Living Souls

With spring bursting open across our mountains, the image of a living soul as a part of our being finds company with other images of new life, blooms budding, grass greening and trees leafing. I am not talking about my soul as something metaphysical that exists apart from my body, but as my heart, my center, my core – what drives me.

In the first week of The Leader’s Soul , we were asked how we recognize soul health and soul neglect, and we began by listening to Jesus’ words in John 15:5:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”

As Willow Creek Association’s Mindy Caliguire reminded us, vines know how to live. They know how to take the nutrients they need from the soil and how to harness the sunlight for new growth. The branches are extensions that grow and are strengthened because the vine is firmly rooted. Severed from the vine, the branches wither and die. They cannot live apart from the vine.

And, as Christians, neither can we. We cannot live the lives God intends for us apart from Christ. But we try. We forget this very clear teaching by Jesus and, instead, we try to live by the strength of our own energy and willpower. And then we are surprised and even hurt when we hit the wall, encounter obstacles, or simply fail. Thankfully, daily, we can confess our brokenness, receive God’s mercy and forgiveness and abide in God’s promises, as we hear them in Psalm 145:16-19:

¹⁶ You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.
¹⁷ The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings.
¹⁸ The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
¹⁹ He fulfills the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them.

Partnering with the LIFT Project

A few weeks ago, Willow Creek Association tweeted out to folks looking for partners to collaborate with them in the next round of classes being offered as part of their LIFT Project. LIFT (Leadership Institute for Transformation) is teaching ministry leaders to learn and lead in ways that are intended to be transformational for ourselves and our ministries. Class began today with introductions and I will be blogging about my experiences as a participant in the LIFT Project.

One of the reasons the project attracted me was because it was a new model for how churches can use social media to talk to people they might not see inside their buildings. Willow Creek is based out of South Barrington, Illinois and I’m almost 700 miles southeast of there, so I don’t think I’ll be darkening the church’s doors this Sunday. While some of my classmates are in Illinois, several more are on the East Coast and in Canada and one is on another continent. Through social media (#chsocm), faith communities can join in conversation about ministry and leadership despite the distance, and it widens that conversation so that we have larger group of us talking asynchronously about the challenges and joys we encounter in ministry.

Another reason I dove into the project is because Willow Creek offered a class called The Leader’s Soul that is focused on caring for ourselves as ministry leaders, recognizing how our health and wellness affects our leadership. Throughout the four years of my seminary education there has been a consistent emphasis on the importance of balancing the emotional, spiritual, financial, physical and intellectual demands and passions in our lives and achieving, or at least pursuing, wholeness in these areas. It remains a challenge and I am excited about the accountability and structure that being part of a class provides.

Last but not least, I like learning! As a distributed learning student at Luther Seminary, I’m comfortable in online learning environments but this course provides me with a new experience in a system other than the one we use for my MDiv studies.  I enjoy the opportunity to think through the elements that strengthen the educational experience and the new perspectives that are brought to the table when you bring people together from different parts of the country and the world.

If you'd like to join the conversation, I hope you'll share how you care for yourself so that you can both listen and lead, too.