More Oxygen to the Flame
October 1, 1998
Someone recently wrote Leadership, "When I was young, I was filled with energy and joy, but now I have to work on stimulating them both." In ministry, years and joy can have an inverse relationship. For most pastors, serving God will always be more joy than sacrifice. But the weekly-ness of preaching, the seeming daily-ness of criticism, the slowness of the change we see in people—can combine over time to diminish a brightly burning flame. Two Christian leaders who have burned brighter and hotter as they have aged are Ben Patterson and Zig Ziglar. - Ben is dean of the chapel at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and author of Waiting: Finding Hope When God Seems Silent and Serving God: The Grand Essentials of Work & Worship (both InterVarsity). He has served Presbyterian churches in California and New Jersey.
- For more than 30 years, Zig has been a popular motivational speaker whose books and products have sold in the millions. His books include Confessions of a Happy Christian (Pelican) and, most recently, Success for Dummies (IDG Books Worldwide).
Leadership editors Dave Goetz and Craig Brian Larson sequestered Ben and Zig in Chicago to see what a hopelessly Reformed pastor and an incurable optimist might say about genuine joy. Is loss of energy and joy inevitable as the years go by in ministry?
Zig Ziglar: Our natural inclination is to say, "I just don't have
the energy I used to have," but that only adds fuel to the problem. Our belief
determines our behavior. According to research, roughly 50 percent of us
are born as optimists, and 50 percent are born as pessimists. The good news
is research conclusively shows that you can change from pessimism to optimism.
Is joy akin to optimism?
Ziglar: I'm a born optimist; I'd ...
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