Spirituality does not compensate for our shadow side

All of us have a shadow side. This is not about whether we are spiritual enough! It is about recognizing the shadow side and dealing with it. The Apostle Paul was a hard driving, type A, highly disciplined individual. Yet when John Mark did not live up to the same standards, Paul and Barnabas, two giants of the New Testament came to such disagreement that they had to separate ways. So strong was the disagreement that Paul abandoned not only John Mark but the very individual who had discipled and encouraged him when no one else would – Barnabas. The shadow side of his discipline and high standards alienated him from a friend who had been a friend when no one else would be a friend.



Can you imagine the pain that Barnabas and John Mark felt when Paul took such a hard line? No amount of spirituality on Paul’s part kept him from deeply hurting two individuals who loved him very much. Perhaps words like arrogance and narcissism and impatience found their way into Barnabas’s mind as he processed his friendship and partnership gone wrong.


The fact that Paul changed his mind about John Mark later in his life and requested his presence when he was in prison indicates to me that Paul had become more self aware and was dealing with the downside of his driven personality. Paul was as deeply a spiritual man as any who ever lived and yet he too had a shadow side to his strengths: liabilities that hurt Barnabas and John Mark because they were not managed well or recognized by him at that time of his life.


There are also people who hide behind a gloss of spirituality to ignore or compensate for their shadow side. These are often Christian leaders who spiritualize everything and have a spiritual explanation for even those times when their own issues have caused problems.


Dan is an organizational leader who is black and white, always right, critical of others and impervious to alternate points of view. He attracts followers who are like the stepford wives, blindly following without thinking critically themselves. Those who disagree with him are marginalized and devalued. But it is always done behind a façade of spirituality that makes it impossible to penetrate. When he is in a group and is the only one to take a certain position he sees himself as a prophet speaking truth to those who are blind (never mind that the Old Testament prophets spoke for God directly). No amount of discussion or dialogue will shift him from his right and “prophetic” point of view.


When his stubbornness (arrogance) causes issues in his organization, it is spiritual warfare that he is up against (now those who disagree are unwitting agents of Satan). His vocabulary is filled with spiritual references (How do you argue against God?) so that rational dialogue is hard or impossible to have and disagreements are always couched in spiritual terms.


Dan has caused huge pain for many people. Those who are smart enough to recognize his methodology stay away from him, leaving him with sycophants who become his blind disciples. What Dan has done is to spiritualize both his strengths and his liabilities in order to justify both in ways that allow him to avoid dealing with his shadow side or admitting that his behaviors often hurt others.


In essence his method for dealing with his shadow side is a spiritual narcissism hidden behind spiritual vocabulary that keeps him from accepting accountability for his shadow side. Because of the spiritual façade, many are afraid to name his conduct for what it is – poor EQ, narcissistic, deeply unhealthy, hurtful to others and frankly emotionally sick. But, Dan feels good because he does not need to face the reality of his own dark side – while in the process hurting others.


Spirituality, real like Paul’s or a façade like Dan’s does not compensate for our shadow side with must be managed carefully if we are to be people of deep influence.

Managing the Shadow Side

I remember as a child playing a game of trying to move fast enough to lose my shadow. It never worked. My shadow followed me no matter what I did. I could jump, dodge and weave and the shadow remained.



We all have a shadow side: it is the side of us that we try to ignore and don’t want to acknowledge. As a result, it often gets us into trouble with others and can severely compromise our influence if not destroy it altogether. Deep influence is, after all gained the hard way as we have already seen. Unfortunately it can easily be compromised or destroyed if we don’t practice the discipline of managing our shadow side. The stronger our strengths – the longer our shadow!

As Christian leaders we have an ideal us that we want to project to others – and believe about ourselves. We believe in spiritual transformation and desperately desire that transformation for our lives. We are often disciplined to a fault in our effort to become all that God wants us to become. But like my childhood game, we will never lose our shadow side until we finally meet Christ face to face. In the meantime, we need to understand ourselves deeply, know where the shadow side lies, manage it carefully and allow the Holy Spirit to deeply sensitive us to facets of our wiring and areas of personal temptation that make up our shadow side.


It is easy to spot the shadow side in others. They are those behaviors that disempower others, cause us frustration or anger and frankly the very things we wish we could talk to them about. Unfortunately for us they are not alone. Our issues may be different but each of us has a shadow side that regularly threatens to lessen our influence and detract from the impact God desires us to have.


Every strength we possess comes with a requisite downside – a liability. When we exercise our strengths we live in our sweet spot – if we are also managing the downside of those strengths.


One of my five signature strengths on Strengthfinders is that I am a “maximizer.” As a maximizer, I want to always maximize ministry opportunity and leave nothing on the table. This means that I will question why we do things the way we do them and always push for the most effective strategy to maximize results with the people, resources and opportunities we have. As an organizational leader, this is a great strength to have and it has had a positive impact on the methodology of our organization.


But there is a downside as well. As a maximizer I can easily become impatient with strategies that do addition rather than multiplication. It is not the impatience that is a bad thing – it can be a very good thing, but when my impatience causes me to be less diplomatic, respond harshly or in some way devalue others who don’t yet “get it,” the strength has gone to its shadow side. I am sure there are those who have viewed me over the years as insensitive and uncaring in situations where I did not adequately manage the shadow side of this otherwise great strength.

Knowing the shadow side of our strengths allows us to manage or compensate in ways that prevent the strength from becoming a liability. I have learned in the case of my maximizer strength to press more gently and dialogue more than preach to help others understand that we can move toward greater effectiveness if we think multiplication rather than addition. I have learned the hard way over the years that process and time are essential ingredients to moving people and organizations in a more effective direction. And, I have learned the necessity of simply being patient in situations where in the past I would have been far less patient.


I have a pastor friend who is the ultimate relationship guy. If he were to take Strengthsfinders, I am sure his number one strength would be “woo” which means he influences others by bringing them into his orbit with the force of his friendly demeanor. He also has a gift for talking – which most highly relational folks do. Everyone in the church loves him because he is so winsome, so encouraging, and everyone feels connected to him. There is no manipulation involved, it is who he is. Much of what he has accomplished as a leader in his church comes back to his winsome, relational style. It is a huge strength and I have watched it for years.


However, this great strength also has its liabilities – its shadow side. He has found over the years that he could “wing it” on many issues and just get by with his relational skill rather than doing his homework on critical issues. That works for a while but not forever, and staff and church leaders often feel that they have been shortchanged by a lack of discipline in decision making because my friend has learned to do it by the seat of his pants rather than through team. He simply uses the force of his personality to convince others that his way is the right way.


And he is hard to disagree with. He is the ultimate debater who can dominate any conversation and meeting – and usually does, leaving others feeling like they cannot win and their opinion is not important. Because he is so likable, he often gets away with it but it is not without cost. The cost is a feeling of being used, not being heard, and a sense of being devalued in the process. His team meetings are not about mutual dialogue but about him expounding. This has led to tension with his team and his board who feel that it is a one man show. At one point of tension, my friend almost lost his church because of the shadow side of his relational strength.

Every strength brings with it a liability, a shadow side that unless recognized, become sensitized to and managed will either compromise the strength, or can even turn the strength into a greater liability than the strength itself. The latter case is the ultimate irony about our strengths. Unchecked, our strengths can become the very means of our loss of influence and effectiveness. It is on those shoals that many brilliant men and woman have lost their influence!

Defining the future of your church

If a congregation is going to be as effective as it could be it is imperative to be clear on four questions: Why do we exist? What are our non negotiables? What do we need to be doing day in and day out to maximize our effectiveness? What do we want the result of our ministry to be? In my book, Leading From The Sandbox, I describe how a church can build a sandbox around these four sides, invite people to play inside that sandbox and in the process bring clarity to who you want to be as a church.

The following are the answers for those four sides from a church I have recently worked with (still in draft form for them). If you have never clarified these four questions for your congregation I would encourage you to think about what your answers would be.  And then to clarify. The lack of clarity in local churches is one of the greatest reasons that we miss out on greater missional effectiveness.

Mission (why we exist)

Grace Church exists to help others love God and love one another as we bring Christ to our world.

Guiding Principles (Our Non negotiables)

Word based and Spirit Empowered


We are committed to the Word of God as being the foundation for all that we believe, how we relate to one another within the church and how we relate and minister to the world around us. Knowing that it is only God’s power through his Spirit that makes it possible for us to live as He wants us to live, we are committed to allowing God’s Spirit to work in our lives and transform us into Christ’s image.


Gospel Centered


We are a gospel centered church changing lives and communities in the power of God’s Spirit. As a Gospel centered church we place Christ at the center of all we do, of whom we want to become and His priorities as reflected in the Scriptures are our priorities. We believe that Christ alone is the hope of the world, that our lives should be radically transformed by His Spirit and that our transformation will have a transformative effect on those around us and the communities in which we live.


Grace Filled


Just as God’s grace is the basis of our salvation, we are called to extend His amazing grace to one another. This includes a willingness to forgive one another, live at peace with one another, care for and love one another and assume the best of one another. We desire the qualities of grace, love and forgiveness to permeate our fellowship. In line with God’s grace we reject all forms of legalism and live with a gracious spirit in those areas were we may differ on life style choices that are not clearly delineated in Scripture.


Embracing All


As a Gospel centered and grace filled fellowship, we will actively love all in our communities including those from all socio economic groups, racial backgrounds and the marginalized, forgotten and oppressed. As a multi-generational church we work to make all welcome and to minister to all the generations that make Grace Bible Church their home. As Jesus welcomed all who came to him so we welcome all who come to us.


Community and World Focused


The Gospel of Christ compels us to actively and intentionally reach out into our communities, circles of influence and to our world with the message of God’s grace. We actively resist the temptation to become comfortable on our church campus to the exclusion of engaging our friends, neighbors and communities with the message of the gospel. We are committed to actively cooperate with Christ in the local and global work of the Great Commission.


Gift Based


We believe that every Christ follower is called to use his or her gifts in an active way – “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).” We are intentional in encouraging every individual within our fellowship to understand how God has wired them and to use their wiring and gifts for the advancement of His cause both inside and outside the church.


Missional and Empowered


Grace Church embraces a missional mindset where ministry decisions are intentionally designed to fulfill God’s purpose for His church: helping people come to faith in Christ and embracing spiritual transformation where we increasingly become the people God designed us to be. We are not content with being “comfortable” but rather, taking the risk to follow Jesus and accomplish everything we can for His purposes. Your leaders are also committed to releasing the congregation into meaningful ministry in line with each individuals wiring and gifting.


Flexible Structures


As a Gospel centered and missional congregation we are ready to be flexible in our ministry structures and paradigms so that we can respond in a timely and effective manner to ministry opportunities God gives us. This includes a willingness to evaluate all ministries for their effectiveness, to ensure that our governance structures always serve our mission and a flexible mindset that is more concerned about ministry effectiveness than how we have done things in the past.

Central Ministry Focus

(What we need to be doing all the time)

Grace Church is a place where all of us are taking the next step of obedience to Christ and using our unique gifting to further God’s transformational agenda for our world.

Our Culture: Spiritual Transformation

 (What we want the result of our ministry to be)

Grace Church desires to be a place where God is actively transforming His people into the image of Christ and where we are actively participating in that transformation through our obedience and followership.


Transformation of our minds where we think like God thinks and His concerns become our concerns


Transformation of our hearts where we become recipients of God’s grace and the agents of His grace to those around us


Transformation of our relationships where we see others as God sees them and love others as God loves us


Transformation of our priorities where we adopt God’s priorities and actively live out those priorities in our daily lives

Interminable Board Meetings

It is why many choose not to serve on boards. It is why many boards cannot make decisions and live in deadlock. It is why one or two board members can hold the board hostage by never allowing a decision to be made. It is why many boards live by “resawing the sawdust” over and over again!


If the business you work for operated like many interminable boards, they would be out of business. It is, in fact, foolishness to allow a board to deliberate, deliberate, deliberate; never having the courage or discipline to simply make a decision and move on – with the agreement that everyone present will support that decision. Ironically, board meetings are often interminable over insignificant issues that should have taken ten minutes to decide and yet take the board into the wee hours of the morning.


It is also no uncommon with undisciplined boards to make a decision and then revisit that decision time and again because a board member does not agree or someone in the congregation disagreed (really?).


If you are suffering from interminable church board meetings I encourage you to adopt a set of principles that will allow your board to live with discipline and allow it to move along. The ministry of the church will not move any faster than the board can do its business – scary thought.


1. Use an agenda and put the most important issues on the agenda first.


2. Live within your time parameters.


3. After discussion take a vote and move on.


4. Through a board covenant ensure that all board members will support the decision made.


5. Have a written document that describes how your board does its business and abide by it.


6. Except in unusual cases, don’t revisit decisions made.


7. Never allow any board member to hold the board hostage by refusing to make a decision.


8. Delegate all those decisions that do not rise to the level of board discussion – many issues do not.


9. Empower your board chair to lead the meeting so that it moves through the agenda.


10. Get up and go home if the board goes over its allocated time – even if others choose to stay and resaw sawdust. You don’t need to.

Restlessness

Twice in the past week I have had conversations with ministry leaders, one in their forties and one in their fifties who expressed a deep restlessness and significant boredom. Both are in good and secure ministries but knowing that their time is probably up for what they are currently doing.

Restlessness should not be ignored. It is a sign that some kind of transition is needed and it is often planted in our hearts by God so that we don't simply stay in our comfort zone but rather on the cutting edge of where He wants us to be. Those who ignore the restlessness often end up settling for the easy route in their latter years but not the route that would have yielded the most ministry impact.

Restlessnes does not necessarily mean it is time to leave (although it could) but it does meant that unless there is significant reformulation of what one is doing, the satisfaction and joy of work will be noticibly lesser than it should and could be. It is often a sign that we are not operating at our fullest capacity and that God wired us for more than we are currently doing.

Restlessness is a time to pray and explore new options for our ministries. It is also a time to find avenues of growth (boredome often means extra time on our hands) where we can grow and develop where we are as we wait for our next assignment. It is really a gift from God to get our attention that He has something more and better for us at this time of our lives and in the meantime, personal growth can prepare us for what comes next.

If you are restless, don't ignore it. Maybe it is just a stage of life. More likely, it is a divine nudge to either reformulate what you are doing or to consider a move where you can better play to all the strengths God gave you.