Secrets of Staying Power

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Alone I cannot serve the Lord effectively, and he will spare no pains to teach me this. He will bring things to an end, allowing doors to close and leaving me ineffectively knocking my head against a wall until I realize that I need the help of the Body as well as of the Lord.
Watchman Nee

When I got to my first church, because I was so green, they asked a godly and experienced elder who had moved away to come back and help me for a week," remembers Glen Parkinson. "One of the first things he told me as he oriented me to the church was this: 'Glen, you are not to have any friends in the church. It's not allowed; you just can't do that. No personal friends. That leads to cliquishness, and you'll antagonize some folks.

"'Now we want you to be personable, to love everybody, but you can't talk about anything of a personal nature in this church. Find pastors or somebody outside this church, but don't do that kind of talking here.'

"Not all congregations feel that way," Glen continues, "but most ministers I know don't feel they're allowed to talk about problems in the church with anyone. If they do, people think they're being overly critical or they're gossiping. And pastors simply are not allowed to talk about personal problems. They're not allowed to have them.

"That's going to destroy any human being. It's no surprise it should happen to a pastor."

Laments Gary Downing, executive minister of Colonial Church in Edina, Minnesota: "Feeling isolated, alone, that nobody understands or cares — it's a disease that seems to strike leaders. I bristle at the idea that leaders have to be lonely. Yet I look around and the landscape is littered with lonely leaders."

The reason so many leaders are lonely? Several powerful factors ...

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