Control and conversation

Just got back from one of those meetings where nothing is decided except a plan to make decisions – it's always hard to work out if you've achieved anything though…

Did my first talk at the Lab last night, which I think went okay – just think I really need to keep gaining experience doing it. I remember how rubbish I was when I started leading worship, and how much difference even six months of experience made.

I spoke about living dangerously and how Jesus calls us not to live dangerously but to love dangerously – and then the dangerous living follows. I mentioned how any relationship is scary because it requires us to give up some of our control and allow the other person to accept or reject us.

That got me thinking this morning about how much that translates into leadership – maybe the only way to grow truly authentic community is to relinquish all our control as leaders to others?

Or is it about creating a balance between our control over the situation and the freedom of the community to grow?

Maybe it's not about having control but about something else altogether… I've been thinking a lot recently about the role of a leader as a conversationalist (is that a word?) – or to use a word I've heard a lot today, as a facilitator. Maybe rather than about setting the direction and calling everyone else to follow our lead, it's about working out where everyone else is going and try to bring them to the point of travelling together.

Maybe the journey is more important than the destination?