How Are You Showing Up
What's going on internally as you engage in ministry?
I like to see ministry leaders thriving and navigating challenges with resilience. A lot of my professional life revolves around helping ministry leaders do just that. As a ministry leader, have you ever wondered how you can know where you are on the spectrum from burnt out and struggling to thriving and resilient?
One good question to ask yourself is, “How am I showing up?” By that, I don’t mean, “By what means are you physically arriving at your job?” or even, "What is enabling you to keep going?” I mean to draw attention to what’s going on in your internal world as you go about ministry.
When a student or parent contacts you at 9:30pm with an issue, what happens in you? Do you feel the need to immediately do all you can to fix their situation or help as much as you can? Do you tense your body and feel frustrated that people keep interrupting your personal life?
When another staff member treats you disrespectfully, what happens in you? Does some part of you kick in, leading you into reactivity and to do or say things you later regret? Do you internally add this to a list of wrongs and frustrations you are tallying against this person? Do you feel defeated, angry, ashamed, hopeless?
When you need to have a difficult conversation about a struggle you are facing as a woman in youth ministry….
When you show up at the restaurant to meet with the 8th grade girl who’s distracting and attention-seeking during youth group, because you’re trying to build a relationship with her…
When you write that email to parents…
What’s going on inside?
Are you able to remain present and calm? Are you aware of what’s going on with you, and with others? Are you aware of how God is present in the situation (and not just that he is present, but what his presence is like in the situation)? If you’re able to answer “yes” to these three questions, that’s a good indicator.
And anytime your answer is “no,” these questions may be a good place to start the conversation about your challenges. They help you look not only at your circumstances but also at yourself. As a colleague in ministry recently put it, there comes a point when we need to “look past the steam to see why the pot is boiling.” When you look at how you’re showing up, you’re starting to not only notice the steam but also to look past it and to see what’s going on with you.
I don’t say to that imply, “Hey, maybe you’re really the problem here!” in a way that is dismissive of the very real challenges I have been naming. I don’t want women to think, “Ah, I should just be content in [this horribly unsupportive situation], and I need to repent of my frustration with these horrible things.”
At the same time, we need to recognize not only the challenging situations we face, but also the way that we engage those challenges — the way we show up in those challenges. If you consistently have a part of you that shows up with a need to prove yourself to others, that part of you will likely show up a lot in an unsupportive ministry environment. And I guarantee that part will still show up even in a healthy environment in one way or another. Perhaps it will show up less, and perhaps in more subtle ways, but that part of you will still be there. An unhealthy situation will bring out your unhealthy coping patterns more quickly, but arriving at a healthier situation won’t change the fact that you have that particular coping pattern.
At some point, you’ve gotta contend not just with your situation and challenges but with how you are showing up in them. Noticing how you are showing up helps you begin to see past the steam and notice that there’s actually a pot there, and that pot is boiling! And that, of course, is a vital thing to notice in order to deal with the steam.
Why the pot is boiling is another question altogether which will likely have a multi-factored, complex answer. Your answer may include factors like your balance of inputs and outputs, your relational realities, your mental and emotional health, implicit beliefs, your efforts or lackthereof to care for yourself holistically, and so on. It’s a question I’ve been writing on in some ways in other posts and am planning a few more on — so check back for future posts!
The why question comes afterwards, though. Start first not with why you’re showing up the way you are but simply with, “How am I showing up?”