When Our Leaders Let Us Down

I’m praying and working to prepare a new teaching for our denomination’s women’s ministry leadership conference this March:

Persevering with Grace When our Leaders Let Us Down: As wonderful as headship is (and it is wonderful!), our leaders are not perfect. No matter how hard they try, their leadership of us will always be flawed. They may misunderstand us, take offense at something we do or say, or simply not like our personality. In their fallenness and sin, they may actually wrong us intentionally. Often, they hurt us most deeply by their neglect—they fail to give us the proactive attention and care we long for. So how do we respond? And how do we lead other women who are hurt by our leaders? This seminar will explore some practical ways that the gospel enables us to persevere with grace when our leaders let us down.

It’s such a hard topic! But one I hear about (and experience personally) on a very regular basis.

Like one example I thought of during church yesterday …

Awhile back, I was really excited about joining a group of women in my church who were working together on a ministry goal. The women were really interesting and loved the Lord–and they had a ton of experience and I was eager to learn from them all.

But then one of my church leaders–a man who really didn’t know me at all–said something to me to the effect of:

“You know, Tara, you’re probably just going to take over that group and ruin it. You’ll be too loud and dominant and think you have better ways of running things and it won’t work at all.”

(Nice, eh?)

Now, of course, even with graceless criticism, there are almost always true and accurate aspects to the criticism. And that’s surely the case here!

I have DEFINITELY gone into many situations and “ruined them” in the past. I was impatient and talked too much. I didn’t encourage others. And yes, in my INTJ-ness, I saw lots of ways to “improve” things and was too quick to share my opinions.

(That’s why Chapter 9 of our book, Peacemaking Women, is my favorite … “Women Leaders with Powerful Personalities”. Ahhhhh. That hits close to home.)

But at the same time, I also know that God IS growing me in grace and conforming me to the image of His Son. God has graciously brought around me wise and gracious church leaders, friends, and a husband, who are all helping to confront, encourage, and sanctify me.

Still … it took a pretty big dying to self to not give up on that church leader after his harsh words. I wanted to run away from him! But then, but then, I REALLY didn’t want to treat him the same way he had treated me. I didn’t want to judge him. I didn’t want to be graceless toward him.

I begged God to help me to treat this man as GOD treated me–with patience and kindness, long-suffering, forbearance, MERCY. Because just like me, just like all of us, my church leader is growing in grace too.

So anyway … I thought I’d give you a little peek into a topic that I’m thinking and praying a lot about these days.

It’s pretty counter-cultural, isn’t it? To love our enemies? And pray for those who mistreat us? Why would we EVER do such ridiculous things?

For this reason alone … God, Who is rich in mercy, has made us alive with Him in Christ. We, who were His enemies, fully deserving His wrath, have been forgiven. Cleansed. Justified. And adopted.

And so we live this life NOT for ourselves, but for Him Who made us and saved us.

These relational sufferings? They are simply the opportunities we have to remember God, suffer and grieve (and, as appropriate, graciously help others to grow too) … but to live for Christ.

I’m praying for all of you dear blog readers! And for every group study of “Peaceamking Women” and “Living the Gospel in Relationships” that I learn about.

With love,
Tara B.

PS
If you (or the people around you) might say that “powerful” is a potential apt description of your personality, in addition to Chapter 9 of “Peacemaking Women”, you might be encouraged and helped by my audio CD, Biblical Hope (and Help!) for Women with Powerful Personalities. It almost always sells out at my events, so I know that I am not alone in this particular aspect of life’s journey.