…every time there has been a spiritual awakening, women are often called up into ministry and spiritual leadership. It’s one of the signs of a revival that isn’t talked about very often.

Dr. Jo Anne Lyon, 181

In Developing Female Leaders, church consultant Kadi Cole addresses how churches and leaders can better develop, empower, and elevate women leaders, with strategies on how to navigate common “minefields” and barriers that women leaders experience.

Cole draws from research from more than 30 executive and high-level female ministry leaders from a variety of settings, survey results from over 1,000 female leaders around the world, and interviews from male church leaders who are actively engaging in this issue. Each chapter outlines a “best practice” for church leaders to follow and ends with discussion questions to work through with a leadership team.

We have found this book incredibly relevant and practical. Kadi Cole’s best practices challenge many common assumptions held about women in ministry leadership, and reveal how those assumptions might actually be holding leaders back! But when women leaders are intentionally developed in a supportive environment, all that stunted potential can be unleashed for the expansion of the kingdom of God!

…there’s always room for one more at God’s table…there will always be more than enough people to love, more than enough people to serve, more than enough people with whom we can share the gospel, and more than enough people who need great leadership. In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for all of us.

Kadi Cole, 178

“Effective leaders increasingly perceive their ministries in terms of a lifetime perspective.“

The Making of a Leader by J. Robert Clinton helps spiritual leaders understand God’s process of developing them over a course of a lifetime. Clinton draws principles from the lives of Biblical and ministry leaders in history, breaking each leaders’ journey into 5 phases – sovereign foundations, inner-life growth, ministry maturing, life maturing, and convergence. Each chapter provides reflection questions and tools to help you identify key points in your leadership development journey. We especially appreciate Clinton’s breakdown of spiritual giftings as they relate to ministry.

This book was instrumental in helping us identify different events that God has used in our own lives to develop our character, skills, and calling. Overall, we highly recommend this book for leaders who want to understand their development process and discern how they can continue growing in the ways that God has been moving in their lives.

“God is working primarily in the leader, not through them. Many emerging leaders don’t recognize this and become frustrated. They are constantly evaluating productivity and activities, while God is quietly evaluating their leadership potential. He wants to teach us that we minister out of who we are.”

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Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness by Andrew Murray, a missionary to South Africa in the 1840s, is highly recommended reading for anyone who joins our team. Murray’s writings challenge and focus our hearts to love Jesus through deeper abiding that starts with a humble and surrendered heart. It is only out of this constant dying to self are we able to access the power and presence of God for our ministry.

Quotes:

Here are a couple excerpts that we consistently return to.

When people are frustrating:

Accept every humiliation, look upon every fellow-man who tries or vexes you, as a means of grace to humble you. Use every opportunity of humbling yourself before your fellow-man as a help to remain humble before God. It is by the mighty strengthening of His Holy Spirit that God reveals Christ fully in you.

When life feels out of control:

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.

When feeling powerless:

Here is the path to the higher life: down, lower down! Just as water always seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds men abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.

This has been one of the most impactful books on our walks with God and we highly recommend it to you!

One of the prevailing messages many of us are taught growing up is that emotions are a bad thing. For those of us who grew up in the West, emotions are often seen as illogical or considered a weakness.

However, the Bible is filled with emotional language because God himself feels emotions! He can be grieved (Genesis 6:6), can rejoice over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17), and he can love (John 3:16). In the same way, as people made in God’s image, we also can be thankful for the many emotions we are able to experience!

For missions leaders, self-awareness around emotions is critical. In the high-stress environment of field leadership, emotions will be flying all over the place in yourself, your family, and your teammates! It’s critical we learn how to identify our emotions properly, rather than to stifle and ignore them. Our feelings are often a reflection of what is actually going on in our hearts, and can help us to understand our own motivations or those of others. And when we understand these deeper motivations, we are then able to apply real and effective solutions.

Below are some resources that can help us to understand and to access our deeper emotions.

Tool: Feelings Wheel

The feelings wheel is a handy tool that you can regularly reference to help put specific words to the feelings we experience. A good way to daily process your emotions is to pick out 3 emotions that you experienced during the day and to review why you felt those things.

Book: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzerro makes the point that spiritual maturity is deeply tied into emotional maturity. This books discusses how to integrate the two together for a more holistic discipleship. We recommend this book for basically everyone on our team or any goers we know! He has also written Emotionally Healthy Leader and Emotionally Healthy Discipleship.

Poetry:

If you have a hard time accessing and feeling your emotions, we recommend turning to art (literature, photography, music, etc.) to help you. Here is one of Jenn’s favorite poems:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers | Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

As you look ahead to the new year, I hope these words encourage you to keep surrendering what is burdensome so that you can grow and run with expectancy and freedom toward who God is creating you to be!

i am running into a new year

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

– Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

Hello from Amazing Thailand! After 1.5 years in the States for Jenn’s medical treatment, we’ve finally been able to return to the country and people that we love. There’s been many lessons learned from God through costly and painful experiences in the last season that we hope to write about soon. For now, we’ll try to get settled, reconnect with team and Thai partners, and look forward to 2023 and continuing to help serve missions leaders like yourself!

Quote:

“Depend on it. God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. He is too wise a God to frustrate His purposes for lack of funds, and He can just as easily supply them ahead of time as afterwards, and He much prefers doing so.”

Hudson Taylor

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GoerFI

There are an insane amount of responsibilities for a Team Leader launching to a new place. We can talk about shepherding, strategy, vision casting, team development, culture setting, and many other things – but one critical part is often left behind: administration. For leaders that don’t have administration as a strength, those menial tasks can feel boring and distracting. But without some attention, either from yourself or hopefully from an administratively gifted person that you recruit to your team, administrative aspects like visas, insurance, finances, and even the minutiae like transportation, areas to live, and how to set up your SIM card will continue to drain a TL’s time and mental energy the longer you go without addressing them.

One of the most confusing aspects of life overseas can be the financial aspect – taxes, insurance, savings, retirement. To that end, one of our friends created GoerFI, which stands for Goer Financial Independence. There’s a lot of great info on this website that will hopefully be a blessing to your team and save you time as a TL to focus on other aspects of leadership. (Disclaimer that you should seek guidance from a licensed financial professional regarding personal finances – GoerFI is for informational and educational purposes and is not financial advice!)

From the GoerFI website: “This guide is designed to help you get informed and take charge of your personal finances. Christian non-profit expat workers, or goers, live in unique circumstances: you live overseas most of the time, work for a non-profit, and raise your own support. When you encounter information or advice on handling personal finances, it’s hard not to wonder, “does this even apply to my situation?” This guide was written for goers like you! It’s your tailor-made starting point for taking charge of your personal finances and pursuing Financial Independence (FI). This is goerFI.”

Quote:

“One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.”

Elisabeth Elliot

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The 80/20 Rule

Leaders can often feel overwhelmed by ministry responsibilities, and struggle with how to best prioritize and allocate their time. The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, is a general framework that we use to guide our schedules, commitments, and boundaries. The 80-20 rule states that a small amount of inputs will lead to the majority of impact. Pareto calls it the rule of the “vital few and the trivial many.” With this mindset, we try to focus on only the most important inputs and find peace with releasing the trivial many. 

For example, if we had 10 church planting teams under our leadership, we could “equally” coach all ten leaders. But we have limitations on our own capacity and time! However, suppose one of those church planting leaders actually disciples 8 of the ten teams! By focusing on that one person, we trust we are influencing 80% of the teams with minimal energy and time spent.