Kingfisher Leadership
1st July 2017
Kingfisher Leadership
You are responsible before God, not just for knowing what they are, but for developing them to their maximum potential. Are you challenging yourself to develop your gifts to the best of your
What causes leaders to give up?
Tending the soul of the leader
Ten major factors:
St Paul once wrote, towards the end of his life:
• Discouragement. Complaints speak louder than compliments, with fifteen compliments being outweighed by one complaint
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have remained faithful.” (2 Timothy 4:7, NLT)
• Failure. Many leaders have difficulty in recognising success, and see failure in whatever they do • Loneliness. People look to and lean on the leader. This can create a sense of isolation, with the leader not knowing where to turn to. • Moral failure. Arising from isolation, moral temptation and failure is rampant among leaders • Financial pressure. Most pastors are not well compensated, which adds to the weight of the role.
Many leaders feel isolated, unable to find supportive places to share their struggles
He was able to write this after many years of opposition, accusation, abuse and physical violence towards him. This one sentence tells us so much about his approach to this and how he managed to tend his soul along the way: ‘I have fought the good fight’. The Greek word used here is agonizomai, meaning literally ‘to engage in conflict’. Fighting the good fight is about knowing which battles are worth fighting and not getting caught up in needless controversy or conflict
‘I have finished the race.’ Conflict and unresolved hurts can cause us to lose focus a sense of direction. We can end up demotivated and languishing in a world of hurt unless we keep firmly focussed on what we have been called to and, therefore, in what direction we need to be moving. I have remained faithful Our calling is to remain faithful to Jesus Christ, to seek to please him and fulfil his calling on our lives. It is his ‘well done’ we are seeking at the end of it all! What a sentence to be able to say at the end of your life! If you want to be able to say it too, you need to see the tending of your soul as a priority right now! 1