{"id":356,"date":"2014-08-29T08:52:41","date_gmt":"2014-08-29T08:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/29\/improving-and-growing-yourself-to-improve-grow-and-serve-your-church-organisation\/"},"modified":"2014-08-29T08:52:41","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T08:52:41","slug":"improving-and-growing-yourself-to-improve-grow-and-serve-your-church-organisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/improving-and-growing-yourself-to-improve-grow-and-serve-your-church-organisation\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving and Growing Yourself to Improve, Grow and Serve Your Church Organisation"},"content":{"rendered":"

28 June 2012 Bracknell, UK [Philip R Brown]<\/span> In The Twelve Absolutes of Leadership<\/em> Gary Burnison recounts the story of a farmer whose donkey fell into a well. The farmer frantically thought about what he could do as the stricken animal cried out to be rescued.\u00a0 With no obvious solution, the farmer regretfully concluded that because the donkey was old and the well needed to be filled in anyway, he should give up the idea of rescuing the beast.\u00a0 Instead, he should simply fill in the well and hope the poor animal would not suffer too much.<\/p>\n

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The farmer asked his neighbours for help and they all began to shovel earth into the well.\u00a0 When the donkey realised what was happening, he brayed and struggled. Then, the noise stopped.<\/p>\n

The farmer looked down into the well and was astonished at what he saw.\u00a0 The donkey was still alive and was progressing towards the top of the well.\u00a0 By shaking off the dirt instead of letting it cover him, he could step on the accumulating soil as the level rose.\u00a0 When the donkey reached the top, he stepped over the edge and gave the farmer one last look.\u00a0 \u201cNow who\u2019s the jackass?\u201d the donkey remarked, and trotted happily away.<\/p>\n

This story offers a key insight for those seeking to be effective Church leaders, who must have and demonstrate learning agility<\/em>.\u00a0 The latter can be defined as the ability to learn from experience and to apply that learning to new situations.\u00a0 Learning agility is not the same thing as having a high IQ or EQ (emotional intelligence).\u00a0 Rather, a Church leader with learning agility can excel at absorbing information from his or her experiences and applying it to the present \u2013 thereby creating an agile Church organisation that also learns, grows and adapts.<\/p>\n

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Yes, learning as a Church leader is often about adapting, being open-minded, and being willing to find solutions that are not always obvious.\u00a0 As a Church leader you cannot expect to learn from things you are NOT doing! Consequently, there can be times when you should expect to fail.\u00a0 Such situations demand that you choose not to blame yourself but rather to learn. In fact, it has been said that the only real failure is failing to fail.\u00a0 A Church leader who fails to fail from time to time could either be unaware of what is going on or simply be acting too cautiously.<\/p>\n

So how do you improve and grow yourself in order to improve and grow your Church organisation?\u00a0 One key requirement is your own preparedness to maintain an open and curious mind.\u00a0 In their book Great Leaders Grow<\/em> Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller suggest that for a leader growing is like oxygen to a deep-sea diver – without it you die. Unlike the diver, you may not physically die \u2013 but if you stop growing, your influence may well erode, and over time, you may even lose the opportunity to lead at all.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

The failure to grow has sabotaged the career of more Church leaders than just about anything else.\u00a0 Hence, your capacity to grow is crucial in determining your capacity to lead.\u00a0 If you wish to improve or grow your Church organisation, then you too must continue to improve and grow. Blanchard and Miller have utilised the acronym GROW to remind leaders of the key ingredients for fostering their personal and professional growth:<\/p>\n