One of the greatest challenges I have faced over the years as a leader is leading in those times when I don’t feel like leading. You may have never come to that moment, but having been in some leadership capacity for more than three decades, I have found times come when I just don’t feel like leading. For me those times have been during discouraging times, during times of grief and loss, and during times when I’m simply wiped out from days and sometimes weeks of pushing without a break. We’ll devote a post to each of those kinds of times, because something tells me I’m not the only one who has experienced them and felt like giving up or at least taking a break from leadership during them.
Today, let’s address leading during discouraging times. Probably the single, longest discouraging time when it comes to leadership for me was the period from 2003-2008–yes it was a long time of discouragement. The time came when we moved our worship services from the small, comfortable church building in Ivywood to the massive (by comparison) auditorium at Knoch High School. We made the move because we had outgrown the tiny Ivywood property, and since our mission was to share the new life of Jesus Christ with the world–one person at a time, we knew we weren’t going to be able to reach more people even in our own community and region with the limitations we faced there. The leaders assumed we would lose some people in the transition, since it wasn’t common in our community for a church to meet in a school, and we already had a “church” property, but we saw fulfilling our mission as worth it. We were worshiping about 225 people per weekend back then, and I assumed we would lose about thirty people to the transition.
When we moved our attendance dropped immediately to about 170 people per weekend and then over the next year or so it dropped to a low of about 150. That meant during a two year period we lost 25% of our people, and we didn’t seem to be gaining many new people–the reason we had made the transition in the first place. During that extended period of time when we didn’t seem to be reaching new people, and many of our established folks were no longer with us, I became discouraged. At times, and those times were quite often, I felt like quitting. During that time I forced myself to remember one of the principles that has helped me countless times over the years: doing what feels good in the short run will not serve you well in the long run. Especially since I serve as the leader of a church, the tendency could be to lead from emotion or feelings first, because many times spiritual experience doesn’t feel good. The truth is many times obeying God does not feel good.
Many times over the years from 2003-2005 in particular, I found myself feeling discouraged, feeling like quitting, feeling that starting New Life had been my idea and not God’s idea. Have you ever been in such a situation? Have you ever felt for an extended period of time that the business, church or other organization you were (or are) leading wasn’t going to make it? During that time when the feelings of discouragement came, I looked at the facts. Sometimes that didn’t help. The metrics of the situation showed a failing cause on the surface: fewer people, fewer people trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord, fewer people being baptized… The folks who remained with us weren’t always as enthusiastic as they had been when New Life began. It was easy to find things about which to complain: we didn’t have a building to use during the week, so everything became more challenging. The auditorium was often cold, and the sound wasn’t great in addition to the problem of it seeming to be so massive with its 750 seats and only 150 of us sitting in them.
To be honest, all that meant I spent more than a little time wondering whether we would be around in a month or a year. I wondered what we had done wrong, and occasionally even whether the move had been a mistake. During that time two key realities kept me focused and moving forward through the discouragement: the mission of New Life and faith. I knew God wanted us to reach more people who didn’t know Jesus. I knew God wanted us to focus on becoming a church that would serve as many of those people as possible in our community and region in Jesus’ name. I knew New Life was going to become a church of influence over time, so I had to exercise faith. After all faith is the assurance of things we hope for, and the conviction of things we don’t yet see.
Faith is an easy truth to consider, and sometimes a difficult one to exercise and live in times of discouragement. Thankfully, faith is a spiritual gift as well as a component of every believer’s life, so I prayed for God to increase my faith and He did. Slowly, but surely, we experienced some victories in our life together. Some were small, such as when a new person or family would join us. Some were large, such as when we were able to purchase a twenty acre plot of land in 2005. Each victory showed us that God was with us and that He wanted New Life to exist. Those moments gave me the ability to press forward even though I often still didn’t feel like it.
As I look back on that extended period of discouragement today, I’m so grateful to God for His encouragement, and for the encouragement and perseverance of so many folks who also believed in New Life’s vision and stayed with us through those difficult years. As I noted in a previous post, if we think we’re leading but no one is following, we are only taking a walk. I thank God that a group of dedicated folks continued to follow my leadership as I followed Jesus during those discouraging times. I pray that you have some folks like that surrounding you when the discouraging times come in your life. I say when the discouraging times come, not if they come, because discouraging times come to all of us. Always remember during those times that feelings are a poor anchor. Continue to be guided by your mission, your core values, your culture and most of all by God. Then whatever the outcome you will be able to lead through discouragement.
Here’s to leading better by remaining anchored in what really matters during times of discouragement–today or the next time discouragement comes!