Catalyst Track: Habits of Healthy Spiritual Leaders // Day Three

This 4-day track comes from an article written for Catalyst by Matt Brown entitled, “8 Habits of Healthy Spiritual Leaders.”

 

God calls, prepares and empowers spiritual leaders to lead His Church. Spiritual leadership is not a job for everybody. While every Christian is called to follow Christ wholeheartedly, and make an impact on the world around them - some are called to equip the Body of Christ as spiritual leaders.

 

Spiritual leadership is vitally important. People rise and fall to the level of our leadership. People are drawn into the Kingdom and drawn into Christian service because of faithful, healthy spiritual leadership.

 

It is so important for those God calls to spiritual leadership to be eager to grow into everything God calls them to be. We are called by a great God – may never be stagnant or half-hearted in that calling!

 

Over the next couple of days, use Matt's 8 habits to honestly evaluate where you are it regarding your personal and leadership health.

 

In the midst of encouraging, equipping and challenging those you lead, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the very practical, everyday opportunities to make sure YOU are equipped with what you need to keep living and leading well.

 

Complete the challenges at the end of each day to help keep your leadership habits on track. 

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DAY 3 – Stress & Weakness

 

#5 Find Healthy Outlets for Stress

More than a decade ago, a pastor in Colorado told us their story about how they were running on all cylinders for an unrealistic period of time. Their spiritual tank was overflowing, but their relational, physical and emotional tanks were near empty, and this pastor found themselves secretly wanting to drive off a mountain.

 

We must be mindful of these tanks in our lives. It is not enough to simply fill our spiritual tank - God in His Word has also called us to community, to steward our bodies, and to rest, rhythms and margin.

 

Exercise, vacation, true days off, processing pain in prayer, godly friends with whom we can process life and ministry, de-cluttering, simplifying life, eating healthy nutritious food, deep breathing, drinking enough water - all of these things contribute to healthy living and healthy outlets for those in spiritual leadership. We need to come back to them often, and continually review where our soul and emotions are at.

 

#6 Admit Your Weaknesses

Most people who follow you for a given period of time already know some of your flaws and weaknesses, but it pays big dividends for a leader to admit where they fail, where they went wrong, and where they are weak.

 

When a spiritual leader apologizes, or admits their weaknesses, they gain incredible amounts of credibility with their team.

 

Spiritual leadership is less about how spiritual you sound, and more about keeping your word when it hurts, doing things for people who can do nothing for you, and watching for how subtly you undermine your leadership by saying one thing and doing another. Guard yourself, and grow in Christ to become more and more a spiritual leader with true character worth following.

 

 

CHALLENGE:

Is there something you need to apologize for to your team? Or do you have a weakness you are afraid to admit to those you work with?

 

Take action in whichever of these areas (or both) is applicable to you this week. What will it be?