The days are still long and hot, but the sales flyers in the papers, hawking school supplies, pronounce prophetic truth: autumn is coming. Though we long to cling to summer, it slips through our fingers like water.
It’s a good time of year to engage in the spiritual discipline of releasing. To ask ourselves what we are clinging to, that perhaps is getting in the way of our clinging to God. So often, as St. Augustine said, God wants to give us good things, but our hands our too full to receive them.
For me, this fall is one of releasing a leadership position I’ve held for more than a decade. God has some other things for me to do.
Many churches, including mine, operate on a calendar that shadows the school year. Classes and groups gear up in the fall, often take a break for the summer months. For the past decade or so, August was a time for me to prepare for the adult education class I would lead at my church from September to May.
Over the years I have led a spiritual formation class, most often with a team of other leaders, for about 60 to 70 women. The three of us planned the class, took turns teaching, created solitude exercises and wrote discussion questions. We built a team of small group leaders within the class, guided them as they shepherded the women. But last spring, as the ministry season ended, our team felt God saying, “Pass the baton.” Because all three of us were hearing the same thing, we began talking to other possible leader/teachers.
I believe in men and women using their gifts within the local church. If a woman happens to have a teaching gift, sometimes it can be challenging to find a place to exercise that gift. So part of how I should wield my influence as a leader is not just to teach, but to be willing to develop other people who can then teach as well. Part of leading well involves inviting others to grow, even if it means stepping aside and letting them lead.
Our team was sure that we are being called to other ministry opportunities, and God provided an amazing new team of women to lead the spiritual formation class. To even call it “the class” rather than “our class” or “my class” is a spiritual exercise in releasing. Even when I called it “my class” I knew it truly was, and still is, God’s class. I am trusting that God has brought an amazing new team to the helm, and I will support them and pray for them—but God has other ways for me to minister and lead.
When we release, there is a moment (or even a season) of free fall—we don’t always know what’s next. We have stepped off into thin air, or so it seems. We have to trust that we are perfectly safe in the arms of God, that he will catch us and set us on a new path, give us the next assignment, or even, perhaps, provide a time of rest. This summer I’ve rested, but also had some hints at my next “divine assignment” and I’m looking forward to seeing how that unfolds.
What do you need to release in order to be ready for your next step as a leader? (Hint: whatever you are grasping very tightly might be the very thing that is holding you back.) Could you embrace the possibility that stepping away from a leadership position might actually prepare you for what God wants you to do next?
Keri Wyatt Kent is a speaker and retreat leader, and the author of nine books, including Deeper into the Word: Reflections on 100 Words from the New Testament. She is a founding member of Redbud Writers Guild. Connect with Keri and read her blog at www.keriwyattkent.com.
© 2011, Keri Wyatt Kent
