November 10

Day 241: Transmutation

I tend to read books on leadership. Maybe a half dozen or so in a calendar year. Only because I want to be a better leader. Makes sense, I hope.

I've recently been tasked with creating a coaching schematic (program) for a church-planting network our church is affiliated with. This feels like a giant homework assignment, for which I am not qualified. This gives expediency to what I wrote above.

Paul's first letter to Timothy is a good book on leadership. Paul stresses to this young pastor the duality of strength...and vulnerability. Be it church leaders, employers, parents, even spouses, our role requires enough strength to be depended on, but enough vulnerability to identify with.

Effective leaders are trusted leaders. In turn, leaders are able to "transmute" strength, through their vulnerability, to the one doing the trusting. Maybe it looks something like this:

1. The leader possesses strength
2. The leader possesses "I'm not so unlike you" vulnerability in relation to the other person
3. The leader is warm and approachable
4. The leader is imperfect, and thus serves as a relatable model to emulate, rather than a perfect model no one can identify with nor follow

Paul seemed to have no problem reminding Timothy of what he was. He even calls himself the "foremost of all sinners." Not what he was formerly, but what he was, present tense. That's vulnerability.

All Paul could be and accomplish was due to God's grace extended to him. I assume this encourages Timothy to acknowledge his own vulnerability, his own weakness as well.

But Paul also tells Timothy to be strong. He tells Timothy to "not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you."

In this, Paul is transmuting his strength to Timothy. But it's Paul's vulnerability that provides the conduit for this happen.

A chronically weak leader cannot be depended upon. A super-human but distant leader cannot be emulated, if everyone else feels like a potential failure in contrast.

We talk about our GC's as being the seedbed for making disciples of Jesus. It's almost like our GC's serve as a gospel laboratory. It's not one leader making disciples out of everyone else. It's everyone making disciples of everyone. Group project.

In saying this, perhaps it is our charge that none of us "neglect the gift you have." While not a Bible word, perhaps we must each consider how (and certainly what) we transmute to each other. Because none of us are that strong. And none of us are that weak.

The word "encourage" is a synonym for transmute. It literally means "in courage." To be encouraged is to receive and onboard strength from a source outside of one's self.

Strength that is needed. Through vulnerability that is required. Like Jesus, fully God. And fully man.

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church Juneau