Several years ago, one of our church family members competed in the Coast to Coast.
Can you imagine arriving at the finish line of the Coast to Coast only to be told you’ve also got to turn around and run back to the beginning?
That’s what leadership in this second season of the pandemic feels like. After navigating traffic light restrictions and mandates, we’ve headed into a very wet winter, a heightened flu season, the second wave of COVID, inflation is ravaging family budgets, and various people haven’t returned to church.
Right when our leadership batteries are running low, our church families are needing us as church leaders to get a ‘second wind’ and to provide them a greater clarity of direction, a stronger sense of leadership, and a more tender and engaged sense of pastoral care.
How do we do this? Paul writes 2 Timothy knowing that Timothy is in a second season of ministry at Ephesus.
While it’s not explicitly mentioned in the text, I’ve wondered if Paul instinctively knew Timothy’s need of a ‘second wind'.
So I ask myself, where do we find our second wind as leadership teams in this second season, what does leadership look like?
Where do we find Jesus and his grace? And what does Jesus want us to do as leadership teams?
"Be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus..."
- 2 Timothy 2:1
We need to be in Scripture together as leadership teams, but we need to be in Scripture together in ways where we experience the strengthening grace of Jesus Christ.
"Entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others..."
- 2 Timothy 2:2
As elders and leaders we need to invest into a few, for the multiplication of the many, we need to find the joy and delight of pouring ourselves into a few so that the gospel is multiplied in and through them.
"Share in the suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ..."
- 2 Timothy 2:3
We need to be open in this second season for more suffering, but we also need to be open to finding Christ more deeply in the difficulties and complexities of people and pastoral shepherding.
"Remember Jesus..."
- 2 Timothy 2:8
Our devotional lives as leaders need to be saturated with remembering Jesus, his full humanity and full divinity, his death and resurrection.
Out of that will come preaching and teaching and discipling that reflects Christ.
"Endure..."
- 2 Timothy 2:10
We need to endure, we need to keep going, but it’s an endurance faced with Christ, and in him, it’s endurance which is richly rewarded.
We head into the second season of the pandemic needing a second wind as leadership teams, in 2 Timothy we are invited to find this second wind in our risen Lord, through the gospel, from the Scriptures.
