My Five Strengths for Leadership

The other week my ministry practices class was required to take a strengthsfinder. It was packaged in a book by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie called Strengths Based Leadership. As you will see with my following reflection on the strengthsfinder, I have this to be very useful and insightful. So let me share with you the reflection essay for my ministry practices class.

So since I now know my strengths, or have at least specifically identified them, I am able to line them up with my vocation of youth ministry. According to the gift assessment from the other week my gifts are: Ideation, Activator, Empathy, Strategic, and Includer.

I think my favorite strength that was identified is my gift of Ideation. It is the gift of thinking out side of the box, creating new and crazy ideas to get a job done. I think it would be safe to say that a friend,Kent would also have this gift. Right now, I would say I am currently using Ideation to start to brainstorm a curriculum to be used with a certain video game franchise, finding God and gospel within the fantasy world. Ideation can be more than this, though. I could use it to recreate the fall “all-nighter” at All Saints. It helps me ask the questions, “Why do we do it like this? What if we did it like this?”

Right here is where my next gift comes in. It is the gift known as Strategic. Strategic empowers me to run through possible ways of problem solving. Strategic helps me answer the question, “What if we did it like this?” I am capable of seeing the outcomes of different approaches to see which will be the most successful. To apply this to youth ministry I would be able to know which kids might be able to see the something more behind a game of pick-up basketball. I might able to visualize and see if a blueprint of the new layout of the youth room will actually work and if it will encourage successful ministry. I might be able to see how someone’s actions could affect a friend later on. The possibilities are endless. It makes me feel like a psychic (hehe).

My next gift of Activator surprises me in some ways, but not at all in others. It says that when I get an idea, I pounce on it. But I had an idea to paint the youth room and I was really digging it, but it sure isn’t anywhere near happening yet. I have a few female youth who are excited to do it. I need to get on that. I am a procrastinator. I let things wait. But on the flip-side, I am spontaneous, and I see how this applies. If a great opportunity arises, I can easily make room for it in schedule and do it. I often just go with the flow of life, taking one thing at a time. Sometimes that one thing that needs to get to me, doesn’t reach me.  But I can easily use my gifts better. I need to find the date when those girls can come paint and I need to get the paint and have a good time. It’s not hard. I sat down the other day and hammered out some dates for other upcoming events. It was a piece of cake, this is something I need to improve on.

Empathy is my next strength. It is the most common for our class too. And for good reason. It enables us to picture ourselves in others’ shoes. It helps us feel with them. It enables us to develop meaningful relationships where we truly value the other person. It’s so obvious why this great in youth ministry and why our class seems to do it well. We love loving other people. We love hearing their stories and why they feel the way they feel. We are people people.

My last gift is Includer, which means that I have a tendency to like all people no matter who they are or what they believe. It means I like to talk to the people who may not voice their thoughts. It means I like to try to present the opportunity to be a part of a group to those who aren’t in the group. It means I enjoy having meaningful conversation where I can learn a new idea, and that i can build on that idea when I stumble across other evidence. It has a lot of little different perks that stem from wanting to hear lots of thoughts on the matter. I think this trait is more apparent in my life when I am a leader and not one with an opinion. (I tend to stick my idea think it is the most right.) This is very useful in small group discussions making sure that everyone states what they think and it doesn’t allow for one person to rule over this conversation. A lot of the times I wish more people would have this strength.

So those are my top five strengths. I am very happy to know them with a precise label. I think I have learned a lot from this strengthsfinder, and I am excited to put them into action (there is my Activator gift again) especially the painting of the youth room. 

 I would really like to encourage you, my reader, to go out and purchase this book, take the online assessment and see what your gifts are. There are over 30 possible gifts all given with great detailed explanations. You never know what you might learn about yourself.