In Working In Your Strengths: Part1 I talked about my journey over the last two years and how it has made me start thinking about my strengths and how to live in them. In this post I want to focus on the steps I am taking to settle into my strengths and work with them not against them.

Here are five things that I am doing and I believe you can do to get back to working in your strength as well as prepare to stay resilient in these changing times:

1. Assess you abilities and believe in them.
Ask someone you trust, someone that knows you well to help you list out your biggest strengths. Thank God for giving you those strengths and believe that you actually have them. If you don’t truly believe that you have those God given strengths, you can never really work in them. Doubt is the enemy of effectiveness.

2. Figure out what takes you out of your strengths.
We so often work against ourselves. Time wasters and the Tyranny Of Now can move you away from working in your strengths. As TD’s we are often asked to do thing that we are not really good at, but better at than everyone else in the room. I call it being the leper with the most fingers. Remember, just because you “can” do something, doesn’t mean you “should”.

3. Define what your actual daily, weekly, and monthly “Have To’s” are.
What tasks in your job and life must be completed every week. Once you have them, write them down. Having them out of your head and on paper will let you schedule them and get them done every week. And that is always a good thing.

4.Get organized by getting a system.
One of my favorite books is Getting Things Done by David Allen. GTD is not new, but David Allen has compiled it in a way that is “do-able”. My goal in the next three months is to not only work personally in the GTD way, but actually use GTD as a framework for how the Tech Arts department works on a daily basis. If you get it out of your head and into a system, you will sleep better at night (so I’ve heard).

5. Take time to charge your batteries.
“Hello, I am Van and I am a workaholic”. If you are like me, you could work at your church 24 hours a day and never get everything done. This list of projects will never end. Church and the US Mail have a lot in common. To take a scene from Seinfeld:

“George: Let me ask you something… What do you do for a living, Newman? Newman: I’m a United States postal worker. George: Aren’t those the guys that always go crazy and come back with a gun and shoot everybody? Newman: Sometimes. Jerry: Why is that? Newman: Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There’s never a letup, It’s relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, but the more you get out, the more it keeps coming. And then the bar code reader breaks. And then it’s Publisher’s Clearinghouse day?”

You get my point. Take your days off, Take your vacations, when It’s time to go home, go.

6. Pray.
Pray that God will help you work in your strengths, give you wisdom to know what that means and grace to fill in the rest. God created you to accomplish what He wants you to. He is really good at making it clear if you ask and listen.

Excited to be on this journey with you. Be strong.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about working in my strengths. Like many of you techs, I probably have many strengths that pertain to the tech world. For me, the two at the top are 1) being a good trouble shooter, and 2) being a people person/ people encourager. Both of those have served me well over my career in tech and life in general. I am also a dreamer, creator, and builder. And, even though I am often sarcastic and dark, deep down I am actually an optimist, a “glass half full” kind of guy.

The last two years has been tough on everyone, while I have my views on economics, politics, and faith during hard times, I will save those for another (or several) post. Everyone has been effected, and those of us on church staffs are no exception. Like any company a church has bills to pay and mouths to feed, that’s just the fact. Economic down turn = people having less money = giving goes down = church budget gets cut = layoffs….. well you all know the drill.

I can’t tell you how many TD’s I have spoken to that have seen their church go through this very thing. Those blessed enough to survive the carnage have had to take on multiple responsibilities, like becoming the Communications Director, the I.T. Director, the building Maintenance Supervisor, and even Worship Leader (and I’m not kidding about that one). While it’s great to keep your job in these trying times, it can be overwhelming, tiring, and even depressing. It can make you question your calling and your sanity.

One of the major things our new Executive Pastor has focused on in the last eight months is to help our staff get back to doing what we were all hired to do, or at least what our strengths are. Oddly enough, I think it has been a more difficult process that he expected. Though I think all of us want to let the jobs that we don’t like and are not good at go, it sometimes can be harder than we thought. I myself had to make a conscious decision to stop answering our “Help Desk” emails, even though we now have contracted an I.T. company to do that work.

Not working in your strengths can zap you mentally, physically, and worst of all, spiritually. I have only recently realized how exhausted to the core I am. Working against my grain has really taken a toll on me.

So what am I doing about it? Stay tuned for Part 2.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend some time with two of my mentors. Lunch with Ken Robertson, my former boss at both Saddleback Church and Mariners Church, respectively and Stan Endicott, pastor to the worship world.

Both these men have been huge supporters and encouragers of mine for many years. Their presence in my life has been invaluable in so many ways.

Having those who have “been there and done that” speak into your life is vital to your personal and professional growth. Getting their perspective can help you make better decisions, not to mention that sometimes it’s good to hear the voice of experience say “I hear ya, I’ve been there.”

No matter your age or how long you’ve been doing what you do, you need mentors.

You also need to be one. As people feed and build into you, you must build into others. And this is not something that can be done quickly or in mass.

Each relationship must be cultivated over time. This may be months, but most likely, it will be years. If you really want to speak into someones life, it only happens if you spend time with them, lots of time. This, in turn, will then limit the number of people you can truly mentor. You can influence a large group, but you can only mentor a few. Jesus (the Jesus) only had twelve and He is God.

Pick those you mentor carefully. Since you will be devoting a large amount of time, you don’t want to waste it, and don’t feel bad that you can’t focus on everyone who may step into your path. Choose wisely, pray consistently, be humble, and most of all. do a lot of listening.

Here’s the amazing thing, you will benefit greatly from being mentored and you will benefit even more by being a mentor.