Pastor's Weekly Word

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best. (Philippians 1:9-10)

On Sunday we began a sermon series on being a purple church, something we have been talking about for a few months now. I am using Paul’s letter to the Philippians as the basis for the series, along with a book by Edwin Friedman titled “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.” My hope is that each of us will be challenged as we are invited to take a look at ourselves and how we relate to the world around us.

One of the things Friedman talks about a great deal is something he calls self-differentiated leadership. Here is what he says, “I do not mean an autocrat who tells others what to do or orders them around. Rather, I mean someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected, someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others.”

Part of our goal in being a purple church is to be able to become a little more self-differentiated, to learn how to keep the anxiety of the world from having so much power over us. As I see it, this is a very Christ-like goal. One of the things Jesus did so well was remain himself no matter what was happening around him. He listened and stayed connected but never lost sight of who he was along the way. One of the great challenges life presents us with is to remain who we are, no matter how much pressure we feel to be something else. Be yourself.