Leadership

"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." - Phillippians 4:13

This verse has been going through my head for the last 8 months or so. My family has been going through kind of a tough time trying to understand the direction God has been taking us within life and within the church. I find it so hard not to put the blame on others mistakes and decisions and to really sit back and look at why God would of made this decision or put my family on this path. Is He trying to teach us something? Is He testing our faith? For me personally, I find it so difficult to just sit back and see where the pieces fall. I am a go-getter. When someone has hurt or disappointed people I love, I want to fix the situation right away. I don't have the patience to just sit back while they are hurting so bad. How do you get through a time like this?

Secondly, church. That word sometimes really freaks me out. How do you even choose the leaders in a church? I realize that no one is perfect and they are allowed to make mistakes, but at who's cost? Who do they think they are? What makes them think that they know better than others? One thing I don't get is how they can sit in a church service knowing full well that they have hurt or disappointed someone, and really ignore the situation and do NOTHING about it. This is something that I have been struggling with for months now. Around July, I made the decision to leave the church that I had been attending for the past 10 or so years. It was probably one of the hardest decisions I ever made because the congregation at the church was so amazingly supportive and encouraging, but I just couldn't sit in those services anymore.

Since then, I have been attending a great church. Yes, the church makes mistakes and it is far from perfect, but the difference is the leadership takes charge of an issue and deals with it right away instead of trying to hide it in a corner hoping that one day it will just be forgotten. They admit their faults and mistakes and as a congregation, they work on it and encourage one another.

I don't want you to read this entry and think that I am a bitter and unappreciative person when it comes to leadership in the church. I respect the role of a leader and I can't imagine how difficult it must be to have that kind of responsibility. I am simply saying that if you are a leader, it is your responsibility to deal with the issues in your particular church and not to hide and run away from them. That is the only way you will gain the respect you should have from your congregation.