talents

Admitting that something isn't working sucks, however, over these past number of days, as I've pondered my talents and how to use them as ministry strengths, I've come to understand what's behind some of my project failures (there have been a number of them over the years).

As I think about how this impacts what I'm doing now and what I should be doing in the future, I find myself standing on a road with a ditch on either side. One of the ditches involves me not playing to my strengths, but rather, trying to force myself to function in areas of weakness. The basic lesson there is to engage in projects that suit how I've been gifted and team with people who have complimentary gifts so, together, we have an increased chance of success.

However, on the other side, there's the ditch of not taking on more grandiose projects for fear of failure. Sure I should play to my strengths, but I should also push myself in those areas, just as the projects should push the strengths of others.

Special thanks to Seth Godin and his blog, "Is It Worthy?" to get me thinking about this second ditch:

The object isn’t to be perfect. The goal isn’t to hold back until you’ve created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.

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My final talent, once again, doesn't sound like something you'd think of as a talent, but, again, it blends in very well with my other talents in that I'm a learner. It doesn't matter if it's formal or informal, I love to learn, which is why, more often than not, I'm in the midst of multiple books on a variety of topics that, more often than not, apply to some specific project that I'm a part of.

The key advantage I see in all of this is that, when going through the process of seeing the system, coming to understand all of the connections, envisioning a future, and determining how to get there, there's bound to be something I don't know enough about and it demands that I learn more in order to accomplish the goal at hand.

So, given how all of my talents link together, I'm forced to ask how I can use them in a way that they are strengths in ministry. Given that so much of what I'm good at is conceptual, the obvious answer is that I need to focus on projects that are either very conceptual, or projects that involve a number of other people who need someone like me to provide an overall direction so they can make it a reality.

Given this, right now, Genesis certainly doesn't play to my strengths because I've never had a core of people to help make the ideas become reality (this was made really clear when I started helping out at Christ). With the fshbwl, our current structure of me needing to track multiple authors and make sure they're turning in content is something I'm horrible at, which is why I default to writing more and more of the content, even in areas where I'm not strong. Of course, some changes we're going to make at the 'bwl will fix this in the near future. the elemental life is great with my strengths ... although the marketing side of it is an area where I'm seriously lacking.

How about you? How do you play to your strengths? Or are you struggling as you seek to work in areas of weakness?

My cerebral talents continue with the fourth on the list, futuristic. I'm one of those people that's always looking towards tomorrow and coming up with ideas for what could or should be.

Once again, I can see how this links into my other talents, and how each one up to this point weaves together in a way that allows me to look at what is, understand it, look at where things are heading, and help others see how we can get there. In a sense, I think blending this gift with others is truly a blessing in that, without the others, I'd envision a future that ignores the past and is ignorant of the present. This is part of why I'm not a fan of typical approaches to strategic planning, but think that the Church Unique approach offers a very healthy alternative.

But once again, the problem is, if I don't have people working with me in order to get us there, then it will never happen. I can see it all day long, but I struggle to step into the everyday and bring things to fruition, a reality characterized by my answer to the question, "If you had a mulligan for the past three years, what would it be?" My answer was quick and clear, "Before doing anything with Genesis, I'd have spent however long it took to develop a solid core team of missional Christians who were going to move into the city with me."

The other struggle with this is characterized by a question my life coach asked me the Friday before the fshbwl launched, "What's next?" It's far to easy for me to get something going, see the launch as the end of the journey, and then move onto something else. I'm horrible at maintenance. I think that's why the opening blog on the fshbwl site was as much for me as it was for everybody else.

I'm curious, does anybody else who's taken the strengths finder see all of their top talents weaving together the way mine do, or is that just a product of my connectedness?