A word from heaven.

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Strengths and weakness

I'm basing what i write today mainly on the idea based on the leadership summit 2007 teaching by Marcus Buckingham - Go put your strengths to work.

There is this age old question that pops up time and again about leadership or even simply as Christians. If you had to choose between building on your strength or fixing your weakness, which one would you choose?

Buckingham made these statement,

"In our pursuit of excellence, we tend to focus on our weakness. However, we ought to study our success and strengths as well."

"People aren’t our greatest assets, people’s strengths are our greatest aspects"

Before he went into the topic straight, he listed down 3 myths that i thought makes a lot of sense.

Myth 1: As you grow, your personality changes.
Truth: As you grow, you become more of who you already are. The challenge is not to change your personality but to channel it.

Myth 2: You will grow the most in the areas where you are the weakest.
Truth: You will eventually grow most in areas where you are the strongest.

Myth 3: A great member will put aside his strengths and does whatever it takes to help the team.
Truth: A great member will help the team most when he contributes his strengths.

I thought it makes a lot of sense. As leaders, in the day to day hectic ministry, we cannot always be fighting our weaknesses if we want to be effective. It leads to a point of whining and fast develops into a form of insecurity. A leader is the most effective when he believes that he is working to his strengths.

Biblical inadequacy leads to us being empowered by God but human inadequacy leads us to feeling worse and even more inadequate then ever.

Let me give an example. If pride is a issue in my life when i do public ministry but my strength is in public speaking, while i try to overcome the issue of pride in my life, i cannot allow it to keep bugging me to a point when i focus on containing the pride when i do public speaking instead of focusing on my speech. I have to settle it before or after at a more appropriate time.

Let me use the example of Moses. Moses was not confident of public speaking and God got Arron to speak on his behalf. Moses could have curse and swear about his weakness and his incapabilities of public speaking. But what did he do? He played to his strength of leadership. Of leading the people through the desert and he was secure enough to know that Arron will cover for his weakness in the mean time.

Leaders, can i encourage you to be more confident in allowing God to use you in your strengths or weakness. If God can use you in your weakness, what more can God do through your strengths? So leaders, stop letting your inadequacies from becoming the sticking point of your ministry. Let your strengths be.

There are certain things i am not good at. There are certain things i am better at. A rule of thumb is that as long as the things i am not good at does not have a crippling effect on my ministry, i will keep it in mind to take long term steps to grow out of it and devote more attention to other areas. However, if it does, then we will need to grow out of it fast.

Beyond that, leaders, let your ministry in mind, heart and soul surround around your strengths. Be confident of not yourself but of God working through your strengths.

i know i am not a musical person. Can't play guitar for nuts but i know it is an area i need to buck up. But right now, its does not have a crippling effect on my ministry so i focus my strength and energy on the NS ministry on what i am better at, things like discipleship, teaching the word of God, missions etc.

Buckingham sums it up so beautifully:

We need to be able to talk about our strengths without bragging and weakness without whining.

Regards,

jie hui

Labels: Leadership

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Monday, June 30, 2008