Gifted to Lead

I read this book, Gifted to Lead: The Art of Leading as a Woman in the Church, within a 24 hour period of time. I’m not sure when the last time that has happened was! But, needless to say, I LOVED this book. It really met me right where I am, and ministered to my heart.

Now, I’m still not sure what I believe about the role of women in the church. At this point, I’m not to the place where Nancy Beach is, but I still have a lot of study ahead of me. The great thing was that you didn’t have to agree with her exactly in order to learn from her- her passion, her leadership, etc. She certainly inspired me to figure out what I believe though, and to be able to talk about it convincingly.

The two chapters that had the biggest influence on me were “And Then We Had Kids!” and “Leaning into Your Tribe.” In the first, Nancy brought good insight and wisdom in the balancing act that moms in ministry have to make, and that it’s never perfect, and that we never have everything we want all the time. No woman does. Single women have so much more time to serve, but sometimes wish they had a spouse or kids. A married woman without kids loves being married, but sometimes wishes she had kids or sometimes she wishes she had the opportunities to do what the single women are doing. And women with kids have a lot less time to pursue interests outside the home, and often feel like they wish they had that time. No matter what, life is a trade-off, and choices have to be made. Different seasons allow for different things. And the key is not learning to balance, but learning to listen to the Spirit. That made a lot of sense to me and helped take the “balancing” pressures off me.

The second chapter that I liked emphasized finding that group of women who you trust, and who know you and care a lot about you, and sticking to them very tightly. And then also pouring out into the younger generation through mentoring. Both of which are extremely important. I think that I’ve really neglected the former aspect… I have girl friends, but I didn’t always bare all. Sometimes I did, but I thought I could handle life on my own and figure things out for myself…. But I’ve come to realize that I want and need those female relationships in my life- women I can talk to about anything and everything, both petty and big deals, and women who are going to tell me how it is, and are going to keep me accountable and help me walk through the ever-changing seasons of life- the rough patches, the challenges of motherhood, sharing the joys and frustrations of kids and marriage and work and life in general.

So, although I can’t say what I’ll be doing in the future, ministry-wise, I hope and think that I’ll be able to lead in some way or another. As I was reading this book, I kept on thinking of all these ideas about how to lead people, things to build community, building teams, etc etc. We’ll see!