How does commitment work with two adults that choose to build together? What expectations that are spoken, implied or assumed should be respected? What should be treated with legality, and what should be trusted to a handshake?

This is one of the most common areas of breakdown I have witnessed within church. Particularly with leaders that are full of charisma. They get excited, more often than not they hope and intend to work with you and help you build your vision. You get excited, making major life changing choices you dive in. Only to find that this amazing man or woman that you have moved to help isn’t meeting all of your expectations.

I remember talking with a friend who had moved across an ocean to work with a particular person. They were so excited and the first week they were with them everything was great. They had a few meals with the leader, they discussed vision, and they felt empowered in every way that was possible by this leader. Then things became tricky, this leader had gone on a series of conferences, missions and then a holiday. My friend felt abandoned, dejected and was losing heart. I then asked him a few questions. First I asked where were you when they invited you to come and join them? At home, they were leading a conference at my church. Next question; how long had they been on the road doing conferences? They had been out for like around a month. Final question; so you thought that would all stop now that you there? No. But, I thought it would be different…

Expectations can be one of the most dangerous things in the church. It is unmet expectations that cause people feel disillusioned, or worse angry, bitter and resentful. What can be done? I have a friend that I once spoke to about joining him, or coming under his covering. His response was amazingly refreshing and encouraging. He said something along the lines of, ‘why don’t we be friends, same thing without the expectations’. It was a powerful moment for me and over the next few weeks opened my eyes to a lot of areas that I had taken on a bad paradigm.

Expectations are our ideas.

Yes, it is sad but true. When expectations have fallen on the rocks, been crushed by a metal recycler and then been melted down – those are instances that we have let ourselves down. I may have wanted to believe, or expected more than was possible. But, I did that. On the other hand sometimes promise are made and broken, that becomes a combination of things that can leave us feeling confused for years. Often you know who you can and should trust, but choose for one reason or another to act against discernment. So, that means those broken promises? Yes sir. They are to some degree our responsibility as well. At this point I know I have a lot of people upset with me, because I haven’t seen, heard, or experienced all they did. But, I am sad to say I probably have or have good friends who have. From manipulation to theft, to abuse of all sorts… I have seen it and you know what makes it so hard to let go of? Why we have to be mad at the leader, the church and sometimes God? We are upset at ourselves, we lose trust in ourselves, and we refuse to accept that it might to some degree be our fault.

What can we do? When hope is gone, trust is shattered. We can learn that even perceived lifelong friends and spiritual parents have left us feeling despondent. A mentor of mine once told me this is what we can do; we can grow, and thanks to the fact that we can see our responsibility, we can learn to respond. Once we accept responsibility we become response-able. I can’t tell you how frustrated I was with him as he gently repeated this irrefutable law to me one weekend. But I will always be grateful for the time that he invested in me. Without rules, expectations or domination he has always been a role model of spiritual parenthood and a mentor that everyone I know would be grateful to have. We need more healthy mentor’s and spiritual parents so that we in turn can be healthy mentors and spiritual parents.

Here are some steps to help minimize future trouble and to be more effective as a leader.

Define things best as possible. If you are going to join a group, a leader or a community, figure out what your expectations are. Then, discuss with the group and finally write it down. If more was written down and agreed upon, less would be misunderstood.

Be a little legalistic; if you are a successful, intelligent person who is leaving the business world to go and serve a church, ministry or charity get a contract. You wouldn’t take another job without a contract. Why leave your brain at the door because you are doing God’s work? If they won’t give you a contract at least you know what you are walking into. I have seen charities and churches that do not honor contracts and it is difficult to take legal action against those sorts of organizations, but as stated earlier people that will do that probably shouldn’t be your friends or colleagues in the first place.

Define accountability; who is in charge of what? What is your role? Who has the final say? These are important questions get them answered and you will be happier.

Finally have a cooling off period; anytime I am about to make a big choice I institute a cooling off period. For me that goes something like ‘I have to talk to my wife’. This is a true statement, I try to do everything in unity with my wife – but it also means that someone is hearing and praying about what I am about to do. I can get excited, and sometimes jump into things head first without checking to see if there is water in the pool. Having a cooling off period, at least 24 hours really helps.

Thanks for reading.

The Revisiting Christian Leadership Part 2; Expectations and Responsibility by Zach Mapes, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 at 9:42 am and is filed under Revisiting Christian Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.