Building potent, inclusive teams – even just taking the first stumbling, hopeful steps in that direction – is a lot of work. It’s good work, even life-giving work, as you get into it and begin to make progress. But it does take effort. And the reality is some of us are entering into this space quite tired – discouraged – on the edge of burn out.
If this describes you, we want to invite you to think – with loads of compassion for yourself – about what might be holding you back and what you really need to move forward in this season, to find renewed hope, to keep growing. The video below, which we created as part of the introduction to our coaching cohorts, is super simple, but it’s heartfelt, and we hope it’s encouraging for you!
Once you’ve watched it, you might appreciate this short meditation on the best – the kindest and wisest – of mirrors:
“Like any true mirror, the gaze of God receives us exactly as we are, without judgment or distortion, subtraction or addition. Such perfect receiving is what transforms us. Being totally received as we truly are is what we wait and long for all our lives. All we can do is receive and return the loving gaze of God every day, and afterwards we will be internally free and deeply happy at the same time. The One who knows all has no trouble including, accepting, and forgiving all. Soon we who are gazed upon so perfectly can pass on the same accepting gaze to all others who need it. There is no longer any question ‘Does he or she deserve it?’”
– Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
New Addition to the Free Downloads Library
The Care/Challenge Axis, introduced briefly in this video, is such an easy, helpful tool for processing what we need more of when we feel like our growth is stagnating – when we feel stuck. So we decided to add its pdf to our Free Downloads library.
We love sharing resources like this! When you register for the library, you can download and print the pdf for your own reflection or even to spark conversation with people on your team. (How are they doing? What do they need to keep growing?) You can check out the other resources too – we’re building the library up as we go!
P.S. If you want to explore the Care/Challenge Axis more, here are a few additional resources:
- a sermon walking through it from City Church Long Beach,
- five short devo’s in response to that sermon, also from City Church Long Beach (click previous to move through them).
