Three Qualities of a Transformative Church
Hi friends! I’m excited and humbled to step into this new role in which I have the privilege of bringing my heart before you here on a more consistent basis.
Within this capacity, my promise to you is that I will offer you my truest self, even when circumstances and feelings and questions can’t all be tied up at the end with a pretty bow. Because I value authenticity. And because I believe with my entire soul that the discomfort of loose ends and unanswered questions is one of the places Jesus waits to encounter us most profoundly and sweetly, if our eyes and heart are open.
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That said, here is my right-now reality: my husband and I have just picked up our entire lives, our two children, our dog, and our ball python (yeah, really), and moved across the country, from Denver to North Carolina where I grew up. And while I’m thrilled to be near my parents, and so excited about our new home, I’m also desperately missing my Colorado church family. Already.
In contemplating the reasons for the intensity of this aching for them, I’m realizing that though my time with them was short – only just over two years – it was profoundly healing. Though I’ve been in various forms of ministry my entire adult life, there was something rare and precious, at least in my experience, about this church family and the environment they have cultivated.
So, since most of us lead or influence people in some capacity – in a church context, within a home, on social media or among a circle of friends – I wanted to share with you these facets of my Denver church family that I now realize I never again want to live without.
1. They cared more for my soul than for what I could contribute. They got to know me, took an interest in my family, gave me time to develop friendships, held space for me to share my story and just to be. The leadership repeatedly expressed a desire to be sure that my heart was okay after a recent traumatic experience before asking me to step into any leadership role—worship or otherwise.
2. Once I had begun to move into a couple of leadership roles, here’s what I saw about the culture of the church: no one – no one – was threatened by me. Not remotely. The worship pastor was not intimidated by my gifting as a worship leader, was not threatened when folks in the church enjoyed my leadership. The ladies in the women’s group I co-led, even (and especially) ladies who’d led the group previously, told me repeatedly how grateful they were for my leadership, verbally pointed out specific facets of my leadership that had transformed the atmosphere of the group, etc. Those girls could not have affirmed my leadership this way without a deep sense of security in Jesus and just an okayness in who they were, in their identity, in their place on their own journey.
3. The rootedness they all demonstrated in outwardly enjoying and affirming me? That security was expressed in large part because of a leadership team who exuded that culture. A leadership team who knew their own strengths and weaknesses and were okay with all of them. Who understood Christ’s utter acceptance and enjoyment of them right where they were on own their journeys, and were able to extend that total acceptance and delight to those Jesus put before them.
That leadership team and those friends watched me enter their church family weak, grieving, deeply shaken. They loved me and held safe space for me through my insecurity, into healing, and on into a new place of confidence, courage, and wholeness I’d never previously imagined.
And the thing is: I’m not even sure they knew they were doing it. They were just being themselves. They were at rest in God’s enjoyment of them. In His faithfulness to continue His process, both inside of them individually and within the church body. They were okay with not having “arrived,” with having a ways to go yet; and their rest in God freed them up to create this culture where genuinely celebrating others was the norm.
Those guys naturally lived the reality of Robert Ingersoll’s quote, “We rise by lifting others.” There was zero fear that another’s success would diminish their own.
And by default, in that culture of rest in God and celebration of one another, souls were formed. Leaders were grown. Hearts were profoundly healed.
Gosh I’m grateful to have been one of those.
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Have you experienced any of these qualities in leadership before, either within or outside of a church context? What was its impact on you? Feel free to share in the comments if you’d like, or just ponder. Either way, we’re so glad you’re here.
—Dana