I've been placed in high intensity leadership positions since I was in my
teens: leading campus outreach ministry, traveling in singing groups, and then starting and pastoring churches. I've had the privilege of devoting my energies and time to things that I really felt mattered.
But it's amazing how easy it is to lose your way -- even in positions that are really supposed to be about "ministry" ... making a difference in peoples'
lives.
I woke up one day and realized that the life I was living consisted of managing staff, raising money, overseeing building programs ... and preaching sermons on weekends. The direct work of providing spiritual care was non-existent. My life was filled with stress and conflict, because in a church of 600 people, there were 600 different ideas about how the church should
operate. We had strong personalities on staff and in board leadership who didn't see eye to eye, and couldn't always get along. We were growing, but were we growing fast enough? We were preaching the gospel, but was it the "correct enough" gospel? I felt the pressure of expectations and projections. There were many things I loved about my life and many that I hated. Most of all, I felt trapped. If I left, who would do all this "important work"?
I was struggling in my ministry, in my marriage, and with addiction. In 2006 I took a leave of absence, which culminated in my leaving that pastoral role, and moving into work with a Christian recovery ministry. This crisis and transition was painful, but necessary.
There is a quote from Meister Eckhart
that goes like this:
“The outer work can never be small
if the inner work is great.
The outer work can never be great
if the inner work is small."
That is so profound. I think -- from my own experience, and the observation from the work
with many other spiritual leaders -- I would amend the last sentence:
"The outer work can never be LASTINGLY great
if the inner work is small."
Many people find themselves in situations where the outer work seems to be great, but then it falls apart.
Many people find themselves in places where good things are happening, where they are making a difference, and where momentum is building ... but that momentum carries them to places they don't want to be. The pace of life gets too fast, the demands get to be too much, and rather than being a joy, the work -- and life -- becomes a burden.
In my own life, I realized that
my "inner work" was too small to sustain the "outer work" that I was doing.
Lest you think I'm just a wuss, or that I'm being whiny or dramatic, let me say this: I know I'm not alone, and my story is anything but unique.
In the years since I came face to face with
my problems, I've had the occasion to work with hundreds of spiritual leaders ... some pastors, some business and non-profit leaders. Some in small contexts, some in large and high-profile contexts. And they were all there because they were struggling much like I was. Some with addiction, some with other manifestations of burnout or crisis. This issue of a spiritual leader becoming worn out and losing their spiritual warmth, joy, and perspective is so common it's almost a
cliche.
Here's what my own experience in leadership, and working for over a decade with hundreds of other leaders has shown me:
It's easy, when devoting yourself to helping others, to drift into personal spiritual and emotional
self-neglect. It's easy to assume that you're doing better than you are. Your focus on helping others with their needs can distort your perception of how needy you are. To put it another way: It's hard to help others without harming yourself.
Spiritual leadership is offering care and guidance to others in ways that transforms their hearts.
We must avoid thinking of this too narrowly. Of course this is what leaders in spiritual communities do -- but it's done by both the paid leaders, but also volunteer board members and ministry leaders. It's what therapists, coaches, and many teachers do. It's what parents do. It's what spiritually minded people in the workplace do, when they not only coach their direct reports about workplace skills, but also offer support and encouragement about goings on in their lives. It's what
spiritually minded health care professionals do, when they offer care and support for peoples' souls as well as their bodies.
Offering this kind of spiritual leadership is an amazing privilege, but it comes at great cost, and we often forget this. It carries with it a certain amount of stress, requires investments of time and energy, and periodically brings
disappointment when things don't go as we hope. It requires ongoing spiritual care and work on ourselves: to get restored, to maintain our joy, to keep a sense of perspective (not withering under criticism or getting puffed up by the perks or praise).
If a building is going to be big, it needs a strong foundation. If a building is going to last, it needs a solid foundation.
If the outer work is going to be great, the inner work must also be great.
