Leading Through Storms (eBook)

Successfully Navigating Ministry While Maintaining Your Mental Health

Geoffrey V. Dudley (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
160 Seiten
IVP (Verlag)
978-1-5140-0915-4 (ISBN)

Infos

An Emergency Preparedness Kit for Christian Leaders There are times when the isolation and demands of ministry can wear down even the strongest person. When the burdens of life and ministry push you to your physical and mental breaking point, how can you lead yourself, let alone others? In Leading Through Storms, Geoffrey Dudley - weaves together personal narrative, biblical reflection, and leadership theories - teaches skills that will help leaders lean more confidently into their calling - focuses on how leaders can lead themselves through crises and challenges that arise throughout life No one is immune from the storms of leadership and the brokenness they leave in their wake, but Leading Through Storms is the emergency preparedness kit that will keep you anchored.

Bishop Geoffrey V. Dudley Sr. (PhD, Regent) is the founding and senior pastor of New Life in Christ Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the Metro East area of St. Louis, Missouri (O'Fallon, Illinois). Originally from Goldsboro, North Carolina, Dudley began ministry at the age of thirteen, was ordained by the United Holy Church of America in 1986, and is a retired Air Force chaplain and lieutenant colonel. He is also the CEO of iLead Enterprises, a leadership development platform for staff and workforce development. He and his wife, Glenda, have two adult children who are both ministry leaders.

Textauszug

INTRODUCTION

SIMON SINEK IS WIDELY CREDITED with helping organizations and individuals discover their “why.” Knowing your reason for being, he argues, is critical to fulfilling your purpose in life.1 The late Dr. Myles Munroe called knowing your why, knowing your purpose. You cannot know what to do with a thing or person if you do not know their purpose.2

My why and purpose for writing this book is to take the foreboding Eurocentric models of leadership and leadership development and the overwhelming theoretical research language of organizational leadership and break them down into practical concepts using a narrative. Jesus used storytelling to teach his disciples how to lead and follow and he was the greatest storyteller of all time. His parables drove his points home, leaving both his followers and detractors speechless and informed to live better lives. Western majority culture and the academy often overlook story as legitimate pedagogy despite it being the core learning tool of other cultures. The Bible is the product of an oral tradition and there is no greater leadership text in existence.3 Too often leadership development is taught from an academic point of view that does not reach the leader in the trenches of leading. Story reaches the trenches because it originates in the trenches.

Additionally, leadership is seen through the lens of great success models of European Americans, which leave others wondering at their seeming failures. These models are portrayed as orthodoxy of leadership and have resources and years of success that others lack. The crucible of leadership is burnished when one has little, is facing a lot, and is asked to do more. There is a need for examples of leadership for those who only have a lot of desire. What emerges from this type of storytelling leadership development is applicable to all.

John Maxwell, arguably the guru of Christian leadership development, presents a particular type of leadership that might best be described as triumphant white evangelicalism: leadership is success, and success is having megachurches (he pastors in a twenty-eight-thousand-member megachurch in Florida), businesses that make lots of money, and the character traits that attract followers in droves. His books are outstanding, but they speak nothing of the realities that Leading Through Storms will describe. They are simply not his realities. This absence leaves a gaping hole for the millions of Christians facing a less-than-equal playing field, and for nearly all leaders who will face incredible storms. How can they lead in the face of things going wrong, of being questioned, and while being wronged?

Maxwell’s books and others like them focus on contrasting biblical leadership with worldly leadership. They thus examine biblical principles that characterize a Christian leader, often emphasizing the need for leaders to exhibit Christian character and rely on God for wisdom in leading. Every one of these models of leadership development is white, bringing a particular set of experiences into the world they inhabit and practice their leadership. I’m not critiquing this so much as pointing out that both the topic and the author of this book bring something truly unique to the Christian leadership genre.

Although Leading Through Storms draws on the wisdom of other books, it details Christian leadership in a much different context and draws out new applications, principles, and understandings. It raises the profile of praxis leadership much like a medical doctor’s practice: even with the requisite education, they are still confronted with cases that cause them to reach beyond the books and into their gut to determine how to save a patient in an underresourced operating room. It is with this type of leadership that many leaders of color, including myself, must pastor, lead, plant churches, and develop them into profiles of courage for the communities they serve.

Finally, I wrote this book to address the mental health of leaders. For far too many, seeking professional therapy remains a stigma.4 Since Covid-19, the demand for counseling has skyrocketed, especially among African American pastors.5 Ministry leaders need tools for their mental health as well.6 By pulling the veil back on my journey, my hope is it to give permission to ministry leaders to do the same. It is hard to lead without spreading your brokenness onto those who follow unless you get help. Ministry storms are certain, and leaders need tools to navigate them without projecting their pain onto their people. Sickness, illness, anxiety, and depression can quickly become a contagion, resulting in a sick and depressed congregation because the leader has not sought help. One would never ignore a broken leg and continue walking on it. Leaders should take the same attitude to leading with an untreated broken spirit.

The purpose of this book is to equip the reader with the leadership skills to ride the waves of ministry through turbulent winds of ministry. I intentionally share my backstory as I believe the transparency will be transformative for the reader. As a good friend of mine who found business success selling high-tech educational services once told me, “Facts tell, stories sell.” My story sails on the bipolar winds of success and failure.

The lyrics of the gospel writer and psalmist Douglas Miller best describe my backstory: “Though the storms keep on raging in my life / And sometimes it’s hard to tell the night from day.”7 There were many times when I didn’t know night from day. There was the night of the incomplete construction project—red iron that greeted me as I drove onto the church campus month after month, year after year. There was the day of another family telling me they were leaving our church in search of another place to worship. There was the twilight of the bank reneging on its loan commitments then threatening foreclosure and calling the loan. Day or night, I couldn’t always tell, but I could hear my Old Testament professor ending every lecture with, “Sunday is coming, and you got to preach!”

The demands of leadership do not stop when Mount Carmel experiences turn into running for your life. They only intensify. With each problem comes the opportunity to rejoice in victory or sink in defeat. John Maxwell titled his book Failing Forward. The writer of Proverbs said, “Though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again” (24:16). But how do you keep getting up when the fall is further than you could have imagined?

Despite my walking through brokenness week after week, month after month, year after year, I had to preach without, “bleeding on the people,” as my homiletics professor would say. In the pages that follow, I detail the storm I had to lead myself out of to lead my church through. Keeping the church and myself upright and afloat was no small task, but with each gale wind the mast and sails withstood the gust and got stronger with leadership skills and precision.

In this book, I detail leadership development skills in bite-sized portions digestible for every type of leader. Each chapter shares my story through the lens of a leadership theory. At the conclusion of each chapter, the leadership theory that is reflected in the narrative of my story is discussed. Then the theory is discussed as lessons learned followed by questions for reflection and discussion for the reader to consider and apply the leadership theory in a person’s life.

I believe my experience will provide the reader with a living epistle of how to lead and live in a storm. It is divided into the phases of a storm: “Before the Storm,” “Weather Alert,” “In the Storm,” and “After the Storm.”

“Before the Storm” encompasses the history of my calling and leadership development. My thirst and competitive edge in leadership honed my skills and was refined by my twenty-one and a half years as an Air Force chaplain lieutenant colonel. I used that skill set to develop my core leaders. That core leadership development proved invaluable in the storm. The gravitational pull of the core leaders holds the church together.

“Weather Alert.” The momentum of success in ministry can create blind spots that prevent us from seeing the warning and watch announcements that severe storms are headed our way. I share how I felt and what I did when people jumped ship in the middle of a multimillion-dollar construction project. The intricacies of a construction project are many and foreign to new leaders. I learned how to build a church and congregation at the same time. This took a lot of courage and consecration.

“In the Storm” unveils the chaos of all the things that can and will go wrong when banks do not fulfill their written commitments and your integrity is called into question. Cash management is essential in ministry. How to have enough cash to do ministry and build a multimillion-dollar building is not for the faint of heart, especially when you are in the midst of a storm. Creating community is difficult in the decentralized online world in which we live, and it is even more difficult when the wind from the storm is blowing so hard you are not sure if you are hearing “Hosanna!” or “Crucify him!”

“After the Storm.” Bad times don’t last forever. Getting through the tough times requires professional help. The torment and toll on one’s soul demands counseling. Counseling brings about clarity of thought. This section is about the unsurpassing wins God brought me and my church to. It details the hard-fought victories, favor, and miracles wrought by...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.3.2025
• Vorwort: Walter Thomas
• Verlagsort: Lisle
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Kirchengeschichte
• Themenwelt: Religion / Theologie ► Christentum ► Moraltheologie / Sozialethik
• Schlagworte: Christian leader • executive pastor • Leadership • Leadership Crisis • leadership development • leadership growth • leadership skills • lead pastor • Mental Health • ministry crisis • ministry leader • Pastor • spiritual growth
• ISBN-10: 1-5140-0915-3 / 1514009153
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5140-0915-4 / 9781514009154