Letting go and letting God

A couple of weeks ago I preached on Joshua and was challenged by God that my call as a pastor is to lead and not to pick up all the stuff others don't. I'll explain.

At the beginning of 2005 we lost our Kids ConneXions (Sunday School) coordinator and no one in the congregation offered to step in, so I did. This was very clearly done on the understanding that it was only for 1 year. Roll on 2006. Do you think anyone had stepped up, no they hadn't.

So on being challenged that my energy was being misdirected I decided to tell church that I wasn't going to continue after 1st Term.

I did this and had 2 people offer to take it on. One before the announcement and one after.

This led me to think about how much we hold on to or carry unnecessarily. If we just let it go knowing God wouldn't let it fail if it was important how much more effective would we be in ministry.

I wonder how much we are holding back our congregations from using their gifts because we are so reluctant to give them resposibility and authority.
How threaten are we to have things happen as part of our church that we don't control?
Is that how Jesus led his ministry or did he equip and release?

Just pondering

Blessing

Emma