Good Pastor… Bad Leader. Part 2

Could it be I had become my worst nightmare, an ineffective hack refusing to change? That was a tough pill to swallow. I had become like the kid in sports growing up who had ALL the natural talent in the world, but refused to practice or hone his skill. By the time he was in high school, everyone else’s skill level had caught up and he was no longer exceptional….he was just average, the norm. That’s me. Ouch. It hurts to look at is as I write. Do you know what it feels like to become something you hate? Or have you heard the expression where someone says they forgot what their own reflection looked like?

Yes that’s me. No idea. Looks like an EPIC FAIL to me.

I guess part of it was intentional and part was inadvertent. For the longest time I’ve been so sick of the “leadership movement” in the church. It’s disgusted me, as if every pastor anywhere thinks its some status symbol to name drop the leadership BIG DOGS like it would impress me or others. ACHHHHHH BLAHHHGGGHHHH, makes me angry and sick at the same time to think about it. I got tired of it because it felt like we went WAY to the extreme and made the leadership books and authors take the place of the Bible and our ONE TRUE GOD. So I bucked it. Entirely. I walked away from any type of leadership training, development, practice, honing my skills, you get the idea. I went prodigal on it.

So that’s the beginning. That’s the realization process I started to find myself in last fall. The problem was I didn’t really take any action steps to fix it. I just started to recognize why I was so frustrated and starting to feel extremely unfulfilled. I feel it is important again to express that this is not the result of sabotage or intentional backbiting from those I have spent the past 3 years working with and around. I’ve received nothing but love and support from you guys. Even when it’s been challenge or frustration, the love has been there, and I know it has.

Probably the most fortunate part of this whole debacle for me is that I have friends who are willing to be honest and shoot straight with me and do it for the long run. A lot of times when I was approached with concerns or frustrations my first response was defensive and nonchalant. Sometimes the hardest part of tackling an issue head on is to admit that it’s a problem. Sort of like an AA 12 steps program even. I used the example last week at the Jr. High camp I spoke at of writing a paper in high school or college. We dread all semester a project we know is coming and we try to avoid it and put it off, only to realize after we’ve started it that we have just accomplished the most difficult part of the project itself: STARTING IT.

That brings us up to about 3 months ago or so. Everything I read, everything I did was pitching in to teach me what I needed to learn. The difference in the past few months and the past few years was this time I was finally prepared to hear what was being taught. I wasn’t too stubborn to argue with insights. I wasn’t too good for criticism. I humbled myself long enough to take a look inside and despise what I saw. It reminds me of this humorous ministry moment:

One evening during youth I was leading worship and we had just finished singing a couple rowdy “get your energy out” type songs. I was sweating and it was at that point in the spring where we needed the AC on but hadn’t done it yet so the Underground was VERY balmy. I stopped to make a comment about sweaty/smelly teens when my co-worship leader, Becka, leaned over to me very kindly and said “Um, Eric, the smell is coming from you!” OUCH! I did a quick pit check and realized she was 100% right. I smelled like a wet dog! No offense to the wet dogs of our world, of course. :)

Do you see the application here? It was as if I was placing my discontent on situations or others around me, rather than squarely on my own shoulders. It dawned on me that I was the one who was stinky after all that time of feeling crummy and empty. I needed to change out of my robe into my recreational clothes (full credit to Nacho Libre for that anaology). And this brings us to the present. I am standing on the brink of regaining my fire, my spark, my challenge in life. The difficult thing, is that this time, instead of standing at sea level, I have to begin at the bottom of a pit I’ve dug for myself. It’s a pit of complacency and comfortability. If any of you feel like walking to the edge and lowering a rope, feel free.

“Where is your robe, Ignacio?” “It was stinky, these are my recreational clothes.”

All of the above and the last post may seem depressing and negative. Please don’t take it that way! I am frequently harder on me than others are. Especially when I sense failure. I wrote these words as a free man, released from the burden of a plateau. I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a mountain that is begging to be climbed! So I’m restarting as a leader, a learner, and my own personal coach. I said on twitter yesterday, “Transparency is a key asset to accountability.” This is me being transparent. I have no secrets, I have no pride. I have been reduced to a heap of humility and shame. I hope you’ll join me in reaching the summit of what our Creator intended us to be.