Christian Leadership lessons from a fishing boat

It was a day of firsts for me, firsts connected to my husband’s boat, otherwise known in our house as “the other woman”. She has been a part of our lives from the beginning. When I started dating my husband he had just bought a new to him 21 foot Bass boat with a 225 horsepower outboard motor on the back. In the four years since he has spent countless hours working on it, from necessary repairs to upgrades, doing as much of the work himself as possible.

The boat and trailer 

In the Christian life there are a lot of firsts. As followers of Jesus we are constantly being called to new forms of ministry, whether they are new to us as we grow in faith and step into existing ministries or it is a new ministry that we are part of starting. It can be very scary to try something new, fearful of failure or letting others down, fearful of what could happen. My firsts that day caused me to reflect on the necessary conditions for firsts in the life of Church and my role as a leader in nurturing those conditions.  

 

The boat lives most of its life on a trailer, so as to be launched on different lakes and bodies of water. Launching is much easier with two people, so early in our dating I learned some basics of launching and loading the boat. He would position the boat on the ramp so that once he is in the boat I can simply back it in a few feet so the boat slides off the trailer, and again he positions the trailer when pulling the boat out. I have gradually learned to drive forward in a straight line or around one gentle corner so as to move the trailer out of the way of others wanting to launch.

Being the first real weekend of the summer, the ramp was particularly busy that day with boats and trailers lined up to launch and pull out of the water. I had jokingly said I might try parking the truck and trailer if I could find a spot to pull straight into, but quickly retracted that, fearful about driving it too far and around too many bends. As I pulled forward I had to maneuver around another trailer that had pulled up beside me. It was rather scary, but once I cleared it I had new courage, so instead of stopping and getting out to switch places so he could park it, I kept going, past the place I usually stop to the stop sign and out onto the road and parked it on the grass beside of the road. I was so proud of myself! I had actually driven the truck and trailer around 3 bends and parked it. When I arrived back at the dock my husband realizing what I had done, congratulated me with a high-five.  

Later in day was another first. Like driving the truck and trailer, I have been reluctant to drive his boat. I grew up on the water, but I never learned to drive the family boat. Occasionally I would drive slow in the middle of the lake, but that was all. I have my Pleasure Craft Operators Card as required by law (mostly because my husband bribed me with an auto inflating life vest), but I stick to firstmate duties of ropes and bumpers when we dock, or dry land duties.  

Perhaps it was my earlier excitement, when later we were in the slow speed part of a channel my husband offered me the chance to take the wheel. We traded seats and he coached me in putting the boat into gear. Driving a boat is different from driving a car as it is slower to react, leading to over corrections. This particular channel is not straight either, but a dredged path through a stump field, making it essential to stay close to the path which is only marked by buoys about every 500 meters or more. It probably took me longer and with constant course correction, but I made it. I drove the boat the few kilometers out of the channel.

While these firsts were very exciting in themselves, they also started me thinking. My reluctance to drive either the truck with trailer or the boat stems in part from knowing how precious they are to my husband. I didn’t want to wreck either of them. I was only able to do these things because of his trust in me. He trusted me to treat them with respect, to drive them responsibly. He conveyed his trust, by encouraging me with positive responses when I expressed an interest in driving, by offering positive comments when I did take those baby steps like pulling further forward, and by the invitation to try. It would have turned out differently if he had not trusted me, if he had been negative in his comments, focused on all things that could go wrong, or not invited me to try.

In the church we as leaders can sometimes hold onto leadership, onto ministries and projects very tightly because we believe either no one else can do it, or if they do, they will do something that will cause them to fail. In so doing we tell them we don’t trust them, that ministry is too precious for just anyone to do it. One of the primary responsibilities I believe we have is to encourage people to take on responsibility for ministries and projects. Just as my husband’s trust and encouragement was essential for me to drive the truck and trailer and the boat, so is my encouragement of others as they try out a new ministry for them, or are part of starting a new ministry or project on behalf of the church. Will some of the things we do not work? Likely. If we are truly willing to step out in faith by doing something new and different, there will be moments of learning along the way, of necessary course correction. It is said that great inventors don’t fail - they just learn ways not to do it. The same is true of our ministry, we learn as much about what not to do as what to do.

If we look at Jesus’ ministry, especially among the disciples, we see that he was encouraging toward them. He invited them, after having seen and heard him, to try for themselves. He sends them out on a test mission (Mark 6, Matthew 10, and Luke 10), sending them to the towns and villages he intended to go. But he doesn’t just send them, he listens to them when they return, and he shares in their excitement at what they had experienced. We know that they still had learning to do. Even after Jesus rose and commissioned them to be witnesses to the ends of the earth they experienced failure and disappointments along the way.       

As the Church moves into more uncertain times, when the old ways of doing and being no longer are as effective we will need to try more new things, we will step out of our comfort zones and experiment. May the leaders encourage others to be risk takers, to embark on bold new adventures, to take the wheel and drive. In so doing may we all learn to trust in God’s Holy Spirit to lead us and guide. May those who take up these challenges be emboldened, and may this be the beginning of new and exciting adventures. May you experience the joy and excitement I did when tried something new in driving a truck and boat.