God-defined People
“Recall the phrase: ‘Poor planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part’. The less mature are always attempting to enroll others in their disquiet, their ‘crisis du jour’. A perceived catastrophe on the part of certain members of the congregation does not constitute a calamity for a well-defined leader.”
“Edwin Friedman, in Generation to Generation defines a leader as a self-defined person with a non-anxious presence… A non-anxious presence does not mean carefree, laid-back, detached, disengaged. It means an absence of anxiety.”
“As Friedman noted some 15 years ago, most of us are leading chronically anxious emotional dwarfs. In many denominational systems, the church has become one of the hideouts for the immature. Sad. We could be the most powerful, clear, selfless, and confident people on the planet.”
(HT: Jon Amos)
