A week or so ago, I posted some leadership thoughts that have been going through my mind lately. If you read that, you can see God has been teaching me a lot as of late, and I’m grateful for every bit of it, even if it is a hard place to be and sit in. See over the last year or so, I’ve received some criticism, some constructive, some not so constructive and I’ve struggled with it. Really… I didn’t want to hear it, but yet I did. I lived in this paradox for some time; it has been hard for me to sift through it at times, but there was a thought I heard Mark Driscoll hit on at one point that has helped me in the midst of this,

“Turn your critics into coaches. Most criticism has some modicum of truth. Ignore garbage; receive truth.” {grabbed from a blog post at A29, Mission & Vision of Acts 29 Network}

This simple thought from Driscoll has been encouragement in the midst of ministry, and growing as a leader. I was reminded of this again, this weekend as I watched/listened to a recent talk about the movement that is Acts 29 Church Planting Network (They envision the A29 movement reaching 300,000 people in the next 7 years! Click HERE to watch the talk, or just watch in below, it was good stuff about movements in general!). This thought of turning critics into coaches isn’t original Driscoll, but he got it from Billy Graham, whom seemingly got it from a man named Fred Smith (read more HERE), but it is gold for the leader. Driscoll added another thread to this, in this most recent talk, that as we turn critics into coaches, we need to look for the kernel of truth and see if there is anything that God could use for good what was intended for evil, for our good, sanctification and for the saving of many lives! (echoing back to Genesis 50:20) Good stuff. However, this of course, requires a large amount of humility, that I don’t know how well I do with most of the time. Nonetheless, I’m in the process and attempting to see God take these things, some of which were attended for good and some of course that weren’t, to coach me along and make me the type of man, leader, Christ-follower, missionary and more that God has in mind for me.

So let’s get practical here. How does this play out in your life? Can you get here? Where do you struggle? How do you push through? Help me (US) out! Thanks for stopping by and engaging in some things God is teaching me with me!