Laurie KennedyThis week, we are all reviewing 2015. We are also looking ahead to 2016. Your New Year’s Eve service in church will highlight blessings and provide encouragement to look ahead to new opportunities and challenges.

My 2015 included my ‘rewirement’ as opposed to retirement. It also included major surgery providing 3 months of therapy or in my terms, a lot of time to pray, read and seek our Lord for His plans for the New Year. Every year Char and I have, we are so very thankful for 3 adult children and nine grandkids who are prayerfully finding their way in our world.

As a reader of Leadership Is…, let me indicate just a little of how our Lord is encouraging me. I want to spend more time in prayer. I want to spend less time travelling and more time with my wonderful wife at home. I want to spend more time in individual mentoring. I want to be available to my family, friends and neighbors. I want to live out our Vision statement, ‘Healthy Leaders: leading, serving and caring with integrity’.

Let me quote my good friend, my mentor and fellow blogger. “As I enter the third third of life, I am becoming aware of the role of elders today: to enlarge spiritual vision, being devoted to prayer, living in the face of death, as a living curriculum of the Christian Life.” Check out Rusty’s blogs at moreenigma.wordpress.com and rhfoerger.wordpress.com

Or, a quote from Melisa Poe Hood as quoted in The Truth about Leadership by Kouzes and Posner. “I do believe everyone struggles with life purpose; however, a leader is one who steps beyond her own self-doubts and realizes her journey is her responsibility. Whether one is a child or an adult, an individual participates in the world, and she should do so deliberately. Ultimately, the worst thing one can do is to see a problem and think it is someone else’s responsibility.”

To my many world-wide friends.  Let’s look at 2016 as God giving us another opportunity to stand up, be counted and make a difference for Christ in our corner.

Leadership is … learning to be patient and thankful for all God has done.

Laurie D. Kennedy
Leadership Coach
Jethro Group