Column Title: Leadership Life Stories: Communicating and Leading through Your Story
Column Entry: “How an Empty Manger Helped Me See Jesus”
By Chris Hamstra, PhD, Davenport University
Description: There is a power when people come together to share stories. As people of faith, the practice and process of storytelling helps us understand ourselves, our communities, and our organizations. When combined with leadership, stories provide examples of how to serve authentically. This column brings people around the virtual campfire to explore the concept of leadership life stories and how to learn to engage people in the classroom and boardroom with wit and wisdom.
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How an Empty Manger Helped Me See Jesus
I appreciate the rhythms of a calendar year and how this connects me to the rhythms of my spiritual life. Typically, January provides an opportunity to reflect back on lessons learned and to move forward with renewed hopes and dreams. Instead of writing out New Year resolutions this year, Dawnette and I vocalized some of our intentions. Please hold me accountable for my intention to lose a few pounds with this new exercise plan and to watch my caffeine consumption!
Just like the calendar year there are rhythms of the liturgical year and my spiritual life. We just completed Advent which moved to Christmas and a manger filled with the baby Jesus. Advent at our church this past year had a dramatic twist. Instead of a manger filled with the baby Jesus, the manger at our church was empty!
Like most services in December the children dress up in the Nativity costumes to act out the Christmas story. Usually, Mary and Joseph sit around a manger with the shepherds in the field being surprised by the angels. The wise men follow the star and present their gifts. The focus in all of this hustle is the manger and the peacefully sleeping Jesus.
This year, 3-year-old Beatrice who was one of the shepherds, could not let the baby Jesus sleep peacefully. Throughout our story, Beatrice pressed up close to the manger, picked up the doll, and walked around the stage rocking and talking to the sleeping baby Jesus. When the wise men arrived to proclaim “Behold, the baby Jesus!” all we saw was an empty manger with some desperate whispers to bring back the baby Jesus.
Using the picture of an empty manger as a starting point, I would like to focus on two important CCSN lessons from the past year and connect these to leadership life stories. My intent is to engage the rhythms of life to reflect back and then encourage movement forward in your leadership life story.
The Empty Manger – Reflecting Back
The Christmas scene at our church reminded me that Jesus was not meant to stay in the manger. The news of Jesus is intended to be shared with the world. We have the choice to engage this adventure each day in our lives.
The CCSN Unconference in New Orleans had several moments to reflect and consider my leadership in and out of the classroom. In a world that seems to be more impersonal each day, I’m grateful for the encouragement from Quentin Schultze, Bob Fortner, and Nick Wolterstorff to treat people with dignity and connect well with the people in our lives.
Calvin Troupe encouraged us during the keynote that quality Christian scholarship requires “double-work.” Our starting point is Jesus Christ and Biblical literacy. For me, this means diving deep on the stories in the Bible to understand better the connection to leadership life stories. I bolded and capitalized in my notes from Troupe’s keynote to: Read Your Bible! Thinking back to a busy year, I have not done this well.
Since the Unconference I revisited some of my early work from the book of Nehemiah. Specifically, the story of leadership communication displayed in the rebuilding of the walls around Jerusalem. Chapter 4:6 says, “So, we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.” (NIV). In a broken world that seems to continue to fracture, how can we rebuild communities by finding a common purpose in our minds and through our actions? I feel like this could be the start of a new avenue to think about for leadership life stories.
Let me encourage you to look for opportunities in your leadership life story to empty your manger. How are you sharing Jesus Christ in your life in your writing or speaking? How does this connect to the living, breathing Word of Christ in the Bible?
The Empty Manger – Moving Forward
I am coming down to the final edits for a book about leadership life stories. Using the lives of the 12 disciples as a starting point, the intent with the book is to help people like you and me to use the power of leadership storytelling.
In the final edits after the CCSN Unconference I re-read Walter Brueggemann’s book Living Toward a Vision. I was struck by the contrast of leaving the brickyard and moving into the wilderness to meet God. The brickyard is the safe environment. The wilderness is an intentional movement into the unknown. The new learning for me was the emphasis to experience the Lord each day. As people of shalom we are called to empty the manger and to engage the adventure of a life with Christ. “So, the great gift of the wilderness is not just that there is no visible support or that there are surprising gifts. It is that in the wilderness, unencumbered, Israel meets the One who gives a name and an identity. All the “stuff” is cut through, and there is meeting.”[i]
Let me be honest, the lack of posts here are because the Lord continues to root out some of my deep-seated insecurities. Am I really smart enough? Is this writing really good enough? Yet, in the wilderness, Jesus came out of the manger to meet me. A short conversation with John and Brandon, a quick hug with Robert, I saw Jesus and heard him say “Son, keep taking the next step forward in my power and my grace.”
Conclusion – An Encouragement
Let me encourage you to empty your manger and share the good news of Jesus Christ through your leadership life story. As you interact with students who are building their lives, how are you encouraging them to meet Jesus? As you engage the broken world right outside of our classrooms, how are you pointing back to Jesus as the starting point?
I look forward to hearing your comments as you leave the safe space of the brickyard and engage the wilderness and the goodness of Jesus.
* The views of any CCSN columnists are their own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the CCSN. We invite and embrace a wide range of views and critiques on important communication and cultural issues from a Christian perspective. The CCSN is a community of Jesus followers who study communication. We do not support or promote a particular social, political, or denominational agenda.
Notes
[i] Walter Brueggemann, Living Towards A Vision: Biblical Reflections of Shalom (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1982), 163.