Because I’ve spent my whole career in the nonprofit sector, when I started on the Leadership Team at Kairos, I approached it similarly to how I would serving on a nonprofit board of directors. It wasn’t long into my tenure that I was challenged on this idea.
Drew reminded me at my last Leadership Team meeting of a coffee we’d had almost three years ago. I had some ideas about generosity and how we could communicate our needs with our congregation. After I’d thrown out several ideas, Drew humbly rebutted, I don’t want people to give to Kairos because we’re an effective nonprofit organization. I want people to support Kairos because we are the Church.
Over the next three years, I wrestled with this challenge that Drew called us to. He did not say that we don’t need good systems in place, certainly we do, but before creating a program or institutionalizing a new system, Leadership Team is challenged to live into the idea personally. If we want our community to be generous, what does generosity look like in our lives?If we want our community to value prayer, what do we believe about prayer? We didn’t just create a prayer guide or beef up our prayer committee (while we have those and they are great!), we each committed to pray for someone at Kairos for a full year and to see how the Lord moved.
I think many us come into Leadership from our work and family lives desiring to add value during our few hours together…wanting to do the business of the church rather than to be the church. In all honesty, there were many times when living into discipleship felt a lot harder than just being an effective adviser or board member. I am grateful that our pastor has this higher vision for the leaders of our church. I believe this is part of what makes Kairos the uniquely beautiful church that it is. It continues to bring us back to our communal vision: to encourage one another daily in the way of Jesus.
– Mary Flynn Niemitz