The Voices in My Head

I think one of the most telling indicators in a leaders life is when you can understand the voices that speak into his or her life.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of having a number of significant voices speak into my life.  I have the sincere honor to have worked with 5 different Senior leaders at the churches where I served in a student ministry role – each one of them took the time (in different ways) to both help me grow in my role as we served the church, but also took time to challenge me to grow as a person.  I’m so thankful for everything I’ve learned from them… time management from Jim, honor for Scripture from Bill, Pastoral care from Fred, love for people from Mark and mountains of organizational ideas and many character and leadership lessons from George (who by the way is handing the torch off after 25 years of faithful service to the church… an honor I hope to have one day at Journey!)

BOOKS.  I can’t overstate the importance of being a reader as a leader.  It’s never been a real strong suit for me – in fact, I’m a very poor reader – it takes me forever to read a page only to get to the end and have NO IDEA what I just read.  It’s a challenge, but things that are worth doing are difficult… get over it.  I’ve always been amazed at how you feel personally connected to an author after you read their thoughts about how to do something you’re passionate about (I’m not a big fan of fiction – - I want to read it, I just can’t – - I’m going to try to read either “the Girl with the Draggon Tattoo” this year or there’s a book my sister in law told me about… something about survival games… it sounds interesting).  What I’m getting at is that books are a great way to allow people to speak into your life… grab one and see what I mean!

FRIENDS.  I can’t even possibly express the importance of trustworthy friends who will speak truth into your life.  It’s important to keep their character in mind before you allow them to speak into your life! Are their values and priorities the same as yours?  Do they believe the same way you do?  I can’t count the number of times I’ve been thinking of doing something like quitting a ministry (or ministry all together) only to have a friend talk sense into me!  What if they wouldn’t have valued the same things I did?  What if they just thought life was about being “happy”?  I’m so thankful to get to spend a couple of days this month with a few pastors (all of newer church plants in the last 7 years or so) – I look forward to their speaking into my life… and my opportunity to speak into theirs.

So, here’s the question for you… Who is speaking into your life?  What voices are you hearing? (not those voices… the real ones)  Are those voices encouraging you to become more like Jesus or less?  They’re all encouraging you to take a step… is it your “next step” toward Jesus or your first step away?  The voices you hear are important… the ones you listen to are VITAL!