{"id":781359,"date":"2022-07-06T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T10:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/?p=781359"},"modified":"2022-07-06T09:33:35","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T14:33:35","slug":"avoid-bringing-this-leadership-baggage-into-your-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/avoid-bringing-this-leadership-baggage-into-your-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoid Bringing This Leadership Baggage into Your Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">God created leadership for the church. Jesus is the Chief Shepherd, and He sets aside other shepherds to lead the church by serving under Him. Members of the church are to follow those who keep watch over their spiritual development. Additionally, these leaders should not abuse their authority but rather lead by example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This relationship between leaders and followers in the church is clothed in humility through God\u2019s gift of grace. But all leaders bring baggage into this relationship. It\u2019s easier to point out the things your followers need to change, while it\u2019s harder to unwind your leadership baggage from God\u2019s plan for your church.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We church leaders can disguise this baggage as a \u201cministry philosophy\u201d when it can be nothing more than our own prejudices. What are some ways we carry baggage?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Preferences<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Some leaders simply rebrand their personal preferences as the \u201cvision\u201d for everyone. True vision is collective. True vision considers the gifts of all followers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Experience<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Most of the time, leadership experience adds wisdom. This same experience, however, can mold our thought process into doing things the same way as before. For example, if you\u2019re a leader in a new position, it\u2019s far easier to lean heavily upon previous solutions in past leadership roles. It\u2019s harder to form new solutions that fit the current context using experience only as a guide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Hurt<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The longer you lead, the more hurt you will experience. Getting hurt\u2014particularly as a senior leader\u2014is inevitable. Learning to cope with the jabs thickens the hide, but projecting previous offenses on others attempting to offer constructive criticism is an easy mistake to make.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Oversimplification<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Veteran leaders have a valuable perspective. This veteran perspective enables them to make decisions quickly and clarify complex problems. However, veteran leaders can oversimplify these problems when they get too far in front of their followers. Sometimes overly simplistic solutions are more confusing than the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All leaders bring baggage into a relationship with their followers. Recognize this baggage. Avoid using it. Discard the baggage when possible, and be a better leader.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"God created leadership for the church. Jesus is the Chief Shepherd, and He sets aside other shepherds to lead the church by serving under Him. Members of the church are to follow those who keep watch over their spiritual development. Additionally, these leaders should not abuse their authority but rather lead by example. This relationship&#8230;","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":781363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"0","publish_post_category":"1","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,195,175,186,192,177,178,14796,176,196,15962],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-conflict-and-people-problems","category-grow","category-health-and-metrics","category-how-to","category-lead","category-membership-and-assimilation","category-monday-wednesday-featured","category-revitalize","category-staff-and-organizational-issues","category-womens-discipleship"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Avoid Bringing This Leadership Baggage into Your Church | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The relationship between leaders and followers in the church is clothed in humility through God\u2019s gift of grace. But all leaders bring baggage into this relationship. We church leaders can disguise this baggage as a \u201cministry philosophy\u201d when it can be nothing more than our own prejudices. What are some ways we carry baggage?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/avoid-bringing-this-leadership-baggage-into-your-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Avoid Bringing This Leadership Baggage into Your Church | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The relationship between leaders and followers in the church is clothed in humility through God\u2019s gift of grace. But all leaders bring baggage into this relationship. 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