Being a leader is not what I expected

Yes, that's right. Being a leader is not what I expected it to turn out to be. It's a lot more humbling, a lot more about serving, and a lot more about integrity than I ever expected it to be.

Growing up in a christian household, I feel like I should have known this. But for some reason, I got into my head that to be leader in a church or in ministry, you have to be some sort of a commanding, authoritative leader who is loud and bossy. And I'm definitely not that. Or at least, I don't have a very loud voice coming out of my small, five foot, two inch body. And because of this skewed image I had in my imagination, I avoided my call from God as a leader for about, well... nineteen years.

On my DTS (Discipleship Training School) last year (Aug 2016-Feb2017), God said He wanted to break and get rid of this wrong idea of a leader in my head. Almost every week, someone would come up to me telling me that God was saying that He was and is calling me to be a leader. And for almost the entire six months of my DTS, this scared everything in me. But through a constant process of loving me and showing me truth, God revealed to me that leadership is not exactly what I always thought it was - it's actually much, much more. And to my surprise, being a leader is actually how God originally created me, and I didn't exactly have to change my whole identity to be one. God wouldn't call me to be something I'm not, right? So I had to get rid of the lie that had shaped my mindset of leadership for so long and just breathe in the truth that being a leader is about being a servant, being humble, and having lots of integrity, and all the while being bold and courageous in it.

And now finally at twenty years old, I'm learning what being a true leader is really like. So keep reading on if you wanna learn what I'm learning!

Being a leader is humbling. Being in a position of authority appointed by God and leading others in God's light and truth needs to come from a place of knowing God's light and truth first. And if I don't know God in a personal relationship first, how can He expect me to lead others in that? Being a humble leader means accepting God's truth for what it is - not having pride in either building yourself up too much or pushing yourself down more. Both are false and actually dishonoring to God. So, the first step I had to take to become this leader God was calling me to be was not to push away the leadership call with false humility and to accept with grace the truth of my identity - God has created me to be a leader. *insert scared emoji face*

Being a leader is about serving. For some reason, I always thought it was others that served the leaders, and that it was the leaders who sat around eating doughnuts and pointing fingers. But the more I learn about leadership the more I realize that it's actually about servanthood. Serving those you lead so that they can have a safe place to grow, serving leaders above you to show respect and honor and to set an example, and serving behind the scenes where I actually would never get credit for it because sometimes things need to get done and it's actually up to the leaders around to get the job done. That's a big part of being a leader.

Being a leader is about having an insane amount of integrity. Integrity means having moral uprightness/being honest/actually doing the things I say I do; whether that's getting something done that I said I would or actually doing things I say I do in my personal time - such as my quiet times with God. When being a student and/or not a leader, it can be a lot easier to have slightly less integrity and not worry about it as much, but when I become a leader, it seems like one of the most important things I can be. Which is probably a good thing, hey?

Being back in Australia for almost three months now and having been a staff member/leader for about two, the things I've learned in the midst of all this has been quite the process, but I'm so thankful that I'm in God's will and plan for my life. Because even if I'm currently learning while doing, I'm thankful and blessed to be in a place that encourages learning in this way and a place that I can continue to grow even after my DTS in such a safe place.