Community

In order to have community, you have to deal with shame.  Shame is what a person feels that if someone knew certain information it would cause that someone to not accept them.  It is a fear of rejection and a fear of judgement.  Shame causes us to hide ourselves.  It causes us to want to numb the fear and pain.  But the problem is that as we numb our fear and pain and as we hide parts of ourselves something sinister happens.

When we are hiding, and we interact with others, even when others show love and kindness towards us, we do not accept it, because we know they are seeing the fake me, not the real me and we fear if they knew the real me they would run away, they would reject us, they would not love us.  So when we cut ourselves off from receiving love, we no longer have a source of love to give to others. 

Also as we numb and hide we not only bury the pain and shame but we also bury our own personalities.  We cannot do one, numb the pain, and not do the other, bury ourselves.  We become lost in this effort and fatigued by the constant charade and cut off from the grace and love that would help us.

The reason I state that leaders should lead like sinners is that for a person to experience life and joy and peace, they must become vulnerable with the things they feel shame about.  To become vulnerable is to move into a place where the only thing you control is yourself.  Like the first time you told someone you loved them, if you did it first, it was a very vulnerable place, there was no guarantee that "I love you too!" was coming back from the other side and where would that leave you?  So if a leader can be courageous and begin to share the places that they themselves feel shame and lead by being vulnerable, you can make it safe for others to do the same.  This place of being vulnerable is a place that is uncomfortable, and unknown.  We don't know how its going to turn out.  But it is also a place of humility.

I have a saying you, "you can't be humble without experiencing humiliation".  I have a friend who says when you have to eat crow, it is best served warm and at your choosing.  Better than have someone feed it to you cold.

So as we create a place that is safe to be vulnerable, we create the conditions for God to give power and freedom to choose differently.  God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  And we can share in this giving of grace as we give acceptance and love to the one who is being vulnerable.

Grace to you!
Scott