May, meals, MCs and marathons...

The first week of May, which was the second week of the leadership development course, is already behind us. That means we're now a third of the way through the school, with only four weeks to go. Together with another staff lady, it was my turn to MC the week and debrief it at the end. I also did some of the teaching this week. One of our main topics was "leadership timeline" - a look at the stages of development and different processes that God uses to develop Christian leaders throughout their lifetime. The other main topic was "team leadership" - considering how our different giftings can work together in fruitful shared leadership, instead of the "one man band" style of leadership that expects one person or one pastor to lead everything alone.

I also had a birthday this week, and that made for different ways of celebrating and being celebrated. Instead of a birthday cake, a friend had made a delicious chocolate cheesecake - several of them, actually, so that all forty people in the LDC could have a slice during our morning coffee break. Various friends prayed for me and shared prayer impressions the Lord had given them for me; I also received a number of little gifts from both delegates and staff.

It happened that my processing group had already planned to meet at my house that day to talk through some of the topics and happenings of the week. We're a group of six ladies from six different nations: Hungary, Romania, Switzerland, Scotland, Armenia and Singapore. (That's from left to right in the photo above, which shows us enjoying an ice cream at my local heladería before heading to my house for coffee.) I'm quite partial to ice cream, so it was kind of fun that this group meeting happened to fall on my birthday.

Another of the LDC staff had a birthday just two days after mine, so we got together with a few of the staff  to enjoy a delicious meal of Singapore chicken curry.... and a hilarious round of the game "Taboo." What fun to eat outdoors with friends, relaxing on a sunny Friday evening after a busy week in the leadership development course.

Food and games continued to be a recurring theme as we moved into the weekend. One of my neighbours invited me round on Saturday to eat pulpo - a traditional octopus dish that she had prepared, together with a healthy mixed salad. Dessert arrived later, when some delegates who had gone to the big fruit market in Malaga dropped off some cherries at my home. I love fresh cherries and these are among the first crop of the season. Strawberries and cherries are the two fruits that are readily available during the LDC every year.

Three more delegates came to my house on Saturday evening. We had pizza together, followed by a marathon tournament of the "Phase 10" card game and a time of prayer together. Pictured with me are the other two losers of the game - ladies from Thailand and the Ukraine. The photo was taken by our Armenian friend, who shot into the lead at the last minute and ended up being the surprise winner.

The third week of LDC lies ahead, and one focus of the week is on dealing with the sort of things that could damage our teamwork and undermine our leadership. We'll be looking, for example, at Biblical principles for conflict resolution, confrontation and mediation. We'll be considering models of prayer ministry that can help people deal with old "baggage," such as unhealed wounds from the past, or lies that the enemy would try to tell us about ourselves and about God.

We'll also process a topic that we call "signature sins" and "signature virtues." We all have our own positive characteristics that we are known for: some people are known for their optimism, their generosity, their compassion, their encouragement of others, or whatever. But we also all have our own patterns and tendencies towards sin. By the time people have been Christian leaders for decades, most of the "big" and more obvious sins in their lives have usually been dealt with, but there's a danger that we become complacent about dealing with the more hidden and seemingly "smaller" sins that are a present, even if relatively invisible, hallmark of our lives.  But the truth is there are no big and small sins in God's eyes, even if it's easy for us to become negligent in dealing with character traits that don't seem such a big thing to us.

This is a week when staff and delegates can speak openly and vulnerably about their own "signature" sins: the tendency to be impatient or selfish; to have a critical spirit or a leaning towards self-righteousness; the seemingly inbuilt tendency to fall into self-pity, unbelief, self-reliance, over-eating, laziness.... or whatever it may be that the Holy Spirit shows us. It'll be a time for considering the "antidotes" that will help us partner with God in overcoming the patterns or weakness and sin that are still there in our lives as believers. It's usually a week where the Lord does a deep and transforming work in leaders' lives and we'd be very thankful for your prayers during this time.