What to Do When Leading Gets Discouraging
In this past year you’ve pivoted to offer the kids and families in your ministry ways to stay engaged. You’ve sent materials home for them to have their own time of discipleship. It can be exhausting and discouraging when you don’t see the results you wanted. But what can you do?
On a recent Resilient Disciples Podcast, Dr. Denise Muir Kjesbo, program director at Bethel Seminary in the Master of Arts in Children’s and Family Ministry and a speaker at our upcoming Child Discipleship Forum in September, shared with us several things leaders can do to take care of their own well-being.
- Refrain from blaming others. Dr. Kjesbo explains that psychologically it’s easy to assume it’s the other party’s fault. As leaders we can think, “[Parents] don’t care about Jesus and they don’t love their children.” Instead, realize “it is not necessarily – and probably not at all – the character of the people we are trying to reach. It’s all the other stuff that’s going on.”
- Tend to your own “spiritual garden.” Dr. Kjesbo says leaders “can’t give what they don’t have.”
- Grow your relationships. Calling them “key,” she says, “Our relationship with Jesus is foundational … but then our relationships with those we are partnering with. … Relationships are what build resiliency.”
- Reach out to those you serve with and those you serve. “Make a phone call. … Hear what’s happening in the lives of people.”
- Share your feelings with others. Everyone needs to know they’re not alone in how they feel.
- Speak words of hope.
To hear more of the conversation, Dr. Kjesbo’s ideas for resources, and how to partner well with parents, listen to Mind the Gap: Partner With Parents for the Sake of Discipleship, a Resilient Disciples Podcast.
The podcast with Dr. Kjesbo is one in our series of conversations with Child Discipleship Forum speakers. Find the series on the Resilient Disciples web page or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Carla’s work at Awana has been on the communications and marketing teams. It is important to her that Awana leaders and volunteers have the information they need to best disciple the kids in their care, and that these kids grow to become disciplemakers, themselves. When Carla is not at work, she enjoys walking with friends, taking pictures of birds and sunsets, or exploring new places with her husband and daughter.
