Leadership of Care

By Ray Hendriks  |  December 3rd

One of the aspects of Jesus’ ministry was His ministry of care. His care is evident in the feeding of the 5000, the healing of woman who touched His robe, the man born blind, etc. Each of these stories and many others evidence His ministry of care. Not only did Jesus fix the situation, cure the ailment, heal the sick, but He evidenced caring as He stopped to hear the story of these people and to bless the little ones who came His way.

At a recent gathering of the High School Cohort, the opening devotional refocused us on the importance of care in our work. By nature, we are fixers—we do that and often do that well; we are good at the cure. In our school situations, however, that is often not sufficient; we are not only called to cure, we are called to care.

To care, we need to be fully present—something that is, at times, difficult for us. A friend of mine works for Youth for Christ as their National Director and is also chaplain of our local hockey team, the Peterborough Petes. When the tragic bus accident devastated the community of Humboldt Saskatchewan, Tim went there to assist the local clergy in dealing with the outpouring of grief. Tim speaks humbly about the importance of just being present, but what is evident in the stories that have arisen is that having someone like Tim giving care and being fully present was what that grieving community required. You can read about this at https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/sports-story/9040903-humboldt-broncos-chaplain-to-speak-at-peterborough-petes-game-for-petes-faith-night/.

I encourage you to find ways to be fully present by:

• Just showing up when a community member is grieving;
• Paying full attention to the story of an excited student;
• Turning off the phone and putting out the do not disturb sign when dealing with the distraught parent;
• Showing up in the struggling teacher’s classroom just to listen, not to fix;
• Calling a colleague who is dealing with more than the usual.

May our leadership legacies be marked by stories of caring and of being fully present.