Monday, February 13, 2006

naked leadership

The guys at Out of Ur caught some crap negative feedback for their cover photo. I know how they feel. Hardly a day goes by without opposing criticism. I remember years ago when I was a soundboard guy. It didn't matter what I had the volume set at. I knew that in any given meeting, there would be some number of people telling me it was too loud and some number telling me it wasn't loud enough. As I have taken on other roles in the church over the years, the one amazing constant is that there is always someone that is unhappy.

Lord - come soon...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rick,
How right you are. I used to be in charge of the AC and heating for our church building. At first, it would bother me when someone complained. Then I learned that the key was to adjust the temperature so that I had the same number of people saying it was too cold as those saying it was too hot.
Randy B.

Anonymous said...

So how do you deal with that over such a long period of time, and how can we help the younger folk understand that this kind of reaction in Christian circles is almost 'normal' - yet exactly what Paul was encouraging us to throw off in Eph 4.....

ricki said...

Good question...

- I am wrong when I presume to know the motives of others and judge their actions based on that.
- Treat others as I would want to be treated (even better).
- Value their input and realize that I am not perfect.
- Remember that I am doing this for the glory of God and not recognition of others.
- Know that God has assigned the task to me to do in the best possible way. Be open to Him using others to help me but having done that, press on and "just do it".
- Sometimes it's not best to be right, it is best to be beautiful. That is, it can be ok to make an unnecessary adjustment for the sake of unity.
- Be no respecter of persons. Listen with love to all people. I am very guilty of predetermining the value of someone's input based on my relationship with them - not good.

And mostly, remember, we are running a race (marathon not sprint) with our eyes fixed on the goal. Don't turn from side to side...

K-Fish said...

I know you are talking about complainers but about the Leadership cover:

If you had trouble with the exposure on that cover, then don't, I repeat, don't purchase the video 'Charlton Heston presents The Bible Genesis'. It is filled with the 'classical art' images that leave nothing to the imagination. Just a bunch of old paintings or is it offensive? I got rid of all my movies that had indecent exposure or sexuality that was inappropriate in them, but I still have this one. Hmmmm...

ricki said...

I like being naked. And there's nothing sexy about it. We went to a beach in Crete that had nude bathers. My wife was concerned about our 13 year old son. My response was, "based on what we can see now, our fear should be that the boy will never desire sex." Believe me, it wasn't pretty. I later discussed it with him. His comment, "Dad, I didn't know breasts came in so many odd shapes."

Net - I know God created us beautiful but frankly, that's not always so obvious.

reftagger