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Familiarising myself with contempt.



Christian leaders and their friends.

                Familiarity breeds contempt. How accurate that is. The reason we hold truth in such     respect  is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it. - Mark Twain

Once again let us dive down into the deepest rabbit warrens of my thought patterns and see if we can come to the surface with anything that resembles sense or logic.

The questions I have been asking myself lately is does familiarity really breed contempt? How does this relate to Christian Leadership? It has been drummed into me from the very early days in pastoral ministry to my days as a management trainee not to become too familiar with my congregation or those that work for me. Because by doing so people will lose respect for me and treat me with contempt behind my back.

In the dictionary the word contempt means 'an act or mental attitude or condition to despise another person' further down the page is the word contentment which means 'a state of tranquil happiness, to be more than satisfied with' I was struck by the similarity of the words and also the opposite meanings, but I also noticed that both words were states of mind.

Hebrews 13:7 and 17
"Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
 
On my journey both as a Christian leader and consultant I have seen far too many pastors fall by the wayside, burned and stressed out, totally disillusioned with pastoral ministry. Those they had the privilege to lead treated them with contempt. They  would look into their pastors face and smile and support yet behind their backs they undermined and spoke of their leader with disrespect. Church politics and not spirituality was in many cases the root and let's be honest here, politics is the cause of much contempt.

Coming back now to my original thoughts. It is my view and my advice to  Christian Leaders and to potential leaders to build relationships that will help you lead the church not friendships that can give people the feeling that they have the right to a piece of you. I have learnt to choose my friends carefully and they are as a general rule not those in my congregation. A true friend has your back and can speak life into you. 

To those congregation members who speak to me- 'always in confidence', never wanting their pastor to know where the discontentment is coming from- I say you need to learn the passages of scripture in the  book of Hebrews and you need to learn to have a mindset that is content. The bible says that Godliness with contentment is great gain, it is a state of mind and attitude.

I would suggest that this is the hard truth we need to familiarise ourselves with.
               

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