SOLD

Ask yourself, am I a leader?

Yes. Yes, you are. Any time you influence the thinking, behaviour, and development in another person, whether positively or negatively, you are leading them.

Even if you are not in a position of leadership (i.e. manager or supervisor position), you are still a leader because you are influencing the people around you. Whether you are a mom or dad, teacher, student, friend, sibling, or coworker, you are impacting the people around you. Everywhere you go there are people that look up to you, whether they are younger or older than you, and they pay attention to how you live your life and how you react in different situations.

I. Am a leader.

That's just the start of what I have been learning this season.

SOLD is the School Of Leadership Development at YWAM Los Angeles. It is a program designed to develop leadership skills so that we can first lead ourselves, then others.

I came into SOLD knowing that I would be learning to lead myself, but it wasn't exactly how I expected. I thought it would be more about learning skills to manage my time better, but as I look back on the past 2 1/2 months, I've realized that during this school God has been working on my heart.

My biggest takeaway from SOLD is this: the key to being a great leader is intimacy with God. Because without God, it would be a lot harder to do well.

About 1/4-1/2 way into SOLD, I learned that intimacy with God is THE most important aspect to being a leader and life in general. I already knew that a relationship with God was important, but I wanted to know how to become more intimate with God. What steps did I need to take.

I grew up in a Christian home, so God has always been a part of my life, but I've always struggled to have a personal relationship with Him. There was always a bit of a disconnect. I've always known God is with me and I've seen how he's provided for me multiple times, but there was always more to do to be better. Halfway through SOLD, I was introduced to two perspectives of how we approach Christianity and how we spend time with God. The concept of the bounded set and the centred set.

The bounded set is all about the rules:

-read your Bible daily

-attend church regularly

-don't drink

-don't swear

-etc.

With the bounded set you are working and earning your way to acceptance and approval, and you start comparing yourself to others around you.

As I learned about the bounded set, I quickly discovered that I was stuck in it. I was trying to follow the rules, leading me to a place where I'm never good enough and always need to work harder. I was trying to earn acceptance, approval, and love from those around me, and from God. I ended up hiding who I truly am to the world around me, and I was tiring myself out. I put a mask on, and I'm not sure when it happened. I am tired of wearing that mask and ready to rediscover who I am without it. Thankfully, God is patient, and we are slowly working on taking that mask off together, and hopefully one day I won't need it anymore.

Now, the centred set is all about the cross! It's about looking to Jesus and not to those around you. So, no comparison, and no working to get God's love! It's okay that I'm not good enough. God won't be disappointed in me. I don't have to do anything! He chose me! He's the one doing all the work. All I need to do is accept the fact that I can do nothing to earn His love, and receive it! The only thing God wants is for me to spend time with Him and talk to Him. And if I forget to spend time with Him from time to time, He still loves me!

As a part of the school, it was required to attend and participate in 1 of 3 focus tracks. Each track focused on something different; communications, preaching and teaching, and worship. I was in the preaching and teaching track, where we learned how to write and prepare a sermon or teaching. This track pushed me out of my comfort zone, as I don't particularly like public speaking. Starting with this track, which is led by our wonderful base leader, Robert, I am learning to be more confident in what I have to say and learning that I really do have something to share.

This confidence I am beginning to develop doesn't just come from the encouragements I'm getting from the community around me, but from God. I've begun to notice that I either talk or think about myself negatively, so I've challenged myself to be more positive towards myself and look at the things I'm good at, instead of beating myself up for what felt I didn't do well. Someone recently told me that there could be 15 people that can do something better than you, but that doesn't mean you are not good at it. I used to step back from doing something when I knew someone could do it better than me, but I'm learning that even though someone could do better than me, I could do a good job too. I've been learning to replace the lies I've been telling myself for years with the truth that God is telling me. It's a journey, but that's okay.

Life is a journey, you are always learning. That's the beauty of life.