Lead as You Are
January 29, 2008 |
After a difficult morning filled with tantrums, a sass mouth, and general disobedience from my normally lovely preschool-aged daughter, I lost it. As we walked back to the car after dropping my son at kindergarten—or I should say as I walked and she stomped through every snow drift I told her to avoid—she yelled ahead to me, “Mom, STOP! I want to be the LEADER!”
At that, I turned around and nearly hissed, “Honey, to be the leader, you need to be the fastest and the best. You can’t lead acting like that!” I know what you’re thinking: That belongs in the annals of mothering wisdom right up there with “Eat your vegetables” and “Mind your manners.” NOT!
Nearly as soon as I said these ridiculous words, shock and shame hit. Not only because I had said them in such an ugly way to my little girl, but because I think I believed what I said. And that exposes a huge hypocrisy in me.
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 29, 2008 | Comments (8)
Food for Thought
January 28, 2008 |
I was a reporter for 12 years. One of the first things I learned in researching a story was “garbage in, garbage out.” If your raw data is flawed, you end up with a faulty conclusion. The same is true with how we see ourselves. If we lack self-confidence, maybe we're working with flawed data.
The reality is, in hundreds of subtle ways, our culture, family, friends—even our thought life—conspire to undermine our confidence. We grow up in families void of affirmation, encouragement, and respect—the building blocks to self-confidence. Then we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of a world that lionizes Size Two Hollywood starlets and Barbie-doll figures. Our paycheck, our title, our designer labels, or some other artificial yardstick gives us temporary entree into the world of The Accepted. But in our hearts, we know it isn't real. How do we find our way to the truth?
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 28, 2008 | Comments (2)
Top 10 Articles from 2007
January 25, 2008 |
This week, as I reflected on Gifted for Leadership’s first year, I decided to do a little analysis. I checked back through our “traffic patterns” for the last 12 months to find the most-read articles on the blog. I though you might be interested in this information, as I was, so I’ve decided to share it with you. Here’s a list of the Top 10 most-read articles of 2007, along with a short excerpt from each one:
10. Edit Your Schedule, Practice Self-Control
by Susan Arico (June)
“Most of the tasks that fill my time on 20-task days are reactive and even compulsive: living life in a knee-jerk fashion. Hurrying through, I skip reflection, prayer, and paring down my list to the truly important. These omissions are actually a form of laziness—
a reluctance or unwillingness to do necessary work; seeking the easy way out. We think of laziness as idleness and procrastination, but it can also come in the shape of frenetic activity and over-full days.” (Read more…)
9. 3 Temptations of Leadership, Part 2
by Amy Simpson (April)
“It’s easy to see how we face this temptation. Who doesn’t want to be popular? Who doesn’t want all the glory and attention and spectacular scene that come with success? Even if we know the downsides to popularity, none of us can completely resist its pull. And, wired for worship as we are, we love a popularity contest and a hero.” (Read more…)
Posted by Amy Simpson on January 25, 2008 | Comments (2)
Battling a Negative Self-Image
January 22, 2008 |
When I read through our new download for this week, I thought: Great, my first week contributing to Gifted For Leadership and we’re discussing one of my nemesis: Self-image. Of course, I suppose I also could have thought: Wow! This must be a God-thing…I’ve learned a lot about this issue over the past year. Yes, that probably would have been the better way to approach it. So, here we go…
It started last year about this time when I was challenged at a conference to fast from something for forty days. I wasn’t taking the whole thing very seriously, until God decided I needed to. And it really was one of those moments when his voice was crystal clear and completely undeniable. Make-up. Yup, it settled like a dead-weight on my chest. I was going to fast from make-up for forty days: no foundation, no blush, no mascara. Nothing.
Posted by Roxanne Wieman on January 22, 2008 | Comments (10)
Food For Thought
January 21, 2008 |
The downside to our personal pietistic tradition in the Western church is that devotionally minded people can become lost in themselves. My spiritual development should not be just for my own sake, but for the sake of the church as well. It is the church that calls me into ministry, that confirms my ordination. It is the church that Jesus is coming for someday.
Continue reading...Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 21, 2008 | Comments (0)
Engaging in 'Sustained Dialogue'
January 18, 2008 |
You don’t have to strain your eyes to see them—the cracks that run down racial, gender and doctrinal lines, splintering the Church into a multitude of factions. We're good at conflict. Too good. We build our self-assured walls, oblivious to the tragedy we create by our divisions. At the root of our disunity is closed ears; we aren't hearing each other. In his book Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity, Edward Gilbreath exhorts, “As members of the body of Christ, we should be determined to hear and understand the concerns of our brothers and sisters.” That means we need to engage in conversation, and not just any conversation. We need Sustained Dialogue.
I first encountered Sustained Dialogue while serving as a moderator for a small group of Palestinian and Jewish students at the university where I work. Sustained Dialogue “focuses on transforming the relationships that cause problems, create conflict, and block change.” It is promoted by The International Institute for Sustained Dialogue (IISD), an organization founded by former U.S. diplomat Dr. Harold Saunders to bring peace to war-torn regions. The goal of Sustained Dialogue is not agreement. Unlike mediation or negotiation, the point is not consensus, but rather improved relationships. It is about developing mutual respect, shared interests and a greater appreciation of our need for one another.
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 18, 2008 | Comments (1)
Is the Church Ready for Iron Ladies?
January 15, 2008 |
I have a confession to make, one that I often sheepishly keep to myself: I have very rarely felt discriminated against for being a woman, but often because I am not a certain type of woman.
I stand on the shoulders of giants who labored to make inroads for women’s rights, for equal opportunity in our culture, our workforce, our political system, and our churches. As a child and a teenager, my father taught me that I could be anything I wanted when I grew up. I believed him. My generation—the people I grew up with and the people I interact with even today—take it for granted that women deserve the same opportunities as men. My church assumes that leadership in the church should be based on God-given ability and vocational calling rather than gender. At both seminaries I have attended, I have been encouraged by God-honoring, conservative male professors who regularly tell me, “The church needs women leaders. One reason the church today has so many problems is because we have so few women leaders.”
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 15, 2008 | Comments (22)
Food for Thought
January 14, 2008 |
The New Testament writers adopted agape as the standard word for love. We think this means that agape must also have some softer meanings besides sacrifice, death on a cross, giving away our possessions, and giving our body to be burned. But agape didn't make the Cross; the Cross made agape. The Cross isn't a subset of agape; agape is a subset of the Cross. The fact that the writers chose agape as the primary, defining word for love in the New Testament, and thus for life in the Christian community, shows how radically the New Testament redefines love from the perspective of the Cross.
It also shows how radically the New Testament defines our concepts of friendship. For Jesus tells his disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love [agape] one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends [philos] (John 15:12–13).
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 14, 2008 | Comments (0)
Reproducing What We Are
January 11, 2008 |
"We will reproduce what we are." That statement, made by Wayne Cordiero at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2006, proved to be a turning point for me as a leader. Like most leaders, my type-A, high-capacity leadership gifting has me traveling pretty fast most of the time. If I'm honest with myself, I tend to like it that way. After listening to Wayne's message, however, I'm not so sure God likes it that way.
Hearts at Home started out as a small church event for moms 15 years ago. Now this international ministry that I lead reaches thousands of moms all over the world. The demands for speaking and writing feel overwhelming at times. And if that wasn't enough, I'm a pastor's wife and mother of five. There's a lot to do and a lot of responsibility to manage.
As leaders, we are in the reproducing business. Any leader has influence and influence leads to reproduction in some way. We will reproduce what we are.
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 11, 2008 | Comments (1)
Confrontational Compassion
January 8, 2008 |
Donald P. McNeill in Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life offers a profound perspective: “Honest, direct confrontation is a true expression of compassion... The illusion of power must be unmasked, idolatry must be undone, oppression and exploitation must be fought, and all who participate in these evils must be confronted. This is compassion.” Not quite the way we usually define the word, is it? But so very compelling.
As a woman in leadership I am almost daily aware of and impacted by the realities of power, idolatry, oppression and exploitation. Unfortunately, more times than not, when I’m confronted by such darkness, compassion (at least as I’ve understood it previously) has not been my intuitive, spontaneous response.
What if it were, but as defined anew by McNeill?
Continue reading...Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 8, 2008 | Comments (10)
Food for Thought
January 7, 2008 |
I liken emotional healing to a tunnel that links a barren land with a pristine forest. We’ll never drink from the forest’s mountain spring if we don’t go through the tunnel. But most of us feel too afraid to step inside for fear of the dark; and the barren land—bleak as it is—has a staid familiarity about it. The truth? It’s dark in the tunnel. The hurt is intensified, especially when we can’t see the other side.
When I became a Christian at 15, I clung to the apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” I decided I’d been healed of all emotional wounds when I became a Christian and viewed others who struggled as lacking faith. But my emotional world fell apart in college and I became a struggler. I cried a lot. God sent many friends who simply listened and prayed for me.
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 7, 2008 | Comments (0)
RetroWomen: The Rise of Gender Fundamentalism
January 4, 2008 |
Earlier this year, I provided a link to a video of a fundamentalist teacher in the UK. His comments about women and what he saw as their God-created role (little more than animals, created to serve and please men) were understandably shocking to many readers. Quite a few of those who responded wondered why I had bothered to draw attention to the perspectives of an isolated extremist. No one could possibly take him seriously. This kind of primitive thinking had been “dealt with” since the ‘60s, and there was no reason to spend time and energy on it now. We’re well into the new millennium. Now, Christian women believe that if they’ve been given gifts, they have a divine call to use them, wherever God leads. End of story.
I’ve mused about those responses the rest of this year. Were they right? Has the perspective that women are made solely for men’s pleasure and use truly been relegated to the annals of history?
This fall, The Los Angeles Times ran an article entitled, “Stubborn Stains, Cookie Baking on Syllabus.” Its opening lines:
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 4, 2008 | Comments (26)
Create a Culture of Mentorship
January 1, 2008 |
“Mentoring,” says the late Fred Smith Sr. in his book Leading with Integrity, “is back in favor again, like a wonderful old story that hasn’t been told for so long it sounds new.”
Then he succinctly explains the danger of that dynamic.
“In some ways it has taken on the characteristics of a fad; if too much is expected too soon, it will fail.”
Much like Smith, I have listened in recent years to the growing chorus of voices insisting younger people like me need a mentor, an individual who can listen and provide sage wisdom to me in my faith, my marriage, my parenting, my career, and my leadership. Almost all of those messages have come at me as I sit in the pews of the churches I’ve attended. Unfortunately, none of these churches effectively found ways to orchestrate meaningful mentoring relationships between older and younger congregants.
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on January 1, 2008 | Comments (1)
