{"id":32015,"date":"2022-09-10T15:52:53","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/how-a-difficult-past-can-shape-a-strong-leader\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:52:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:52:53","slug":"how-a-difficult-past-can-shape-a-strong-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/how-a-difficult-past-can-shape-a-strong-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Difficult Past Can Shape a Strong Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tim Foster photo – Unsplash<\/div>\n

By Tess Schoonhoven<\/em><\/p>\n

Lead out in vulnerability.<\/p>\n

Author, speaker, and leader Jamie Ivey stressed this leadership principle while telling her story of a trial-filled past, redeemed by God\u2019s grace, that brought her to the leadership role she now fills in her church, community, through her podcast \u201cThe Happy Hour\u201d, and her recent book If You Only Knew<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She recently spoke about her out-of-the-box leadership development journey with Chandler Vannoy and Josh Hunter, hosts of newly-launched Unseen Leadership<\/em>\u2014the latest addition to the Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network.<\/p>\n

Unseen Leadership explores the unknown past challenges leaders overcame to be who they are today. This is a podcast for young leaders to learn from those ahead of them by exploring the early days of their leadership, understanding the mistakes they made, and identifying the habits that shaped them.<\/p>\n

Ivey says she initially feared leadership, believing she was incapable because of her past mistakes and being unsure if revealing those mistakes would hinder people\u2019s view of her\u2014especially as the wife of a pastor.<\/p>\n

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Her book chronicles this story, telling of her college pregnancy and miscarriage and the years of life she spent running from God.<\/p>\n

But Ivey says sharing what God has delivered her from freed her of fear and enabled her to see that the Lord could use her testimony to encourage others, making her a leader right from the start whether she knew it or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we share where we\u2019ve been He [God] looks really good,\u201d Ivey says.<\/p>\n

Ivey says that she first realized she was a leader when people began asking her questions about where she stood on certain topics, looking to her for answers. With that realization came a great awareness of the responsibility that leadership requires.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a big wake up call for me\u2014and a good wake up call for me\u2014to realize the position that God\u2019s put me in, the leadership that He\u2019s given me, the influence that he\u2019s given me. People are listening and so I need to be faithful with what He\u2019s done.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the beauty of leadership that emerges naturally from a life that\u2019s been transformed by the Lord, Ivey says, is that God is the one who brings the platform.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt makes it a little bit more fragile to me where as I want to steward it so well because I know it\u2019s nothing out of my own humanity that this has come to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

While pursuing vulnerability in leadership, Ivey says, it is important to have a community of people who serve as accountability in working through life\u2019s struggles, past and present.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone around me has made me who I am,\u201d Ivey says.<\/p>\n

As her leadership platform developed, Ivey says she struggled with feeling inadequately educated, standing next to people with higher degree titles and more experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would think that I had to know all the answers and do it all,\u201d Ivey says.<\/p>\n

But realizing that some people may do things better than others is OK and Ivey encourages emerging leaders to take the pressure off themselves to try to do everything alone.<\/p>\n

She also urges leaders to \u201cserve where you are planted,\u201d rather than trying to jump 10 years ahead, skipping the perhaps painful process of growth and honesty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just look so far ahead and instead He [God] has big things right where you are,\u201d Ivey says. \u201cThe things that the world would say are small matter a whole lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it is the small things, she says, that so often turn out to be the most profitable and shaping in the path to leadership.<\/p>\n

Hear more from Jamie Ivey on Unseen Leadership, and look out for more podcasts on the Lifeway Leadership Network in the coming weeks.  <\/em><\/p>\n

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Tess Schoonhoven<\/h2>\n

@TessSchoonhoven<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tess is an intern with\u00a0Facts & Trends\u00a0and a recent graduate of California Baptist University.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n