Disconnect

I have three telephones, two web sites, a blog, three e-mail addresses, a FaceBook and Twitter (yes, I Tweet!!) and yet there are times when I still feel disconnected. How does that work? How can I have so many connection opportunities and still feel a sense of disconnect?

I have been thinking about disconnection in leadership and life over the last couple of days and have drawn a few conclusions. They may not be earth shattering, they may not be entirely new, but they are real in the ways in which they show up in y life.

I feel disconnected when I am focused on the deadline and not the goal.
When I am focused on the fact that certain things must be done in a certain time frame and not the fact that they serve a purpose it causes me to disconnect from the larger vision. It becomes the tyranny of the urgent rather than the pursuit of a vision. This happens frequently in ministry life because as soon as one Sunday passes you begin preparing for the next. Perry Noble described preaching as “giving birth on Sunday and waking up on Monday pregnant.” But when we focus on the task of preaching and not the end goal of communicating the greatest message ever it causes disconnect in our life.

I feel disconnected when I see people as interruptions instead of opportunities.
This is a weird tension in ministry because some people need you to pay attention to them always and we can never meet everyone’s needs. However when my calendar does not allow me time to actually minister to individual needs instead I am missing the point of the Great Commandment. You remember that one: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Ministry is about people and we cannot reduce them to programs that fit neatly into our calendar.

I feel disconnected when I allow ministry to try and feed my heart.
When I fail to spend time with God to feed my own soul I am cheating myself out of the refreshment that God’s Word has for me. We can’t always be preparing the next series or talks. We have to focus on the heart of God connecting with our heart first before we can imagine it connecting to others. Time is life’s great equalizer. Everyone gets 24 hours a day. If some of that time is not spent feeding my own soul, disconnect leads to drift which leads to desire which leads to sin. We have to be connecting to God in order for him to connect into our lives.

So, I can have all the communication tools I need, but if I fail to use them properly I will be disconnected from others. We have been given all we need to connect with God. But if we fail to implement them into our daily lives, we will miss the message of love, grace, freedom and hope that God has for us.

How connected are you?