In this issue:

Know Your Purpose

Helping a Congregation Connect to Mission

The Right Question

Let your soul speak for itself. . . . All souls are not alike. Utter your own prayer, in the language of your own joy.

Samuel Miller

Know Your Purpose
By Margaret J. Marcuson

When Rabbi Noah, Rabbi Mordecai’s son, assumed the succession after his father’s death, his disciples noticed that there were a number of ways in which he conducted himself differently than his father, and asked him about this. “I do just as my father did,” Rabbi Noah replied. “He did not imitate, and I do not imitate.” (Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection, Bantam, 1993) Fundamentally, leadership is having a clear sense of who we are and where we are going, and relating to our followers out of ourselves. The best leaders are themselves in their role, rather than imitating other leaders or looking to their followers for their primary cues. They know who they are and what their purpose is.

Finding your purpose in ministry is not a to-do item you can complete and check off the list, but an ongoing process of discernment. Purpose involves more than one level of our life and work. It includes big questions such as: What am I on this planet for? Who am I, and what are my best gifts? And it also involves some shorter term questions: What is my purpose in my role in this ministry? Where am I headed right now, and what do I need to do to get there?

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VIGNETTE

Helping a Congregation Connect to Mission
By Tom Berlin

My congregation has been in an ongoing mission partnership with the Child Rescue Center and Mercy Hospital in Sierra Leone, Africa, since 2000. However, there is always a need to find fresh, new ways to help the congregation feel connected with this project. During a recent mission trip, we did two things that made this mission connection come alive for our whole congregation. And they have had an amazing impact on our church.

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The Right Question

Leaders do not need answers.
Leaders must have the right questions.

Mark DeYmaz tells of his decision to begin a multi-ethnic church in Little Rock as a time in which he asked three questions:

Is there a need?
Is this the time?
Am I the one?

Editors:  Lovett H. Weems, Jr. and Ann A. Michel
Production and distribution: Carol Follett