Last month, my youth pastor David Perkins came and spoke to my internship, Burn. His talk was simply titled "Seven Ideas of Leadership," and during his time with us he laid out seven principles of leadership. Here they are:
#1 Serve with joy.
#2 Champion the activity of God.
#3 Cultivate good character.
#4 Readers are leaders.
#5 Use your time well.
#6 Fight for innocence.
#7 Know Jesus.
Today I want to share some of the stuff that Perkins said that really challenged me and has been on my mind a lot since then.
First, when he was talking about serving with joy, he told us to look for every opportunity to serve. This has come back to me over and over again. It's so counter-cultural, the idea of actually seeking out chances to be servants, rather than looking for opportunities for others to serve us. But as Jesus-followers we are meant to be people who joyfully lay down our agendas and our comforts to get under people and lift them up.
Another aspect of Perkins' talk was the idea of championing God's activity, specifically what he is doing in and through our church. This point didn't really hit home until recently, when some changes were announced to our youth group, _TAG. First, we are no longer going to be called _TAG, we will now be called _DSM (short for Desperation Student Ministries). Next, we will be splitting _DSM into two groups, one for high school students and one for junior high students (instead of having everyone all together). _TAG has been around for decades. And it has always been called _TAG. So when everyone heard about the name change, many students were pretty peeved, me being one of them. But before long I noticed God convicting my heart.
You are a leader, and you need to be a champion for what God is doing in this place, He said.
So, though some of the changes are still hard for me to understand, I realize that every one of them is coming about through lots of thought and prayer. God has great plans for our city, and I don't want to hinder them by arguing over minute details.
Perkins also made the point that readers are leaders. I've heard this said before and I've even said it before, but I was challenged all over again when Perkins voiced it that day. Over this forty day fast that I'm participating in, my eyes are being opened to how often we fill up our time and consciousness with media. Reading is so readily shoved to the wayside when music, facebook, texting, etc. are available. I want to be someone who is constantly challenging my brain and expanding my knowledge through reading.
Though the other parts of David's talk were awesome, there is only one more idea that I want to talk about today. The fourth quality of an effective leader that I am being specifically challenged in, is time management.
In Perkins' words, "Squandering your time is squandering your destiny." The time that we waste is time we could be spending with God or doing something else that holds eternal value. When a friend asked my accountability leader how best to fill her free time, she was told to think about who/where she wanted to be in ten years, and spend some of her time doing things that would propel her toward that goal.
In response to a challenge that David left us with, I recently created an Excel document and filled the first column with times of the day, starting with 12:00am and going half hour by half hour until I made it down to 11:59:pm. Then on the top row, I typed out Sunday through Saturday, and began filling in the columns beneath each day with what I want to do during that time. It truly is amazing how much wasted time we have when we actually sit down and write out how we spend our day. I spent a couple hours on the schedule, and now know how I am (planning on) spending every half hour of every week of my summer.
All of this is really just one more way I am trying to break out of my comfortable Christian life and challenge myself to do something harder. I've started to recognize times that I am offered a chance to serve, and am learning to accept them joyfully. I am realizing the necessity for me to champion what God is doing in _DSM, even it doesn't always make sense from my perspective. I am spending more time reading and less time finding other ways to fill my free time. And lastly, I am striving to spend my time intentionally.
This is going to be a good summer.
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