It’s Personal

As 2007 came to a close, Perry asked all of the Senior Management Team to list our top three responsibilities. He wanted to make sure that the way he sees our role was the way we see it. As I contemplated this question and really asked God to help me see my responsibilities clearly, I realized that I could not list just three. I did get the list down to five responsibilities and here is how the list read:

1. Hold up Perry’s hands (Exodus 17:12)
2. Everything that happens in our worship service
3. Everything that happens with our student ministry
4. The ministry lives of everyone who make the first 3 happen
5. The personal lives of those same people

Soon after I submitted this list to Perry he called me in his office and he said, “Shane, I’m worried about you. When I look at your list I know there is too much on it… even I wouldn’t want your job”. As we talked through my list what became clear to me is that Perry wasn’t so much concerned with my work responsibilities as he was with me as a person. He knew something that I was already feeling… if something doesn’t change, Shane isn’t going to make it. You see Perry loves my wife and my kids and it was important to him that my workload didn’t interfere with me being a good husband and father.

What amazed me about all of this is that I realized the reason I felt compelled to include #5 on my list was because I followed a guy who was already modeling the same. Perry knows that leadership is personal and he had modeled it so well for me I, too, knew that I could never list my responsibilities without taking into consideration the personal lives of those who make the ministry happen.

Since the time of that meeting with Perry we have reapportioned the responsibilities of the Senior Management Team and I no longer have student ministry responsibility. At the time the change was made I understood the reasoning, but my pride made it difficult to digest. Looking back over the last few months it is obvious that NewSpring Church is seeing the fruit of that change.

Here is the point of this post. The reason our student ministry is better off and the reason our worship services are better off is not because of a nifty strategy or great new idea. It is because someone… my leader… cared about me as a person. For Perry, it was personal.

If I want to excel as a leader I must continue to learn new things, develop better processes, tweak the organizational structure and implement great strategy. But, those things will never be enough and will always be left wanting if I forget to look into the lives of those I lead, ask God for insight and when appropriate, make it personal.