Waiting

16 Feb ’10 By 6 Comments

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I started waiting at 16 years old.  I wanted to have a life in ministry but had NO idea how to make it happen. So I waited. I waited to grow up.

At 18, I finished high school and went to the School of Ministry in Toronto and felt like the waiting was over. At SoM, I got to taste what a life of ministry was like and I KNEW that was where God wanted me. Leading.

But it’s scary. People count on you; trust in you to help guide them. You could make a mistake or say something that they disagree with. You could be loved . . .or hated. I struggle with being a people-pleaser so the prospect of being hated freaked me right out! After I finished the school, I interned at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship for a year and I got to work in ministry but I wasn’t at the forefront, which suited my fear perfectly but this quiet voice inside me kept saying ‘You know administration is not what you’re here (on earth) for.’ I felt a bit unsettled, I wanted more but my fear held me fast.

While at TACF, I met Lee Houghton, my husband. We got engaged while I was interning and in September 2005, we got married and felt God calling us to move to North Wales (which is where Lee’s from). I was 20. We really weren’t sure why God wanted us in Wales, but we moved all the same.

After a few months, things started falling into place and it became clear that God had put us here to help plant a church. Lee was excited; it had always been his dream to plant a church! i61 (from Isaiah 61) was taking shape and as the plans developed, Lee and I were given the roles of Worship Pastors. Outwardly, I tried to be as enthusiastic as I could, I mean I WAS excited but . . . inwardly, I was frozen with terror. Hadn’t this been what I was waiting for? I WANTED to be a leader, I WANTED to step into the plans that God had for my life, but I was too scared. So I started waiting again, waiting for the fear to pass, waiting until I felt ‘qualified’ to be in a position of leadership. I was given the title of Worship Pastor but unconsciously shied away from leading, leaving Lee to make the majority of the decisions. He would try to get me to step up, but every time, I would pull back, and Lee would have to carry the load. A few years passed and I noticed that people didn’t seem to look at me like a leader the way they looked at Lee. I started to get frustrated and upset. I wanted to lead but I didn’t know what was going wrong? I told Lee I felt like people didn’t look at me like a leader because of my age and lack of experience. Lee would gently point out that I tended to lean on him to lead, that sometimes I hid from my responsibility and in those moments I saw the truth in his words and vowed to make an effort to embrace the role God had given me. I’d pray and ask for courage and the boldness I needed, then the time would come to do so and again, I’d bolt.

At Christmas time, my aunt told me she thought 2010 was going to be a big year in my life. That something would click and I would finally step into a plan that God had for me for a long time but that I had been resisting (she didn’t say the ‘resisting’ part but I knew that was what had been happening) and I knew what she was talking about. It was time for me to stop shying away for the position of leadership that I’ve been in for the past 4 years. It was time to stop waiting around for my fear to disappear and realize that God had chosen me for this job. And if God thought I was ready, who was I to say I wasn’t?

It’s been a couple of months but I’m FINALLY embracing the position God has put me in. I’m starting to understand just how much this job is MEANT for me! God took my passion for worship and loving people and turned it into something I get to do on a daily basis!

So my question to you is, are you waiting? And if so, what are you waiting for? When God has something for you, grab it with both hands and run with it! After all, if our fantastic, incredible God chose YOU, how can we possibly say no?

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Bio: Jesus following, tea-drinking, paint splattered, pink-loving, creative story teller from Canada, married to Lee Houghton, mom to my 2 girls and worship pastor of i61. I tweet! Say hi :O)

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Leadership is Messy

11 Feb ’10 By 4 Comments

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I find myself saying this phrase often.  I think one of the most challenging things about leadership is that most times things are not clearly black and white… answers are not always obvious… making decisions is not easy.  If they were, leadership would be easy and, dare I say, perhaps not even necessary.

Leadership is grey… sometimes many shades of grey.

As a leader at a very fast growing church I have experienced some very grey seasons.  I don’t mean grey as in gloomy, dreary or sad.  I mean grey as in complex, unclear, layered, not black and white.  I’ve spent the last year trying to help our team turn the corner from being a church with another campus to truly being a multi-campus church.  This has required a significant shift in our mindset, our structure, our communication, our strategy and more.  Many times of late, one of our ministry leaders will come to me with a question about how to handle a decision that affects all of our campuses and it will cause me to pause and sort through the layers of grey.  Some of these decisions are immediately clear.  Most times they are complicated and require the work of leading through the layers of grey.

All of this greyness has caused me to ponder this element of leadership that I refer to as “leading in shades of grey”.

Good leaders lead through the grey. They don’t get lost in it.  They don’t get bogged down by it.  They push through it to find clarity.

Good leaders give hope to a grey existence. They offer hope through grey circumstances.  They are aware of how unsettling greyness is to the team and they continue to motivate and encourage them through the process.

Deciphering the grey is not an exact science.  It’s as easy to get wrong as it is to get right… and you’re not always going to get it right.  It takes guts, courage, intuition, discernment, and prayer.  It takes energy, patience, hope and determination.  Leaders step up to help make decisions and to guide the way, especially when things are messy…

…and grey.

Are you facing some grey areas in your leadership?  What can you do to push through the grey?

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Jenni Catron serves as the Executive Director of Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN where she leads a staff of 30 at three campuses.  She loves a fabulous cup of tea, great books, learning the game of tennis and hanging out with her husband and border collie.  She’s passionate about leadership and equipping others to lead well.

Jenni Catron
Executive Director
Cross Point Church
www.crosspoint.tv

Email: jenni@crosspoint.tv
Blog: jennicatron.tv
Twitter: twitter.com/jennicatron

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Article on Catalyst

24 Dec ’09 By 1 Comment

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I’m totally honored to have been featured as a guest columnist on CatalystSpace.com three days ago. Catalyst is one of the forefront leaders in church development among the next generation, and stands as an incredible resource for rising leaders and thinkers. If you wouldn’t mind, even if you’ve already read this piece before, please go on over and leave a comment on my post there (I’ll write back!). ch:

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Leading Teams, Not Individuals (why the Borg is better)

17 Oct ’09 By 10 Comments

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I once heard Dave Ramsey say, “It is easier and more fun to oversee teams than it is to oversee individuals.” I incorporated that statement into a personal missions statement I made while on a personal advance in Washington State last summer. In it, I said that I wanted to be leading leaders, and overseeing teams, not just “maintaining systems” by myself.

Transitioning from an “I do everything model” in church life specifically, which works fine when you’re talented and swim in a small fish bowl, to a team model, requires a great deal of delegation. And the nature of the tasks, which stem from a core belief that everything needs to be done with excellence, requires that those you are delegating work to be trained sufficiently. As a result, I find myself in the midst of a tremendous personal shift. Here are two major revelations I’ve had along the way (with more to follow in the coming months, I’m quite sure):

1.) The Collective Has Better Ideas Than The Individual: I am a very creative guy. And I’m comfortable saying that. It’s not a point of pride, but of consistency over time. But when placed in a group of creative people, my ideas are mere starting points for others to launch from, thus producing end results that I never could have come up with on my own. There is a certain amount of “loss of ownership” that I had to deal with; but when put in the perspective that no idea is more original than God’s, and that we are to adopt a Kingdom mindset, releasing ownership gives birth to unlimited possibilities. It’s interesting that they very same emotion a creative person feels when they are “in control” of their projects–freedom–actually increase exponentially when they release them into the hands of others.

2.) Train As You Go: As my wife pointed out recently, when I’m confronted with the option of giving a task to a team member under me, I very often don’t. I reason, A.) in the time it will take me to teach them how to do it, I can do it five times over, and B.) my years of experience tell me I can do it better. But both arguments, while predominantly true, reduce the potential for growth in ministry exponentially. The easiest answer, of course, would be to hire qualified people. But in church life, that is most often not an option, because limited budgets do not allow you to obtain the level of expertise you need. Imparting your skills and talent over time becomes the only solution if you are serious about growing. And this, of course, takes time, discipline, and patience. But in the end, the team becomes the key component to productivity, not you as the individual. I’m right smack dab in the middle of instituting this principle, and setting up the infrastructure to facilitate it. ch:

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