Adopted from Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Barton, p.27.
With reflection on the seven tensions within my soul:
“There is the tension between what the human soul needs in order to be truly well and what life in leadership encourages and even requires.”
This resonates with some Chinese sayings, 人在江湖 身不由己，在朝不如在野.
“There is the tension between the time it takes to love people and the need for expediency.”
It’s especially true with a relational leader because things that touch the soul is slow.
“There is the tension between knowing how to “work the system” and entering into trustworthy relationships characterized by trust and a commitment to one another’s well being.”
In ministry, we are called to love people nor programs. When the soul values people first, programs will come.
“There is the tension between the need for an easy discipleship process through which we can efficiently herd lots of people and the patient, plodding and ultimately mysterious nature of the spiritual transformation process.”
Jesus’s way of discipleship is counterintuitive, high efforts, time consuming, sacrificial, costly, intimate. Yet, true disciples rejoice in the plodding.
“There is the tension between the need for measurable goals and the difficulty of measuring that which is ultimately immeasurable by anyone but God himself.”
This one is hard to say if you’re a hired pastor, you’re expected and wanted to do both. That’s the tension.
“There is the tensions between the organizational hierarchy where all the power dynamics this creates and the mutuality and interdependence of life in community to which we as Christians are called.”
I like the analogy that human body is organic with many organisms, so does the body of Christ. One cannot live without the other. It’s a good in-tension (intention).
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