Avoiding DNF in the Great Race
Came across an excellent article by Gordon MacDonald here, entitled, DNF, Many in ministry Did Not Finish. What can we do about that? I'm giving the "Finishing Well" talk at the ILI Regional Conference in Santa Clarita, Feb. 19-21, 2010, so it caught my attention.
What money is to the financial folks, and power is to political people, and knowledge is to intellectuals, intimacy—deep connections with people—is to those of us who are in the people-care business....
When we gets this "up-close-and-personal" with people, we come within sight of behaviors that cross the boundary into the inappropriate. The so-called temptations of the flesh become prominent under such circumstances and among people who operate in a world of intimacies.
A preponderant percentage of those of us drawn to [Chrisitan] leadership have a higher-than-normal urge to engage with other people. We love to get below the surface of people's exterior lives: to understand their dreams and their burdens, to urge them on to higher possibilities, to sympathize with their feelings and fears, to show them grace and mercy when they fail. The word close is operational here.
No kidding. Wouldn't it be great if we had the Robinson family robot from Lost in Space blinking his lights and making noise, "Danger Will Robinson!" following us around and watching our backs. Later in the article, he writes,
I find it hard to put into clinical words what I intuit. Simply put, I am not confident that many young men and women entering public ministry with all of its privilege and demands are emotionally (and spiritually?) ready to face the subtleties of human relationships on their darker side.
I am not sure that many midlife men and women appreciate all the pressures bearing down on them that make it easy to seek illicit ways to anesthetize the growing discomfort within. Saying good-bye to children, adjusting to a now childless marriage, caring for aging parents, facing the inexorable aging process with its health issues: pressure, pressure, pressure! For the less vigilant, escape into something simpler, more exciting, seemingly more fun can be exceedingly attractive.
In ending, MacDonald gives the obvious "how to's," accountability groups, inquisitive mentors, et. al. Read the article, it's good. I really love his finish:
In our contemporary Christian culture, let's frankly admit the fact that we are—most of us—starved for healthy intimacy at every level and, when we do not experience it, are likely to turn toward the sexual to find it. We need to surface this, find ways to identify the drives and desire and then talk about how to prevent it.
DNF: did not finish. Among the saddest of all epitaphs for a leader. Moral failure: among the most serious and tragic of the reasons. You'd think we'd talk more about this and what can be done to prevent it.
Our radically individualisitc culture tied to a "superman" picture of leadership is a set-up for failure. What are some good practices to keep us from "being stupid?"
Kyle Phillips
