Your Inflow Must Exceed Your Outflow
A well-established rule of ministry is that you must make sure that you are feeding yourself so that as you feed others, you don't run empty. It's more then just a rule of ministry, but really a rule of leadership in general. You've heard it before, "A Leader is a Reader."
Leaders, ministry and otherwise, must maintain a learning posture so that they stay sharp and fresh. When we don't feed ourselves, then we end up speaking only out of yesterday's knowledge and experiences. While yesterday's knowledge and experiences can really be valuable, if they are not tempered and challenged by the lessons we are learning today, then we run the risk of coming up short.
The challenge is to make sure that our intake is varied. Just like our physical diet, if we over-emphasize one type of food, then we run the risk of missing out on the balanced diet that is necessary for long term health. Of course, there are times when we do intentionally want an unbalanced diet in order to achieve certain goals (e.g., weight loss, strength building, medical, etc.), but if we do this for too long we run the risk of making ourselves unhealthy.
When it comes to learning intake, my tendency is to get stuck on one type of reading or study material and end up compromising my diet. But when I am conscious and intentional about it, I make an effort to widen the variety of my intake.
• Magazines like Wired, Fast Company, Smithsonian, and (yes, I must admit) Car and Driver
• Movies ranging from contemporary romantic comedies (with and for my wife) to movies like Appaloosa (a great study in characters), Slumdog Millionaire and Outsourced (east meets west), and many others.
• Books. NY Times bestseller list items along with what's hot in the church world along with classic fiction along with contemporary fiction, etc.
• Commentaries. Read old and new commentaries when studying a passage.
• Newspapers. I love the WSJ (but don't get to read it as often as I'd like) but USA Today is excellent because it keeps you in touch with the news that most Americans are reading.
Suggestions?
Leaders, ministry and otherwise, must maintain a learning posture so that they stay sharp and fresh. When we don't feed ourselves, then we end up speaking only out of yesterday's knowledge and experiences. While yesterday's knowledge and experiences can really be valuable, if they are not tempered and challenged by the lessons we are learning today, then we run the risk of coming up short.
The challenge is to make sure that our intake is varied. Just like our physical diet, if we over-emphasize one type of food, then we run the risk of missing out on the balanced diet that is necessary for long term health. Of course, there are times when we do intentionally want an unbalanced diet in order to achieve certain goals (e.g., weight loss, strength building, medical, etc.), but if we do this for too long we run the risk of making ourselves unhealthy.
When it comes to learning intake, my tendency is to get stuck on one type of reading or study material and end up compromising my diet. But when I am conscious and intentional about it, I make an effort to widen the variety of my intake.
• Magazines like Wired, Fast Company, Smithsonian, and (yes, I must admit) Car and Driver
• Movies ranging from contemporary romantic comedies (with and for my wife) to movies like Appaloosa (a great study in characters), Slumdog Millionaire and Outsourced (east meets west), and many others.
• Books. NY Times bestseller list items along with what's hot in the church world along with classic fiction along with contemporary fiction, etc.
• Commentaries. Read old and new commentaries when studying a passage.
• Newspapers. I love the WSJ (but don't get to read it as often as I'd like) but USA Today is excellent because it keeps you in touch with the news that most Americans are reading.
Suggestions?
Labels: andrew cromwell
posted by Andrew Cromwell at
6:33 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home