How To Get Fired For Good
I’m confident that if more young leaders were guided through being fired in the kiln of adversity, fewer would flame out or need to be fired from their ministry positions.
There's a good reason ceramic mugs can hold boiling water. The manufacturing process exposes them to temperatures over 1000 degrees so pouring in liquid at a mere 100 degrees is not a big deal. Pour that same boiling liquid into a plastic cup and you’ll get a very different result.
This metaphor highlights the need for preparation before facing the intense pressures of ministry. New young leaders are more like plastic cups than ceramic mugs.
Tested leaders have been shaped over time. Once you’ve been fired in the kiln of adversity, you’ll be fired for good, and prepared for the high heat of ministry.
The Kiln of Adversity
Being chosen as a leader is not the end of a process but the beginning. We’ve developed solid methods to prepare young leaders for the technical aspects of ministry, but we often neglect the importance of guiding them through the long process of shaping.
Too often, we pour boiling water into plastic cups and seem surprised when the cups melt.
Every ministry leader begins as a lump of clay yet too often, we place these unformed vessels into roles designed for those already refined by time and experience. In some churches, the elder team is designated a place where young leaders can “learn to lead.”
The result is often the destruction of half-shaped vessels because they aren’t ready for the heat and pressure.
Some positions in the church should be reserved for those who have already been hardened in the kiln of adversity. Younger ministry leaders need time to continue the shaping process. And while some are ready sooner than others, many are burned by their experience.
Don’t Rush the Process, Submit to the Potter
Even when not rushed, some younger leaders, fueled by overzealous ambition, want to advance quickly and obtain authority before they’re ready. That's a common way to end a leadership journey before it really begins.
Instead, young leaders should pace themselves by following the Lord’s leading and as they do, he will bring heat and pressure to the process and always at the perfect time.
If you sprint forward and let ambition get ahead of your character, there is nothing but trouble ahead for you and the people you lead. But when you allow God to shape and mould you, he will, in his time, prepare you to endure even hotter fires of affliction and make you into a vessel for his glory.
Rest assured, a slow and steady pace of ministry will afford you ample opportunities for affliction and adversity. Simply let the Lord lead you at his pace as you labour to understand his word and do what it says as you lead his people.
If you do this, there will be no need to go looking for a fight; the fights will come to you.
Leaders Are Not Born Ready
Leaders are not born ready. They require a process that takes time, pressure, and heat in graduated increments. Time will pass, pressure will be applied, and the Potter will shape you into a useful vessel as you submit to his skillful hands.
What he shapes you into may not resemble your fantasies of “ministry success” but if you submit to his process, reality will be better than fantasy could ever be.
I’ve seen young leaders with potential who needed the shaping power of adversity. I learned by this process as a young pastor and it is the proven path. I had to learn (and keep learning) to “Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
The Final Firing
Pray for young leaders to encounter the adversity that will shape them. Pray this not because you want them to suffer, but because there is no other way to be shaped!
Pray that God would be gracious in humbling and teaching them through adversity and that they would be submissive to his process. And then walk alongside them for the duration of the journey.
I’m confident that if more young leaders were guided through being fired in the kiln of adversity, fewer would flame out or need to be fired from their ministry positions.
We will all one day face a final firing in the kiln that will reveal the durability of the materials we’ve chosen to build with.
“If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.” (1 Cor. 3:12-14)
But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
(Isa. 64:8)
Are you an individual, business owner, or church leader who would consider making a charitable donation to The Shepherd’s Refuge? Please click the banner below for more info.
Michael Krahn is a pastor, the husband of Anne Marie, and the father of Madeleine, Olivia, and Sophia. Make a connection on Facebook, X, or Instagram.