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Let’s pause for just a minute. If 4-in-5 Spiritual Leaders are stating it is difficult to invest in spiritual development and if running on fumes is the new normal; what is the person seated in the auditorium receiving for their spiritual development?

As if the opening statement is not bad enough, 39% of Pastor’s are questioning their role and function in these troubled days. Only 6% of spiritual leaders have a clear vision for the next 5 years. Personally, I believe the real problem lies within our perception. Our MISSION is not broken – our methods are! Truthfully, we are all wounded healers!CHAOS can be the center of great innovation. If you doubt this fact, you need only to read the book, Some Kind of Crazy. An unforgettable story, in the tradition of Hillbilly Folklore and Education, that reveals how a careful look at a broken past can open a path to profound healing and a satisfying future. 

Author Terry Wardle grew up in the Appalachian coalfields of southwestern Pennsylvania, part of a hardscrabble family of coal miners whose cast of characters included a hot-tempered grandfather with a penchant for blowing up houses, a distant and disapproving father, and a mother who disciplined him with harsh words and threats of hellfire.

I believe that Spiritual Leaders are living at the confluence of 3 realities.1.A Convoluted development from their past – You must spend time in learning your family of origin. Your past is the driver of your present when you leave it to chance.2.Congenital Brokenness or engrained development or habits of living that are inbred that are denying you of leadership victory.3.Confluence of congregational expectations – these are not real and absolutely must be kept in check. You are not all things to all people.

Wounds in our inner being can create false beliefs, false beliefs create emotional upheaval that creates dysfunction. So, the million-dollar question is; What is ungrieved loss? Truthfully, every loss in life should be given its season for appropriate grief work.

You need only study Psalm 109 – which is a brutal Psalm of suffering and agony. There are 29 verses of anguish before you get to the doxology of worship. Could it be that our journey of brokenness has skipped the confrontation of dysfunction and wounds and we want to go straight to the doxology of praise and worship? Truly we hold a tension between suffering and joy!

Every loss has a loss within a loss. Question: what is the ungrieved loss in my life Lord? That question must be met head on before we get to the doxology.

In these difficult times we need to understand that optimism is only an idea that things will get better. Hope, however, says that God can break into our suffering at any moment. Daniel Segal suggests in his paradigm of suffering that we are to be flexible, adaptive, possess a coherence of what was, is, and will be.

It is only when we learn to pause during suffering that we can discern what the Holy Spirit is doing NOW, not what is next!

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Music: “Gratitude Mood” by David Arivett. You can learn more about his music by clicking on his name. THANKS DAVID!