Kingfisher Leadership
1st April 2018
Kingfisher Leadership news Increasing expectancy of those we lead in the dry times:
Leading in the dry season
The story of Samuel very nearly ended in 1 Samuel 3. Samuel was fast asleep when God called him and he assumed that it must have been the old priest, Levi, calling him. God had to call him three times before he made the right response: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening” How do we as leaders manage expectation, so that we are not whipping people up to a fever pitch without anything actually happening, but neither are we just going through the motions? The expectations of the team are, to a large degree, going to reflect the attitude of the leader. If the leader portrays a negative attitude, with low expectations, that will permeate to the rest of the group. The reverse is true, too.
The role of leadership is not an endless treadmill of new things; new starts, new directions; new calls to action. The role of leadership is to make sure we, and those we lead, are ready for when the season changes. How can we be ready for the season change? Samuel provides a great example of this. He grew up in a time when ‘Messages from the Lord were very rare and visions were quite uncommon’ (1 Samuel 3:1). Nothing much was happening in the nation, How we act spiritually speaking. Where was Samuel? and lead “Meanwhile, the boy Samuel was serving the Lord others to act by assisting Eli.”. He was in the Tabernacle, in the dry serving the Lord. This meant that he was in the right place at the right time to hear when the call season fundamentally came, because of the decisions he made during the dry and difficult season.
impacts our effectiveness in the new season
It is hard to lead in the dry times, but to be in the right place at the right time when the season change comes, we need to learn three crucial lessons that Samuel lived by. He teaches us that it is faithfulness in the unglamorous things that prepares us and makes us effective for the new season. Have you been going through a dry and difficult season? The attitude of the leader: I have to tell you, God is taking more than a passing interest in • Carry a vision of hope how you handle those dry and difficult times. He looks to see: are The vision of hope, as we have been you being faithful in serving Me even in those times, or are you seeing, starts with us...we are the ones who have the greatest amount of drifting, or have you decided to give up and wait for the next resonance in the group, so we need to set glamorous thing that is hopefully coming along? Leading well in the tone by being convinced that God is the dry season means that we will be in the right place to lead well going to bless and release and grow our when the season changes. What lessons do we need to learn? groups and ministries. Are you a carrier of hope yet?
Faithfulness in the dry times. To be in the right place to hear from God, we need to be faithful in the dry times. ‘Messages from the Lord were very rare and visions were quite uncommon’ - and yet, Samuel still served the Lord. That meant he was in the right place at the right time to hear when the call came. 1
Kingfisher Leadership
• Encouraging others to dream As we share the heart of God with the group, encourage them to begin to ask God to place a Great Dream in their heart...a sense of what he wants to do in the group. "Without wise leadership, a nation falls; there is safety in having many advisers". (Proverbs 11:14 NLT) • Understanding the times (like the men of Issachar) Being a carrier of hope and encouraging others to hope necessitates us understanding what those other people are going through. Without this understanding, the hope that you have which you are seeking to generate within the group actually has the opposite effect...other people, feeling that you don't understand their situation, feel a rising sense of hopelessness and disconnection. Like with the men of Issachar, we need to understand the times - understand where people's struggles and insecurities lie, and encourage them to take the next step of choosing to believe that God not only can, but he will bring breakthrough and blessing. "From the tribe of Issachar, there were 200 leaders of the tribe with their relatives. All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take." (1 Chronicles 12:32 NLT) • Celebrate the green shoots One of the most leader-like things we can do is bring hope to those whom we are leading. But often that hope doesn't come fully packaged and fully formed. Often we need to discern the green shoots and encourage others to see them for what they are. Increasing expectancy in the normal times - the times that are not necessarily exciting - is not about trying to come up with the next whizzy, exciting thing, or some new gimmick. It is about keeping people’s eyes on Jesus and helping them to see what he is doing, even if it seems small and unspectacular. How we act in the chronos times has a fundamental impact on our effectiveness in the Kairos times.
1st April 2018
So many make themselves unavailable to serve in the small things because they are waiting for the big thing from God. But the big thing from God comes to those who are faithful in the small things! The word of the Lord comes to those who are faithfully serving the Lord when messages are very rare and visions quite uncommon. It is faithfulness in the unglamorous things that prepares us and makes us effective for the new season. Expectancy in the normal times To listen to God’s call, we need to wake up. God called Samuel out of the blue during the night while he was sleeping. What this shows us is how easy it is just to do things in our sleep… on autopilot. To hear the call, we need to wake up, and as leaders we need to make sure that those we are leading are awake too. We can get so locked into our routines that we can sleep walk through a new season and never hear the call of God. We need to learn to listen in the ‘normal’, routine times the times we do things in our sleep as it were. Reality dictates that not every moment of our day is going to be technicolour. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t have an ongoing attitude of expectancy, even in the normal, monotonous times. Being ready for the call is about being open to any part of our life being used by God as the opportunity to speak to us. ‘Lord, I am open to you speaking to me today. As I go through this day, if you want to call my name to get my attention, help me to hear your voice. Open my eyes to what you’re trying to show me today, please don’t let me miss it.’ Obedience to the inconvenient call God looks for obedience when the call is not something we particularly want to hear. What Samuel heard was not what he wanted to hear: ‘I am about to do a shocking thing in Israel. I am going to carry out all my threats against Eli and his family, from beginning to end. I have warned him that judgment is coming upon his family forever, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn’t disciplined them. So I have vowed that the sins of Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by sacrifices or offerings.’ ( 1 Samuel 3:11-14). The call on Samuel’s life is to be a faithful mouthpiece for God, and in principle that sounds great, but what a way to start his career as a prophet - prophesying doom to the nation’s leading family! God’s call is going to cost and those he uses in the new season will be those who are prepared to pay the cost and to step out in faith, just as Samuel did. Are you?
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