The Mirror of Missional Leadership
Exploring my journey of planting missional communities and what it caused me to reckon with within myself.
Rev. Amilie Paynter
For years I’ve collected old, bevelled, different shaped mirrors. A mirror is incredible. It’s a basic, flat surface and yet it reflects the space all around us. Spiritual symbolism suggests that a mirror reflects truth. A mirror simply displays reality, things as they truly are. I’ve heard it said that leadership is both a window and a mirror. We are seeing out towards the places we want to take our community, but as we look out we increasingly see the reality of our own lives reflected back to us as well. And often what we see is more painful than we anticipated.
As I look into the mirror of my life and leadership I often find myself asking:
What is in there? Is it good? Some.
Are there wounds? Of course.
Is it Jesus? I hope.
Is it me? It is.
In sharing my life it’s always the little things that become the big things. Why do I get annoyed – is it a wound in myself? Is it my personality or is it them? Is it both? It hurts to look deeply at the parts of myself that don’t yet reflect Jesus, and there is nothing quite like living with and leading others to illuminate these things. We must keep looking in the mirror and take responsibility for our lives, our leadership, our choices. This is because as a leader, it is important that I am aware of who I am. You can’t hide in community. It’s tiring. And it’s costly.
As conflict and mistakes make me humble, I am learning about myself as the mirror of leadership reflects the reality of me. I am a wife, mama, friend, priest, adventurer, asker of questions, pusher of boundaries. I see potential everywhere. Most of all, I want to mirror Jesus.
Pete Greig, author of Dirty Glory says, “The way of Jesus is viral not structural, relational not religious, revolutionary not predictable.” Having led a missional community for 6 years and being 18 months into the process of trying to establish another, I believe that we are created for deep connection with God, with each other, with ourselves and with the earth. We are made to walk together, sharing joy and pain, and through it all we hope that others might see Jesus. We choose humility and vulnerability, over and over. We get comfortable (ish) with the uncomfortable and unpredictable and we keep saying yes to Jesus.
Fr. Richard Rohr writes: “If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become cynical, negative, or bitter. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbours, our co-workers, and invariably, the most vulnerable, our children. Don’t get rid of your pain until you’ve learned what it has to teach you."
Being open to being wrong is vulnerable and risky. Being moulded is bruising, and growing is painful. Open communication and constructive feedback are essential and tough. Thomas Merton writes, “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love to be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
The closer we get to Jesus and to each other, we discover who we are and who we aren’t, and we learn to embrace who we have been created to be. I am convinced that folks are intrigued when they see us being ourselves and doing our best to love others well. As we are challenged by the reflection of our leadership, we are transformed into people that can love others better. John 13.35 says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Come as you are, with no expectation to be accepted or appreciated, but knowing deep in your bones you are beloved and you are good. May you always allow yourself to be a mirror, noticing ways to grow, reflecting back Goodness. And may your glorious human fragility always point straight back to the One who lovingly created you in His very own image of Light.
Amen and amen.
Rev. Amilie Paynter
Rev. Amilie Paynter is married to Rev. Luke Paynter and they have four children. They live in Ohakune where life looks like prayerfully seeking what God has for them to join with, full time Theology study via distance and being fully committed to wild adventures.