end of my competency over and over during this process of maturity.

I had the naive and prideful notion that I would become a ‘rock star’ preacher that everyone would want to come and hear on Sundays, not knowing that God would change my values of preaching. I wanted to ‘be a player’ on the stages of conferences and brag about all that God had done through me. I realize, now, that it has been God’s grace to value what ‘is’ rather than what ‘will be’: however, it has been a painful process to have my pride revealed in it’s raw and immature form.

I’m beginning to understand myself as loved by God rather than the one in whom God finds great joy in disciplining. The exercise of faith it has required for me to lead a congregation of 20-somethings has been exhausting. Over the last five years we have thought about every way to ‘be’ church; however, the commitment it takes to ‘be’ church must be palpable. I have had my life threatened, resignation demanded, and blamed for a myriad of issues in relationship to Vibrant. There have been core leaders that chose to leave poorly and in turn draw out others with them in their wake.

The leadership team is comprised of 9 people all under the age of 30, none of which have ever been a part of any other church (other than youth group). My role has been one of ‘cat herding.’ At any moment we can go off on a tangent and never come back to the tasks at hand.

The main reason for me to explore a Doctorate of Ministry in Spiritual Formation and Leadership is because I need some stability in my spiritual life. My acceptance into the program came shortly after the congregation’s bank account reached $1200. I know that my position as the pastor of Vibrant is temporary, however, I didn’t expect, nor did I realize that we were in such dire straights until the financial officer called me last August.

Although we weathered the storm of a potential financial demise, we still are in the midst of asking serious questions about our identity and the ownership by the congregants of our church. I desire new language to wrap around our Vibrant experience and I believe that I need new language to understand God more fully. The gift of a program like this, for people like me, is palpable in my everyday life.

I am hopeful in my spiritual journey today. I am aware of my tendency to become numb to my experience by disengaging, becoming angry with the congregation for not letting me be a ‘rock star’ or being frustrated with God’s absence. I feel ready to do something different, new and challenging in my life in Jesus.

Spiritual Leadership for me is being present with the people God has entrusted to my care, and I am entrusted to their care. I live Spiritual Leadership best when I am aware of my motivation to me Christ. To be a Christian Spiritual Leader I must ask questions, holding on to identity and allowing the process of responsibility take hold in people’s lives. As I lead leaders, I rely heavily on being present; realizing that being present may actually be one of the most difficult things to live into.

I was surfing down in Malibu California a few months ago. When I was in the water I was thinking about all the things that needed to be done at Vibrant, at home and everywhere else. I don’t know how much time passed while I was worrying, but at some point, when I ‘woke’ up sitting in the ocean on my surfboard, I decided to scratch “Be Here Now” in the surfboard wax, to remind me of being present.

As I grow into a being Christ identity, I am aware of how difficult it is to not be motivated by power, success and outcomes. At this point in time I am content asking questions about who we are and letting go of outcomes. Performance is becoming less of a desire as I lean into my identity as a love (d) son, adopted by grace, to be Christ in the world. My need for affirmation has also been shaped by this awareness that now, when someone complements me on a sermon delivery, I immediately think to ask, “what will you take away today?” The accolades of the past seem so foreign in light of my experience with Vibrant. Being the designated Spiritual Leader also demands that I be a learner. Gone is the idea that I am a pied piper, leading the march to go see Jesus. Now I address that Jesus is present with us, His promise is to never leave us or forsake us. We believe into that promise, exercising our faith that God is with us, always.

Ever-presence relating to God is a powerful idea that corresponds with our new identity as Christ in the world. We live in the freedom that we are loved. Our value comes from with in. If we believed that we are truly loved, we would be Christ in the world, we couldn’t help it.

As the appointed spiritual leader of Vibrant, I get to affirm the identity of other leaders in the context of grace and love. I get to proclaim freedom for the oppressed, draw near, without fear, to those that are hurting, broken and who despair, simply because that is who I am in Christ Jesus. Affirming that same identity in those whom I get to share life with is an honor, and everything… and I mean everything… is gravy!