Nobody wakes up and starts the day thinking, I hope I find myself in a crisis today. Ever known anyone to write at the top of the personal wish list: "A real crisis"? I didn't think so. Me neither.

While no one longs to be in crisis, that's where we often find ourselves, especially as leaders. The crisis can be personal, or it can be organizational: a financial crisis, a painful conflict, a health concern, a crisis of faith, a public failure, a costly loss, a season of grief, a crucial moment of decision, or some other high intensity defining moment.

And in a church, with the number of people we deal with, someone is in crisis almost continually. In fact, as veteran pastor Alan Redpath once observed, "If you're a Christian pastor, you're always in a crisis—either in the middle of one, coming out of one, or going into one."

Crisis can become the norm for those of us in church life, not unlike it is for those who work in an emergency room or homeless shelter. But we don't often think ...