A Note from Kelly King: Changes in leadership are definitely a graceful balance of letting go and trusting the future to a new leader. While that isn’t always easy, Lifeway Ministry Multiplier Simone Monroe gives insight today on why it is necessary. If you’re in a season of “letting go,” you’ll find some great encouragement in today’s article.
When watching trapeze artists, do any of you think about how graceful they look while flying through the air? I have always marveled at their gracefulness.
Recently, while thinking about this process as they transition from one bar to another high above the ground, I realized there is literally a point at which they must let go with nothing to hold on to in order to move to the next thing. This requires trust and timing.
Let’s apply this to ministry.
When we need to change roles or leave a ministry due to life changes, ministry transitions, or retirement, it is difficult for most of us to “let go.” Letting go is necessary at times to breathe new life into ministry, to give others a chance to serve and grow, or because God has called us to serve elsewhere. But that does not mean it is without its difficulties.
There are at least two essentials in letting go gracefully:
1. TRUST
- Trust requires a leap of faith. Letting go means we must trust God with all the issues that would cause us to hold on rather than letting go (e.g. issues such as pride, achievement, losing our identity, or losing the admiration of others).
- Trust means learning to celebrate the achievements of others, even when they surpass our achievements.
- Trust means learning to encourage others when they take the “limelight.”
- Trust is learning to take a backseat sometimes.
- Trust means not letting people take the place of God in our lives.
- Trust requires obedience to God.
2. TIMING
- Finding the proper time to transition is crucial. We can do the right thing at the wrong time and have a poor outcome. Listening to God for His timing is important. We need to respond rather than react to find the proper timing. When I am listening to God, it has been my experience that more often than not God prepares my heart ahead of time for the changes that are to come. My responsibility is to listen and obey.
- Even though things will not be the same, realizing that there is still a future to look forward to is also essential to our gracefulness. If we want to catch hold of the future that God has ordained for us, we must be willing to let go of the past that we are holding on to.
- There is that brief moment in letting go when we seemingly have nothing to hold on to. However, this is a lie from Satan that he would have us believe to cause doubt. God actually has hold of us at this point. It is God’s momentum of the flow that allows us to catch hold of the future that He has prepared for us.
My prayer for each of us is that we would learn the art of gracefully letting go—thereby, allowing the beauty of God’s design and His artistry to be seen by all.
Simone Monroe is Director of Women’s Ministries at Lake Pointe Church and a Lifeway Ministry Multiplier. As a frequent speaker, conference leader, and freelance writer, she enjoys presenting God’s Word in a fresh and relevant way in order to encourage growth in the lives of her listeners. Simone’s passion is teaching and developing women as leaders in order to fulfill their God-given potential. The delight of her life is her two grown sons, their wives, and the nine grandchildren to whom she is known as Mimi. Everything else is just details!
