Why We Keep Training Our Leaders

    One night this year as  I was working the church's children ministry program, one of the kids came up to me and said sorry for an event that had occurred earlier that night. The problem had already been fixed, I wasn't concerned about it happening again, and  so my response to the sorry was "Okay." and I didn't think anything else about it. However, one of the other leaders told me that was an incorrect response. He said there was a formula for what to say and I should have said "I forgive you!" Well, if your anything like me you don't like textbook answers, but as I thought about it I began to understand something.

     Nobody can read my mind. The kids, the staff, even my friends and family can't know what I mean.  "Okay" to them can just as easily mean I don't forgive you or I don't care about you. It is only when we know why we use textbook answers that we can begin to deviate from that path. It is not an attempt to sound forced or calloused, it is simply a formula for not messing up taught by someone who has probably learned that lesson the hard way.  This is just an example of the importance of why if you are a leader you must not stop learning on the job. You can never see a problem from too many ways, or have too much good training. Remember that we don't become leaders to please ourselves. It is actually a form of serving....albeit from the front.

-Jason