selecting leaders

I have been doing a lot of reading lately on leadership, perhaps out of expectation (i.e. God's faithful response to our choice to be obedient). Perhaps b/c as I move more in sync with God I am learning just what my specific gifts are, my "fit", if you will.

Perhaps b/c I sense a need for leadership in the position that I am about to step into. This ministry is need of leadership, someone with a clear vision of the future, rooted in hope that with God all things are possible. The ministry needs encouragement and love, those serving need to be boosted and cared for; it needs someone willing to grow it with daily nourishment and stay for the long haul. The ministry needs enthusiasm, a spark of joy. And it needs, desperately needs, leaders.

In Bill Hybels' book, Courageous Leadership, he talks about his criteria selection: The Three C's of Team Selection. They are Character, Competence, and Chemistry. He looks for leaders whose relationship with Christ is secure and growing. He wants people committed to pursuing growth in Christ and that display characterisitics like honesty, willingness to learn, humility, good work ethic, etc. He looks for people who have the ability to do the job and not just someone with the desire. He wants someone who has the gift of teaching if looking for a teacher. And he looks at chemistry, how well does this person mesh with the group that is already assembled. This has got me thinking. What is it that I am looking for when looking to recruit leaders?

It is true I don't want just anyone, yet I want to be open that leaders are built not born and they have to learn and develop somewhere. I want to keep in mind that I am not Bill Hybels running a mega church, but an Early Childhood Ministry. I also, though, don't want to settle simply b/c I "need" to or "can". There has to be a standard, that includes and builds and empowers but that sets a bar of excellence. It's God's accountability and His grace infused. So what do you think are the essentials, the must-haves to be a leader in ministry, especially ministry designed around children/youth? What is it you look for? What is it that you just can't live without in a leader?

hanging up the apron

well, tonight i hung up my waitress apron, though knowing me probably not for the last time. last february i quit my full time job and took a part time job at a church (www.heritageqc.com) b/c i felt the Lord directing me too. actually i had told God in a previous conversation that i finally got it and if he'd open the door i'd walk. when he opened the door, i didn't think i could really go back and "clarify" with God that the door had to include comparable pay and hours and benefits. so to make ends meet i picked up my apron and headed out to bring quality service with a friendly smile.

here are a few things that i will not miss:
- people who order with their mouth full of crackers thus sharing their abundance of mush with me both visually and artistically on my shirt,
- people who are not ready to order after numerous trips to the table, but then become irrate when you are busy attending to other tables, because they are now ready to order,
- going home smelling of sweat, blue cheese and garlic dressing combined with au jus, lemon and smoke,
- finding your tables dirty, customers wanting water, and silverware missing and realizing that the busboy is MIA,
- customers who demand particular service - special attention and care combined with multiple trips but who do not provide a tip commesiarate with service, - moody cooks.

here are some things i will miss:
-customers like the ones i had last Sunday, a three top, who was taking out a couple of his older aunts and had a wheelchair and were an aboslute delight to wait on, but forgot in trying to get her out in the wheelchair to leave a tip. they called back in that night to let me know they'd be back in a couple days with a tip and this past tuesday stopped in and brought me in a ten dollar tip,
-customers like the party tonight of senior citizens that even though i messed up and even though they had to ask me for something more than once where jovial, patient and understanding and direct all at the same time,
-customers who get attached to ya, wish you well, and who when they ask you your story share a part of their life with you, encouraging you, letting you know that no matter how down you may think you are there is always hope.

i think most of all i'm going to miss the girls/women i waitress with. i've worked at this restuarant 5 times since 1994 and i really feel like i made an impact, like my presence will be missed, like i filled a void. of course, knowing me i'll be back at some point, the challenge of fast cash and quick service to people fits my personality: a people person with anti-social tendencies. :)

revisiting my past

i wrote this about eleven weeks ago, almost 3 months ago, end of May, life seemed very uncertain. i had taken a huge risk finaicially and spiritually and wasn't sure just where i'd land and if i'd have any broken bones when i did. i am always amazed at the force at which God sometimes chooses to send us at. personally, i sometimes think God is an closet adrenaline junkie and yet i find him to be the tenderest of lovers.

title: living life on my terms, well sort of

see lately things have been in a swirl. life has changed and taken new directions. some feel so strange and others quite familiar, like i’ve come out of a dark forest and hit a road i used to chase my sister up when we were kids.

and i have to admit that sometimes i wonder what i’m doing, what was i thinking and just how did i get here. and sometimes i get dragged under by the current of what happens if i fail? what happens if i missed the mark again? what happens if i didn’t hear God’s voice? could it be i’m tone deaf or he’s just signally on a different channel and i’ve got the skipper from Gilligan’s Island shouting directions to me?

then i remember that yes this could all be a disaster, the biggest screw up i’ve ever seen. but it’s mine. there’s something empowering about living life rather than letting life live you. you can sit back and let life happen or you can make life happen. it’s cliche, but true. you get to choose. of course that means being willing to get dirty, take risks and be a failure.

you know, be willing to wake up from that nightmare where you are walking down the school hallway in all your glory, but naked, only to discover it is no dream? it’s real life and yes, they are all staring. it’s scary but freeing really too. i mean think how nice it would be to not have to worry about what to wear each morning, whether your shirt got taken out of the dryer or is still in the dark dryer hole wrinkled and clumped up, or if your pants from last summer will still fit or are even in style anymore which if not, means you’ve got to buy more which means money and that the lovely trip to the clothing store where you realize that not only do last summer’s pants not fit but you probably shouldn’t be wearing your winter pants anymore either cus they are a little too snug too and then you leave feeling like the biggest blob of flab and jostling celluite there is.

yeah, i know walking naked down the school hallway has other complications and worries to it, like where to put your money for lunch in the cafeteria. but maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as we thought and maybe it would, but at least we’d have something to tell our grandchildren and make them laugh and think we’re crazy and great rather than that we lived, we breathed and we simply died long before our breath left us.

the skeptic finds hope

i admit sometimes i can be a bit cynical, a closet skeptic, if you will, but recently while reading a book by Bill Hybels I came across this description of the church and well it even gave me goose bumps though i don't like to admit it (truth is i'm just a mushy interior with a slightly thin crust - i'd make a good chocolate bar...hmm..i'm hungry)

There is nothing like the local church when it's working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, the disillusioned. (that's me)It breaks the chains of addictions, frees the oppressed, and offers belonging to the marginalized of this world. Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness.

Can I get an Amen?

on another note - i'm quite disullisioned by my blogger spell check when it doesn't recognize the word marginalized.

christian b*

i waitressed tonight and while waiting on a difficult table who are regulars at the resturant another waitress commented that she felt for me. she refuses to wait on them. i can't say that i have flat refused to wait on them, but i have managed to avoid waiting on them or talk someone else into waiting on them. this family is so difficult that two things have happened at the resturant. the first is that there are few waitresses that will wait on them and secondly, our bosses will tip us when we wait on them. if you have ever waited on tables you know that to get to this point means it is a difficult table.

but as i encountered this family at subway and the kids seemingly latched on as i was kind to them, i have had the privilege to wait on them while their "regular" waitress (about the only one who will, having made it her life's missin to show them a little kindness) was gone on vacation, i have been convicted. shouldn't i be the one to show them a little kindness? shouldn't i who profess to follow the Christ be the one serving them? should they be merely something i avoid or push off onto someone else?

this family is in fact every waiter/waitresses nightmare. the children are under foot and they aren't small children. the youngest has behavior problems. the mother and grandmother (not young) are rude to one another. i have heard very few people speak so rudely and harshly to one another. they are demanding, impatient, petty, and rude to us. they are picky and seem to think you have no other tables and expect perfection. yet they also want to talk to you and visit. they all seemed starved for affectin and love; yet it's hard to offer when the old woman is crochety and short and when the child threatens to bite the mother and the mother threatens and does knock his head into the wall at your booth, and the child literally runs loose and says vulgar things at the counter.

so tonight when it came up i was waiting on them and how horrible that must be, i began to try to explain the "art" of being convicted by God i.e. that if i wanted to confess a certain set of values on sunday i had to hold true to them in the real world. i explained that Jesus said when you did it to the "least of these" you did it to him and i can't not do it. when i first started to say this, my friend said, "and don't you start with that christian bul*s***". she did not mean it nasty or mean; it was simply a statement of fact to her.

and it got me thinking. it is bs if you think about it. to treat others not as they treat us but as Christ would. to our thinking it is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, tit for tat, you get what you give, you reap what you sow. yet Jesus urged us, no commanded us, to love our enemies, do good to those who use us, show love to the unlovable, reach out to those society throws away. to man's wisdom such behavior is bs. but to the Christ it is the message that saves - no one is expendable in His Father's kingdom, all are welcome. it is the beauty of the gospel and bs to man's mind, but if applied, like the mud and spit to the blind man's eyes, it is healing to a world that hasn't seen the light for some time.

common secrets

i'm reading Anne Lamott's book Plan B Further Thoughts on Faith and she writes that "nothing helps like letting your ugly common secrets out." and i wanted to scream - Yes! Yes! - but thought the elderly ladies at the table next to me might be scared into heaven at my sudden outburst. but for me that is it in a nutshell, the vein of my existence. perhaps a bit melodramatic, i realize, but i feel so strongly about it. for as long as i can remember there has been a thought in me that could not be put down adequately into words. anne lamott just sealed it so beautifully for me.

as a waitress i've been able to hone in a skill i call 'inner dialogue'. in fact, to wait on tables you have to have this skill along with a fresh, clean filter that holds your inner dialogue from coming out and causing the customer to cough and sputter. your filter serves to only let words that are fresh and flowering smelling come out regardless of the inner dialogue going on. (i would highly recommend Debra Ginsberg's book Waiting which has made me so aware of what i do each night at the table)

let me give you some examples. when i come to a table and they ask me for sesame bread sticks i have to insist with total sincerity that not only do i not mind coming back to their table for the upteeth time but it would be my heart's desire to bring them back bread sticks that they could have asked me to bring when they asked me to bring them lemons for their water which could have been asked for when they asked for more water which could have been asked for when they asked for a clean glass and have now made this my fifth trip to the table in the last two minutes but hey, whose counting. this sarcasm all remains hidden neath a veil, a thin veil i will admit that is subject at times to being pulled off by the right customer or combination of factors (cooks in foul moods, dishwashers moving too slow, busboys who have disappeared and left tables covered with dirty dishes and missing water pitchers and customers who think they are the only table and the restaurant is their personal home dining room). nor do i communicate any feelings but my deepest apologies to the woman who seems put out because the new girl brought her the wrong size salad plate but who, for our sakes, of course, will manage to eat it though she is clearly not okay. i do not communicate to her amidst her sighs and glares that i would like to see her get up off her rear end and learn an 8 page menu with 2 inserts and remember which sandwiches come with soup, which sandwiches come with soup or salad, which sandwiches you offer just fries or you also give them the choice or zucchini or onion rings or fries or remember which dinner gets the large salad that she is so in need of or get the small salads which she is choosing, despite my many repeated offers to bring her a larger one or offer her something else, to eat. i also do not suggest that she place the salad bowl, salad intact with blue cheese dressing, upon her head as i'm sure it would make for a finer dining experience or at the very least make me feel better. thankfully, my filter functions most nights or at least holds up till i get to the back and can of course share my wounds with those who understand.

but see to put this out there, to say that on any given night i think mean and awful thoughts toward people while presenting an image of a person who is genuinely concerned with their dining pleasure and not simply for monetary reasons is like what we do with so many of our 'secret sins' or 'feelings of shame/regret/failure' or whatever else it is that haunts us or we struggle with. and in the maintaining a spiritual filter we isolate ourselves and give more power to that which we try so hard to break free of. i'm not suggesting we all stand up at the next service and reveal every deep and dark secret and sin but merely that we begin within our own unique communities of friends and families and co-workers to have open and honest discussions about our faith and our failures, both our belief and dis-belief in God, to share our moments of sainthood and be honest about our moments of sinnerness (if that's a word).

i think the world is looking for transparency. i think the world just wants to know that their secrets are shared. i think they want to see our lives as they are, broken and wonderful, good and bad, maybe a faith that struggles, but one that is holding on like Jacob of old and refusing to let go and when they do, i think something inside will holler out in them - Yes! Yes!