Input/Output
Brokenness as a leadership quality
How it had to start with me as pastor
“Can you tell us about a time when you’ve experienced brokenness?” This was one of the most important questions I asked a potential staff member during a recent search.
Of course our search team was looking for someone who is devoted to Christ, has a proven track record in ministry, exhibits relational skills and fits the culture of our congregation. We want our staff to be effective and fruitful.
But I’ve learned that one of the most important factors in cultivating spiritual transformation within a congregation is the ability to admit to brokenness. If we as leaders don’t acknowledge our own brokenness, we will project the subtle lie that maturity means “having it all together.”
The question about brokenness surprised some candidates. Everyone wants to project a positive image, especially in the interview process. As a result, some candidates responded to this query with a quizzical look or a blank stare.
Yet I long for our church to be a healing community where honesty about sin and brokenness is encouraged, not dismissed or penalized. God begins and continues the transformation process at the place we are, not where we would like to be.
A personal wound
I believe in God’s power to bring transformation. Yet God does not promise that everyone who receives Christ immediately gets “fixed.” In my case, receiving Christ began a life-long journey of coming to God and inviting a lifetime of God-directed change.
Perhaps one of the most important events in my formation as a pastor came some years ago. A church I served was experiencing severe conflict, with strained relationships becoming ever more polarized over time. At one point, several church members held a meeting without my knowledge, and I later discovered that the agenda was my dismissal. Church life was chaotic. I prayed that new believers would not attend congregational business meetings. I experienced severe depression.
Looking back, I consider it one of those “I never want to go through that again but I would never trade it” events in life. In desperation I went to see a Christian counselor. For years, I had been telling people that there’s no shame or embarrassment in seeking professional help. But now it was my turn, and I found myself reluctant to do some much needed self-reflection. I went only as a last resort to sanity.
After taking time to understand me, my faith journey, my family and the circumstances I was facing, my counselor asked me to describe the person who in my words was “leading the charge against me.” After listening, my counselor reflected for a moment and then responded, “You’ve described [him] much like you’ve described your father.”
I felt as though I had been hit on the side of the head. This man’s Spirit-directed observation flooded my heart and mind and led to several important insights.
First, I learned that I cannot control the actions of others but need to address the mess in my own life and take responsibility for my response to conflict. In that specific situation, theological, ecclesiastical and relational issues remained, for sure. Yet my destructive responses—labeled “righteous indignation”—had more to do with my conflicted family of origin.
Second, I clearly saw that if I don’t allow God to transform my pain, I will transmit it to others. It is only when we recognize our disease that we can invite the Great Physician to tend to our wounds.
Third, the process of coming to terms with brokenness—in this case a festering “father wound”—enabled me to take another step in my walk with God and to grow in ministry. Through this painful experience God has enabled me to gently point others with similar wounds to our perfect Heavenly Father.
In His mercy, God never tires of gently exposing us to our need for spiritual growth. He can even use horrific church conflict in our curriculum for spiritual formation.
Healthy leadership tension
Church leadership demands that we live in tension: the tension between an intentional pursuit of Christ as Lord (which leads to a growing maturity) and an acute honesty in dealing with indwelling sin and past pain.
I believe Paul recognized this tension when he wrote, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).
I wonder how Paul would have responded to the question, “Can you tell us about a time when you’ve experienced brokenness?” 
Bill Shereos is senior pastor of First EFC in Chicago and continues his journey by walking with others and by monthly spiritual direction.
Brokenness as a Leadership Quality
“Can you tell us about a time when you’ve experienced brokenness?” This was one of the most important questions I asked a potential staff member during a recent search.
Of course our search team was looking for someone who is devoted to Christ, has a proven track record in ministry, exhibits relational skills and fits the culture of our congregation. We want our staff to be effective and fruitful.
But I’ve learned that one of the most important factors in cultivating spiritual transformation within a congregation is the ability to admit to brokenness. If we as leaders don’t acknowledge our own brokenness, we will project the subtle lie that maturity means “having it all together.”
The question about brokenness surprised some candidates. Everyone wants to project a positive image, especially in the interview process. As a result, some candidates responded to this query with a quizzical look or a blank stare.
Yet I long for our church to be a healing community where honesty about sin and brokenness is encouraged, not dismissed or penalized. God begins and continues the transformation process at the place we are, not where we would like to be.
A personal wound
I believe in God’s power to bring transformation. Yet God does not promise that everyone who receives Christ immediately gets “fixed.” In my case, receiving Christ began a life-long journey of coming to God and inviting a lifetime of God-directed change.
Perhaps one of the most important events in my formation as a pastor came some years ago. A church I served was experiencing severe conflict, with strained relationships becoming ever more polarized over time. At one point, several church members held a meeting without my knowledge, and I later discovered that the agenda was my dismissal. Church life was chaotic. I prayed that new believers would not attend congregational business meetings. I experienced severe depression.
Looking back, I consider it one of those “I never want to go through that again but I would never trade it” events in life. In desperation I went to see a Christian counselor. For years, I had been telling people that there’s no shame or embarrassment in seeking professional help. But now it was my turn, and I found myself reluctant to do some much needed self-reflection. I went only as a last resort to sanity.
After taking time to understand me, my faith journey, my family and the circumstances I was facing, my counselor asked me to describe the person who in my words was “leading the charge against me.” After listening, my counselor reflected for a moment and then responded, “You’ve described [him] much like you’ve described your father.”
I felt as though I had been hit on the side of the head. This man’s Spirit-directed observation flooded my heart and mind and led to several important insights.
First, I learned that I cannot control the actions of others but need to address the mess in my own life and take responsibility for my response to conflict. In that specific situation, theological, ecclesiastical and relational issues remained, for sure. Yet my destructive responses—labeled “righteous indignation”—had more to do with my conflicted family of origin.
Second, I clearly saw that if I don’t allow God to transform my pain, I will transmit it to others. It is only when we recognize our disease that we can invite the Great Physician to tend to our wounds.
Third, the process of coming to terms with brokenness—in this case a festering “father wound”—enabled me to take another step in my walk with God and to grow in ministry. Through this painful experience God has enabled me to gently point others with similar wounds to our perfect Heavenly Father.
In His mercy, God never tires of gently exposing us to our need for spiritual growth. He can even use horrific church conflict in our curriculum for spiritual formation.
Healthy leadership tension
Church leadership demands that we live in tension: the tension between an intentional pursuit of Christ as Lord (which leads to a growing maturity) and an acute honesty in dealing with indwelling sin and past pain.
I believe Paul recognized this tension when he wrote, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).
I wonder how Paul would have responded to the question, “Can you tell us about a time when you’ve experienced brokenness?”
Bill Shereos is senior pastor of First EFC in Chicago and continues his journey by walking with others and by monthly spiritual direction.