One Life

So, this is my last day in the office. I’ve just cleaned out my desk. It didn’t take very long. I’m just hoping that my legacy is not measured by the amount of paperwork I’ve worked through this year.

Coming to the end of a season is a sad thing – like coming to the end of a good book or movie or TV show that you hoped would just keep going. But the end comes.

And I am sad. This has been one of the most fruitful and rich seasons of my life. It’s just that it doesn’t really feel like an ending – not just because we’ve got the Summit this weekend, but because my one life’s not over yet.

I intend to keep going. Not in this office, sure, but with good leadership, with a passionate pursuit of Jesus and with a life that is distinguished by the presence of God, yes.

Whether or not uni proves to be another fruitful and rich season, my God is the same. He has been so good – better than I imagined – and He doesn’t change.

So goodbye for now. See you soon, and lead well.

Yanah x

I don’t have much to say, so I won’t bore you with empty words. I just have a piece of advice, or if you’re not great at advice, a bit of encouragement.

I’m trying to think over all the things I’ve picked up and experienced over this internship, so I’ve been reading over my journals, back to this time last year. I wanted to see what I was like then, what God was saying, how I was growing. I wanted to remember what God did...and what I did with him.

Now I’m not amazing at journaling by any stretch of the imagination. There was plenty of cringing as I was reading what I wrote, amused by my several-months-younger self. But once I got over that, I was amazed – not by any profound revelations, but simply by the fact that day after day God sat with me. Day after day after day he listened to my pathetic moaning and my awkward words. I couldn’t believe it. I feel like maybe he loves me after all.

So this is the advice: write things down. Don’t call it a journal if you don’t want to...do it on your laptop or whatever. Just write things down. The truth is we have awful memories, and we need all the help we can get to remember the kindnesses of God. It will help us recognise his leadership – and there is nothing as thrilling as realising he was leading you all along.

I’ve just got back from a mad few weeks in the fields of England...embracing again the joys of camping at New Wine in Somerset and Wellspring in the hills of Cornwall. There is something so typically English in these sorts of holidays – something about drinking tea huddled in a hoodie listening to the pouring rain on my tent will forever remind me of August in England. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love these weeks, not only because they’re away from the boringness of home during the holidays, or because they’re a chance to worship with hundreds and even thousands of other Christians, but mostly because you get to spend real time with people. Forget a quick coffee or an hour’s lunch, you can talk all day and all night. You can even talk through the tents while you’re curled up in your sleeping bag. You can leave behind the nice small talk and have real conversations – which is a relief, really.

Nothing substitutes real conversation. We get so wound up about being connected – and in all our flurry of connections we forget to actually talk to people. And while we don’t need a whole week in a tent to do it, having honest and real conversations with people is something we need to make time for.

I’m fast approaching the end of my internship with Onelife (sob sob) and I’m starting to shift through the whole host of things I’ve learnt - more reflections to come. But if I was to highlight the most significant thing, it’s how important people are. People are what we lead, after all. Not ideas, not plans, not programs. We need to make time for people.

So, fellow leaders, whether you have a week coming up in a tent or not, make the most of the holidays to actually talk to someone. And if you're not on holiday, I feel your pain.

Yesterday I escaped the Onelife office to wander around the offices of Youthwork Magazine and Premier Christian Radio – with Sarah Wynter as my guide, and armed with my usual detective cunning, I ventured forth to suss out the workings of the machine that is Youthwork.

If you’re like me, most of the time when you’re got something like Youthwork Magazine in your hand, you have no idea how it got there. Sure you’ve picked it up, but that’s the easy part. I got the opportunity to see behind closed doors – to see all the work that had to be done: planning, writing, editing, and that’s just for the articles.

I met the some of the people who work away at the essential but unseen aspects of magazine production. My hero of the day was Mark – the guy who works in advertising. It turns out that a lot of the pressure is on the people who find the advertising, much more that you’d expect. I have huge respect for Mark, mostly because his is probably the last job in the world that I would want, but he’s faithfully plugging away at it, just living through the pressure, and doing a great job.

When you’re standing in the middle of offices like Youthwork and Premier, with the financial guys on your left, the web wizards and advertising people on your right and the editors around the corner, you suddenly realise that teams are not just a good idea. It doesn’t matter how great a leader you are – you could never do all this stuff. If you want to pull off something like Youthwork Magazine, with the high standard it sets, you will need a team. In fact, whatever you want to do – if you want it to be excellent and sustainable – you will need a team. It turns out that leadership isn’t a one man show.

I’ve just come back from another amazing weekend! I was away with the girls Onelife Learning Community: a group of incredible young women who take their character and leadership development seriously and know how to laugh. Between lots of chocolate and ice cream, we talked about everything from relationships to reading, what leadership is anyway, and how not to give presentations to old people.

Here’s one of the gems I found over the weekend, thanks to the book we were reading (Developing the Leaders around You): ‘There is no such thing as a full grown tree.’

Think about it. The day a tree stops growing is the day it starts dying. It lives as long as it grows. That’s pretty black and white. And when it’s applied to my leadership, it gets a little scary: I cannot keep leading if I don’t keep learning.

But here's the thing: with trees, growth is subtle – you don’t walk out the door to find the little sprig you planted last week has become the full blown giant. You can’t really see a tree grow, not unless you have years to spare and limitless patience. (Wait - isn’t that what God has?)

You see, the temptation is to go for the growth spurt: I’ll take a year out, grow massively and learn loads, and then I’ll be sorted for the next decade. We like change we can see and measure...we like to watch the percentages go up, we like getting A’s. But we have to be willing to grow like trees – it will take years. It will take steady investment. It will be hard to see sometimes.

Until one day, years from now, we’ll suddenly look around and realise we’re actually quite tall. We’ll have grown right up into the clouds, like Jack’s bean stalk, and we’ll see our King face to face. And all those years will be like no time at all, because of Him. And it will be worth it.