Anvil

“Maintaining passion while submitting to authority…learn to live with the tension. Character comes from this pressure” – Andy Stanley 

As a general principle, in areas where you’re not passionate, it’s easier to submit. In areas you care about and are more invested in, it can become more difficult. Submission to authority is no respecter of age, leadership experience, spiritual maturity, competence, etc. (and that doesn’t just mean the boss). It comes down to “do you trust God is not only at the helm but also at work in them (and you)?” You got to trust God enough to let the boss make the hard calls especially as it impacts you and stay engaged. Part of the mission is the growth of the leader. And as another corollary, you will have to learn to embrace transition.

This was a big lesson for me in early vocational ministry at Breakaway. Watermark just teased it out at another level.

My time at Breakaway could be split in 3 parts: Almost 2 years with the founding director (Gregg Matte), a year and half as we searched for a new director, and then almost 2 years with a new director (Ben Stuart). I learned a lot from Gregg that got practiced a lot in the year and half of transition where we had no director. When Ben became director, he was growing in his role, and I was still growing too. We were in our twenties. We were a full-time team of 3. In the process of leading part-time interns who led team leaders who led students as well as the design side, I was learning to adjust to a different style of leadership and he was still learning how to lead at that level. While we all loved each other, the nature of the ministry was intense pace and pressure, and we were all passionate about the mission. That became a recipe for conflict.

One day he wisely said it’s like our insecurities tend to find each other like magnets creating conflict. It didn’t help that I had some close to me saying, “Charla in the real world, you would just leave and find another job. You’re young and ‘what do you earn again?’ You don’t have to do this. At different points, others offered me a job. But the calling ran deep, and I knew God had me there and I wanted to be there.

Then I remember one day, it was as if God humbled me and gently said “Ok, Charla, I’m giving you the choice. You can be free to go and I’ll use you somewhere else and even use a lot of your other skills. But Ben is going to be used to reach far more than you,, and you have the option of being an anvil I will use to shape him to the next level of leading. You can go, and I will use another, or you can stay and I will use the friction for both of your good.”

That sealed something in me that day. I saw my job not just with a generation of students but also as an anvil God could use to help Ben in his calling & leadership at that stage. Down the road, we got to a point financially where the board had to close out my position which meant losing my job. The moment Ben told me, I replied, “thanks for making the hard decision.” That’s when I knew I could trust Ben as a leader with Breakaway because I knew it was the hardest decision for him to make. God had His hand in it.

At Watermark alone, I’ve had about 8 bosses and then another overlap boss. And then I can feel the leadership of their bosses and their boss’s boss. And every client is like a boss in some way. So that’s a good boot camp in learning how to serve and submit to a lot different people (or atleast the opportunity to do so:). In March, I will have been here at Watermark for 14 years. There are a 1000 things I could say of what I’ve learned, but to the original point, it’s important to learn how to flex under different styles of leadership, different levels of experience in leadership, different ages, different competencies, and different conditions.

Remember it’s possible to find yourself micromanaging up as much as being micromanaged down. We can do this by oversystematizing, trying to make a boss more administrative than he or she is, or fall in love with a program that works for you but not for them. You got to know your boss and discern when you nag or unintentionally micromanage instead of figuring out together what will be effective for you both and strengthen the working relationship.

At the end of the day, God put that person in authority in the middle of today’s condition. And He put you there. He was sovereign in both. Learn them. Be sharpened by them. Ask questions because you care about their success (in the sense of them becoming all God intended them to be…not simply what you may imagine for them;) and what God is doing in this generation. Trust that God will work in time. Keep planting seeds and cultivate the work and the relationship. And remember inefficiencies can teach a heart a lot in them and you. You were given a role that’s needed. Play it well.

“God did not give Joseph any special information about how to get from being the son of a nomad in Palestine to being Pharaoh’s right hand man in Egypt. What He did give Joseph were eleven jealous brothers, the attention of a very loose and vengeful woman, the ability to do the service of interpreting dreams and managing other people’s affairs and the grace to do that faithfully wherever he was.” – Rich Mullins 

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.”-Hebrews 13:16-18 

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Romans 13:1 

“… Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”- Ephesians 5:18-21 

“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who guards his master will be honored.” – Proverbs 27:17-18