There are heavy pressures in church leadership. I imagine other sorts of leadership carry the same sorts of pressures. Pressure to lead with passion. Pressure to have vision. Pressure to present strategy. Pressure to be relevant. Pressure to make people happy. Pressure to be in tune with God for a whole community of people. Pressure to live up to expectations. Pressure to read the right books. I could go on.
Some of these "pressures" are good. But as I prepare to lead the incredible little community called NC3, I have found myself drawn away from those pressures. My eyes have drifted to the eternal. Everything in me that has been taught how be an "effective" pastor is squirming, but my heart is drawn to lead by being in tune with history, overwhelmingly dependant on Scripture for guidance, and lost for hours in prayer every day.
In a world that is so connected, with information so accessible, with my friends in Israel and New Zealand only an email away, with philosophers declaring a new era (called "postmodernism"), the pressure is to try to follow all the trends, understand all the media, and develop language that somehow speaks all the dialects. But these pressures are ethereal, and the results of such journeys will blow away in a strong wind. What will remain is the eternal.
How can you step outside all your pressures today and grab hold of the eternal?
