When I graduated with a ministry degree, I thought I was more or less equipped for ministry plus some needed years and experience.

Hospital chaplaincy showed me differently because it plunged me deep into the worst of people's pain and suffering...

1/

...made me face mortality several times per day. Forced me to sift my young world view and younger theology through the necessary lens of pain and 'feet on the ground' application of 'where is God when it hurts.'

But it did something much deeper, much more necessary.

2/

It introduced me, very quickly, to all that was bubbling under the surface of my awareness. I had no idea, I really didn't.

I didn't know that I need to please strangers, that when I don't have an answer I get highly anxious, that I cover my deep insecurity with certainty.

3/

To my early horror, all these issues and more bubbled over every day in the face of people's pain and grief. In my early weeks, I couldn't be present with people because I was so profoundly in the grip of my own anxiety.

4/

I was too busy trying to find an answer, not because they asked for one, but because my worldview demanded that I give one.

Not to help them, but to make me feel useful.

5/

So many leaders cannot discern between when they are speaking to help the other and when it is to help themselves.

So many well meaning Christians want to help 'the least of these' not to help, but because they like the feeling of 'making a difference.'

6/

Chronic anxiety, which is what this 'thing' is, is very sophisticated. It can look like being helpful, reliable, wise, productive. But it can all be nothing but a well meaning self serving anxious response.

Ouch.

7/

It took a lot of digging deep, group therapy with fellow chaplains, facing some pain, searching generational traits, naming incidents from childhood that had formed a gaping wound in my life. This is no short journey, but I cannot think of a more worthwhile endeavor.

8/

Not to know self for its own sake, but to 'name things to tame things,' to be able to offer to God a shadow side that God sees and inhabits all along, but that I was blind to. To discover a richer depth of the unconditional love of God.

9/

And then in God's service, to offer THAT to people. Not my curated self, but my fully human self, my God inhabited self. The Wounded Healer salving my wounds even as I feebly offer God to the wounds of people.

This is hard work, but is so much better than the alternative.

10/

If you do this work, your team/children/friends/people who count on you will thank you. And maybe, just maybe, they will also move into this work and then something really beautiful happens: authentic community. No less messy, but much richer and more effective than before.

11/

There are many paths into this work. Many good people offering integration of spirituality, clinical theory and practice. That is what I do. I sift a clinical theory called Family Systems Theory through a spiritual lens, and work hard to offer concrete, practical tools

12/

I've taught these tools in developing countries, to teenagers, churched and unchurched. They are universal in their application and anyone can do it.

I do not believe FST is the end all and even in FST world, there are many excellent guides.

13/

I would simply implore you to do this work. Not FST work necessarily, but soul integration work. Integrating your shadow, blind spots, impulses, deep seated fears, wounds into your leadership. Lead as a human not as a leader.

Sound ominous and heavy and earnest?

14/

On the contrary. When I do webinars and, in the good old days, seminars, people's ongoing laughter is one of the most endearing things we remember. We have FUN and we play while rummaging around in the pain of our hearts.

And the freedom on the other side...

15/

The rest and shalom.

It is like a double scoop of Sweet Cow Ice-cream without the detriment to the waistline.

What would it be like, leader, to encounter the grace of God you so eloquently teach and to lead out of that rootedness?

I hope you fight for that.

16/

I hope you fight like the utter dickens for it. You'll be glad you did, I assure you.

17/17