Continued Observations...

Here are some continued ministry observations (started on March 3)...

HOW I BUILD MYSELF

It is critical that I spend time building my spiritual life.

• Ministry happens out of the overflow of my life. We need to be dipping into a deep cool well, not a stagnant pond when we offer ourselves to people.
• We need to be honest with ourselves and with God.
• “The battle is won or lost on the supply lines.” (Victor David Hansen)
• “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
• “This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, “No, we will flee on horses.” Therefore you will flee! You said, “We will ride off on swift horses.” Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.’ Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” (Isaiah 30:15-18)
• Stanzas of the Soul (from “Dark Night of the Soul” by San Juan de la Cruz)
  On a dark night,
  Kindled in love with yearnings - oh, happy chance!
  I went forth without being observed,
  My house being now at rest.
  In darkness and secure,
  By the secret ladder, disguised - oh, happy chance!
  In darkness and in concealment,
  My house being now at rest.
  In the happy night,
  In secret, when none saw me,
  Nor I beheld aught,
  Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.
  This light guided me
  More surely than the light of noonday
  To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me -
  A place where none appeared.
  Oh, night that guided me,
  Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
  Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
  Lover transformed in the Beloved!
  Upon my flowery breast,
  Kept wholly for himself alone,
  There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,
  And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
  The breeze blew from the turret
  As I parted his locks;
  With his gentle hand he wounded my neck
  And caused all my senses to be suspended.
  I remained, lost in oblivion;
  My face I reclined on the Beloved.
  All ceased and I abandoned myself,
  Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

I need to I spend time building my professional life.

• I need to remain a student of what I do. There are always people I can learn from.
• Find people to mentor you (directly or indirectly).
• Get a reading rotation.
  i. A book that has to do with your profession/ministry.
  ii. A book from another discipline.
  iii. A super-text (see The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership)
  iv. A book for fun.
• “Leaders are readers” (John Maxwell)
• “Patton’s real formal education was not necessarily through class instruction, where his performance was always mediocre at best, but rather through his own disciplined course of reading… In his journal of 1906 he was already making systematic and detailed lists of books to read. And he was planning future acquisitions for his own library that would eventually reach five hundred personally annotated volumes… Immediately after graduating from West Point… Patton began a lifelong habit of reading constantly, often trying to match his current assignments with germane literary and military masterpieces that might put his own concrete experiences of the moment into a more conceptual context of the ages.” (from The Soul of Battle, Victor David Hansen)
• “Churchill would also become a lifelong omnivorous reader of newspapers and one of the most well-informed men in the world on the events of his times. At Sandhurst, as at Brighton, he was scanning column after column of newsprint every evening.” (from The Last Lion, William Manchester)

I need a friend.

• “You need at least one good friend – the kind of person that you would take a three-day road-trip with.” (Hugh Hewitt)
• They need to be someone who is not necessarily your spouse who is a safe place. They need to be the kind of person to whom you can tell anything and you know it will stay there.
• They need to be the kind of person who knows when you need to be allowed to vent and who knows when you need to be kicked in the tail.