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I Can Just Do It Myself…But Should I?

Becoming a Delegating Leader

I am a control freak, like many women in ministry. When I began the women's ministry at my sweet church, I tried to do everything on my own, for many reasons. I enjoyed every aspect of ministry, of building something from the ground up. I was wired up with spiritual gifts in leadership, administration, and creative communication. I didn't want to burden anyone. And let's be honest, sometimes one person can get the job done—or get all the jobs done—much faster than explaining it to someone else or waiting for people to get back to you.

So in other words, I was selfish and prideful. In my defense, I was young and thought I was doing people a favor. And God. ("Look at me doing all this for you, Lord! See how much I love you to stay up this late? You're welcome!")

As the years went by and I grew in my leadership, I realized that the way I was doing things not only wasn't working, but wasn't beneficial for me—I'd be burning out very quickly. But my major motivation to make some changes came when I ran across Ephesians 4:11-12: "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up" (NIV, emphasis mine).

I'd read this before, I'm sure. But one day it hit me between the eyes. My main task as a leader was not to do ministry. This was a shocking revelation to me. My main task as a leader was to equip others to do ministry. Why? So they may be built up. This changed everything for me. This changed how I built my team, what tasks I kept doing, and what I let go of.

I began with baby steps. I had to. It was as if someone had to pry my fingers off the entire ministry. This is my baby! I thought on more than one occasion, completely forgetting that in actuality, it was God's and not mine.

Who Are You and What Do You Want To Do?

I started by bringing my team together and doing a brief spiritual gifts survey, along with talking through their areas of passion. This was humbling to me because it showed me that I didn't know my women as well as I had thought, and I was basically using them to fill in holes. I was, in essence, saying to them, "I don't care that you don't like to use e-mail and you hate cooking; I really need someone to schedule all the hospitality needs for this coming year." When I found out that two-thirds of my ladies didn't have a passion for women, but were instead passionate for children's ministry or prayer or music, I was blown away. But I needed to know this. From this place of truth, I could build a team of women who wanted to be there. And I could steer the others into areas of better fit rather than trying to pigeonhole them as I had been.

Can I Trust You with My Baby?

Another small step I took was actually letting go. I intentionally gave away pieces of the ministry that I had held onto so tightly, for so long. I remember handing over the monthly newsletter to an eager teammate. Being a writer and a stickler for grammar and spelling, this practically killed me, but I knew I had to die to self in some areas, so I started there. I coached her then let her go. The morning of the first event after she had taken over, as we were placing the newsletters next to everyone's plate, I glanced over it. Typos galore. I wanted to scream. Instead, I thanked her for her hard work, and after the event, we talked through a system that would make the next issue better. A dear friend even came up to me afterward and said, "I know this is killing you. I'm so proud of you for handling this so graciously." If she only knew how I was feeling on the inside. But it takes a long time to change a habit, to change an attitude.

Will You Even Notice if I Stop?

My final step put my team and the women in my church to the test. I just stopped doing some things that I had been doing for years. I knew one of two things would happen. Either no one would even notice and I would know I had been wasting my time; or someone—to whom that ministry mattered—would step up and fill the hole.

Both of these things happened. No one said a word about my weekly email no longer showing up in inboxes with the upcoming women's ministry events, so I never started sending it out again. And when there wasn't enough protein at one of our breakfasts (yes, someone actually complained about that…welcome to ministry), I told her kindly that she could bring it next time if she really wanted it.

It took me several years to get to a place of feeling like the women's ministry was not "Beth's ministry" but truly belonged to all the women of our church. By the time I handed over the reins, I felt as if I were ready to walk away because I had trained up many good women, who were serving in their areas of passion and giftedness, who had ownership over our mission and plans.

It turns out, I couldn't do it all myself. And I never was supposed to anyway.

Elisabeth K. Corcoran started and led the women's ministry at her church for ten years, then went on to other church ministry roles. She is the author of five books, including At the Corner of Broken & Love: Where God Meets Us in the Everyday (Westbow). www.elisabethcorcoran.com

March08, 2012 at 1:39 PM

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