Westwinds

I sensed a change in me beginning back in May – Mother’s day, the last weekend of my spiritual direction practicum, the weekend Conrad came. It marked the beginning of transitions, a paschal mystery, liminal space. Nothing necessarily good or bad, just is. Leadership I: I knew for a long time that my leadership needed to be strengthen and my style changed. I saw my journal entries for the last 6-8 months and then I heard confirmation of those thoughts through various voices. For 10-15 years my leadership approach was saturated in John Maxwell’s teachings. Set the goal, build the team, work the plan, and work your butt off. I’m not making fun of Maxwell’s teachings, there lots of great wisdom and understanding, but for me I was always left feeling inadequate (my life’s re-occurring story) and the unspoken need that I just needed to work harder or try harder to accomplish what my goals. At one level this approach worked when I was single and my time was more flexible.These past 4 years I have been saturated in learning about the Spirit with the Dominican Center friends. As I grew in my understanding of the Spirit’s work, my day-to-day leadership reflected this difference. I was more apt to watch where the Spirit was leading and join in. I was less stressed about the end results, knowing and trusting the Spirit presence to be at work all along the process. I became less plan oriented (not that I don’t plan) and became more aware and dependent on the Spirit’s movement, both for myself and the ministry I lead.The Spirit is already at work. I don’t bring her along with me to minister to others. She’s there working prior to my arrival. That is such a powerful concept and profound understanding. She, just like God our creator/Father, invites, encourages, prompts me to join her and Shadow God for the work already in process.Somehow these two different leadership approaches need to merge and blend, creating a leadership style that is unique to Lori Ann Tate – follower of Jesus, wife, mother, daughter, minister, gardener. A style that blends my strategic, activator, focus, learner, intellectual strengths (taken from Marcus Buckingham’s StrenghFinder inventory) with the spirit-led woman I am becoming. A style that blends my natural thinking-striving personality with the newly cultivated heart sensitive side that is becoming me. Because my natural thinking-striving personality seems so strong, I resist against it more strongly.My prayer: Spirit let me embrace all that is me. All aspects of my personality, all aspects of who You are calling me to be and become. Help me not resist the aspects of my personality that frighten me, (like my desire to please others) but let us journey that path together so that I can become my True-Self, your beloved daughter. All shall be well.

Here's a section of a skit done by the Jamaican Students.

This one is personal for me...A few weeks before this trip I received a card from one of my volunteers. The card said that she had a dream involving me, and felt as if she was supposed to share it. Now this wasn't any kind of crazy thing...and she's a person I trust and respect.In the dream, I was surrounded by students and adults whose lives had been impacted by me. I was standing in the middle, but I was being weighed down by a yoke with buckets. She simply said that she was praying that If I was somehow missing God in the middle of my work for God, that He would reveal His Spirit to me.I have to be honest...I normally land somewhere between skeptical and sarcastic with this stuff. But for some reason this did not affect me this way. I read the card several times and then shoved it into my journal.Fast forward to the Sunday of the trip. We attended a church in the morning (that is a story for another day) that had amazing worship. We were all feeling impacted by the worship, but I felt that God's spirit was prompting me and speaking to me. We were singing a song called I am free...and I felt as if the Spirit was inviting me to let Him into my life more fully.I know I know...I'm a professional Christian + I grew up Baptist...we believe that the Spirit has to be booked in advance for special functions. Anyways, the Jamaica worship choir (which was crazy good) started singing a song that has been very meaningful to our group...God of this City. At this point the presence of God around me was so strong that I became emotionally overwhelmed...I started to cry.I am a crier.But this was bad timing. It was day one of the trip, and I was in charge. If the big pappa breaks on day one the whole thing might fall apart.So I squished it.By that I mean this - I consciously made a decision in my mind to shut out the Spirit in my heart. I did this by engaging my mind. I began to think through the schedule that we had for later that day. I went into leader mode...and the crazy feelings went away.Until I started paying attention to the song again.So I spent some time dancing between spirit filled heart and leader filled head. Finally, I got to the point where I couldn't fight it any more. I needed to take drastic action. So I pulled out my journal in an attempt to plan the next day's activities.That's when the card fell out.You remember the card? The one that prayerfully encouraged me to not be so busy leading that I missed God's move in my own life?Dang it.This was a very powerful experience for me...and It might be your story as well. Any of us who are life-long Christians can be religious with no effort. We can make our faith a clinical, professional deal that fits into neat and tiny boxes. Our willingness to pay attention to the Spirit of God and make our faith messy is the key to seeing His movement in our lives.I shared all of this with my great friend Joe who was with us for the first few days. He pointed out a couple of signs that were in the driveway of the campus where we were staying that simply said, 'slow down'. That became my anchor for the week...my way to remind myself that Ben - professional youth pastor couldn't hold a candle to Ben - passionate Jesus follower. And that's a great way to end my Jamaica posts. With a reminder that we do these trips not for the work, or the impact we have on others (all great things that happen), but instead we go and will continue to go because we are changed. We become more of the person God desires us to be.