I hope this is helpful to you. Inside this e-mail is today’s “Encouragement Note.” My intention is to publish one of these every other Monday. Each note will contain thoughts, quotes, and suggestions. At times, I will simply be communicating to you what I have read or a podcast I heard.
I see myself as ordinary. As I write, I particularly have in mind other ordinary people - perhaps like you. In fact, if we were in the same room, the following is what I might share with you today. I am writing because I value who you are as a church leader, a business person, or simply as a follower of Jesus. Many of us are just trying to navigate life in a whirlwind of challenges.
Each issue will offer “The List of Five.” Maybe you will find a take-away that is encouraging or helpful. (In case you missed it, you just might enjoy the two minute fifty second audio clip above.)
The List of Five
These five have been on my mind during the last two weeks. Hopefully, at least one of these will be encouraging and/or helpful.
1. Study those who invest their lives well. This principle is valuable for men, women, mothers, fathers, ministers, church leaders, business people and others who are simply trying to navigate life. I have been positively impacted by various people who have navigated the following areas well:
Emotional maturity. I know people who bring calmness and clarity into most any situation they are in. Whether in a meeting or conversation, they manage to keep from taking on the emotional anxiety around them. They invest well in their own emotional maturity. They seem to react very little or allow their own internal anxieties to control them.
Yet, when we don’t pay attention to our own emotional maturity, we may generate anxiety that will spread and even escalate the anxiety of others. “. . . if leaders neglect taking time to resolve issues, to plan, to understand each other’s thinking, or get themselves into anxious patterns, their relationships will generate unresolved anxiety that cannot help but spread throughout the congregation” (Roberta M. Gilbert, Extraordinary Leadership, p. 21)
Consider making your own list of five people who model emotional maturity. These are people who regularly bring a non-anxious presence to various situations.
Spiritual growth. Who do you know who are normal, ordinary men and women and who nurture their souls well? Perhaps these are people who have tended to their own souls much like a gardener tends a beautiful garden.
I think for example of Liz Ziegler (Waco) who learned that she had cancer. She had nurtured her own soul for decades. Now her concern, upon learning this news, was that God might be glorified in her cancer. Perhaps nurturing spirituality involves ordinary, otherwise non-impressive service of some kind. Doing this kind of service is an investment in our own Christ-likeness. Note the list of ordinary people Eric Gentry mentions near the conclusion of a recent sermon in Memphis. (See the audio below at 19:00 time):
Relationships. Think about the relationships within your own family. I was in the office of a friend. He had a child in college and one in high school. At the time, my own children were much younger. We had been visiting in his office and were about to leave for lunch. His wife called and they talked briefly for a few minutes. He asked a specific question about each child, indicating that he knew exactly what was going on in each child’s life. I was impressed with how well connected he seemed to be to each of them. I wanted to be that kind of father.
Can you think of people in your life who really seem to invest well in their relationships? Perhaps they are intentional about connecting with others.
Soul Care
“Often, symptoms of soul neglect include self-absorption, shame, apathy, toxic anger, physical fatigue, isolation, stronger temptation to sin, drivenness, feelings of desperation, panic, insecurity, callousness, a judgmental attitude, cynicism and lack of desire for God.
Some symptoms of soul health would be love, joy, compassion, giving and receiving grace, generosity of spirit, peace, ability to trust, discernment, humility, creativity, vision, balance and focus. Even our energy for work emerges naturally from the overflow of a deepening life with God.” (Mindy Caliguire, Discovering Soul Care, p. 14)
2. “The World Needs Less of Your Opinion and More of Your Help.” (Carey Nieuwhof) I saw this posted recently and immediately connected with this sentence. If you pay attention to social media, you will find plenty of opinion and outrage. Instead, why not focus on how you might be more helpful to others? What if we spent less time and energy expressing outrage and more time being helpful to one another?
One of the most valuable gifts that we can give to another is our willingness and availability to help or bless in some way. Some possibilities:
Offer a co-worker a hot cup of coffee.
Send an interesting article or post to an acquaintance who has a similar interest.
Help that person who is attempting to move all those boxes to the other office.
Pick up a piece of trash from the parking lot at work or church.
Text a business acquaintance or someone from church to just say “hello.”
Send someone a picture of a mouth-watering dessert just because you know that seeing this would bring that person delight.
Choose to smile at ordinary people doing their everyday jobs, even when you don’t feel like it.
Give a genuine compliment to a person whom you might otherwise be tempted to take for granted.
Encouragement is not just about what others do for you but it is also what you might do for others. This kind of helpfulness not only blesses others but serves to shape us into becoming more Christ-like. Am I helping others in practical, hands-on ways?
3. Ministers/Church leaders/Church folks — you may be doing more good than you think! For example, showing up at funerals, weddings, and other special events can be a way of forming a first time connection with another or reconnecting with someone again. These events are often far more significant than we might think. It is not necessary so say anything profound or memorable. Simply being present and engaged in this moment can be so significant to another.
An older couple had just become a part of our congregation. The husband was a writer and had been much of his life. One day, I preached and he met me in our foyer afterward. He expressed appreciation for that particular sermon. He then told me about his son, an officer in the United States Marines who had been killed in Vietnam during the war in June 1968. He told me of the day in which he learned his son had died. The minister from his church came by and told him that “God has planted another flower.” That certainly wasn’t helpful. Others made unhelpful comments as well.
A few days later, he and his wife were at the funeral home for the visitation. People were in line to express their sympathy to them. He then said:
“I looked up and my old fishing buddy came in. He was wearing his bibbed overalls just like he did most of the time. He walked up to me and said, ‘I come to grieve with you.’ For the rest of the night, he stood close to me not saying a word. His presence was so comforting.”
Simply being present is a very important gift that one can give to another.
Likewise, don’t underestimate the good that you can do just by visiting someone in the hospital, going to a wedding, watching a friend’s child play a sport, etc. Your presence and engagement with others during these times can be such a blessing. As you think about the coming weeks, is there an event or occasion in which your presence might be important?
4. Manage your own functioning as a leader. (Including your functioning as a mother, father, business person, teacher, minister, etc.) The following video isn’t new but is is certainly good! Anyone who leads people would do well to listen to this 6 minute 44 second video. The message may be helpful to attempting to lead others in a family, church, or business. The focus is on learning to manage yourself (as opposed to managing other people or attempting to make others “happy.”)
If you wish to read something from Edwin Friedman, you might begin with his book, A Failure of Nerve. Perhaps a more “user-friendly” book with some of the same principles is Leaders Who Last by Margaret J. Marcuson.
5. Resources
Second Half of Life Spirituality. Excellent presentation by Morris Dirks at the Bridgetown Church, Portland, Oregon. The presentation deals with getting ready for the second half of life. Very good for those of us in this season of life. Maybe even more important to listen if you are not yet in this season.
Recently read a review of You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy. I have now listened to much of this excellent book. Quotes like this got my interest:
“We like to think social media has broadened our horizons, giving us access to voices we would never previously have heard, but the way we engage with these voices is very superficial. ‘It’s hard to concentrate on the real world when you’re preoccupied with the virtual one,’ she writes, arguing in passing that journalists’ fondness for picking out and quoting Twitter and Facebook posts . . .”
Consider this Beth Moore tweet posted recently. I read this a number of times. This made me think. "We need revival so badly. A return to the simplicity of wholehearted devotion to Christ. We're being seduced to negotiate, placate, dominate and manipulate to feed a need for self-importance that will never get full. All this wanting to be wanted just makes us feel more unwanted."
She then wrote, "God wants us."
The brilliant physicist and Noble Prize winner, Richard Feynman, on dealing with the expectations of others:
"You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing." (Richard P. Feynman, Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman) (Thanks to James Clear for this reference.)
Each Friday/Saturday, I post about ten tweets especially for ministers and other church leaders as they anticipate Sunday. You can find me @jimmartin.
Jim Martin serves as Vice President of Harding School of Theology, Memphis, Tennessee. You can find him at God-Hungry.org. His e-mail address is: jmartin9669@gmail.com.
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