more on making you sure you don't kill your ministry

Yesterday I wrote some leadership thoughts on what it might look like, unintentionally or accidentally, to kill your team or ministry area. Today I had another thought. 

If you want to kill your team or ministry,

Keep them contained in a small pot. – If you have invested in the soil of your leader’s heart, watered them with resources, and placed them in the spotlight of affirmation those roots are going to broaden for the sake of the plant. As they spread their influence you may find that their area and the place you have set them in is not big enough or wide enough for their individual vision.  As a ministry leader you have to be brave enough and courageous enough to replant them in a spot where their influence, leadership, and vision can continue to grow. Most leaders fail to do this for several reasons. Sadly, the chief reason is because they cannot contemplate a world where other people beside themselves have dreams and goals that are different than theirs. Yes, it's the pastor's role to cast the vision. Leaders need to decide how to get behind it. The areas they lead however will be affected in different ways by that vision and the prescription of that vision will be different across a wide diversity in the body. The inability to see value in someone else’s potential is definitely a great way to kill a strong leader, a ministry’s excitement, or your team’s outlook. The strangest thing to contemplate is that a leader would tell their people to go for it and then turnaround and squelch their efforts. The more you think of them and the less you think of yourself the more you look like Jesus and the less you will want to contain them. I love how he put it to the disciples, “It’s better for you that I go.” He set them free, empowered them with the Holy Spirit, and then gave them the work with the broadest and largest potential clay pot ever. Optimists change the world pessimists contain it.