All Together Now?

How much of what we do (and see around us) as church leaders, pastors, emerging church types etc. is the overflow of a healthy deep seated acceptance and sustenance by God and others? Is any of it an attempt to compensate for the lacks and gaps in our own lives?

Put it another way ... do our achievements DEFINE who we are or EXPRESS who we are? (cf. Donald Sutherland in the remake of "The Italian Job")

P.S. I post this as someone who doesn't have it all together yet, called to work with people who haven't got it all together yet, who has been blessed by countless people who haven't got it all together yet :)

I found the following model very useful for understanding this ... The psychologist Frank Lake proposed a "Dynamic Cycle" for healthy human development. In my own words ...

1. We are accepted (beginning at birth), which provides us with ...
2. Sustenance and well-being, which enables us to ...
3. Be secure in who we are and what we're about, which frees us to ...
4. Achieve worthwhile goals and serve others (goes back round to #1)

He also proposed that in a fallen world (i.e. to varying degrees each of us), that the cycle also runs in the wrong direction i.e.

1. We strive to achieve, in order to ...
2. Gain status and recognition, so that we ...
3. Will find well-being and sustenance, in order that we might ...
4. Accept ourselves, but there's not enough in the bank.