Four Leadership Blessings for Churches

During the recent snowy days, I've been catching up with some of my reading, including some online church-related and faith-related articles. I came across this interesting essay from Michael Jinkins, who is a professor and dean at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. In it, he identifies four often overlooked blessings that church leaders can share, particularly in their specific congregations: blessing dissent, blessing failure, blessing story, and blessing blessing.

I heartily believe in all of Jinkins' points, so much that I hesitate to highlight any single one. Still, I think that most people forget the necessity of failure in any enterprise. I strongly believe that the best communities -- faith, educational, familial, geographic -- are the ones that find ways that encourage people to try new things and support them whether they succeed or fail. It's not a very popular thing in our dog-eat-dog, winner-take-all society, where success at all costs is often praised and failure is shunned. But we know that not every endeavor succeeds; even some good ideas fail for a variety of reasons. As Christians, we must find ways to encourage new ideas and support those who work faithfully to make them happen -- regardless of success or failure.

This article is well worth a few minutes to read and reflect.