Hey Team, Thanks for taking a few minutes to read these blogs when they come out. I hope they’re helpful to you. They’re certainly cathartic for me. They’re often the deeper things I’ve been trying to synthesize in my own life. They’re they “AHA” moments that come out of long conversations, intense books, failures, successes, and the general forward momentum of life.
This one is a backward look at 12 years of one huge aspect of my job: site coordinator. I bet many of you have probably never heard of that job title before. It’s not one I mention a lot. In fact, I’m not really a huge fan of titles either way. I see life more as a calling to the things God has for me and less as a career move. One thing I have noticed, though, is that wherever I am and whatever I happen to be doing, there are different skills and situations at play.
In 2008, I moved to Taiwan to start an Envision Site where we would host short-term teams and interns from the States while participating in launching a certain type (I say certain type because we weren’t really sure at the time we left) of ministry. This was going to be something like a YWAM base, if you’re familiar. When we moved, we knew we wanted to just jump right in and so we got jobs teaching English, started learning Chinese, hung out with friends, and starting sharing the love of God with people around us.
Turns out things got complicated. There were budgets to balance, phone calls to make, partner relationships to build, interactions with the national church to navigate, and the list went on and on and on. I’ve often said I truly enjoy everything I get to do with this job, and it’s true (besides some of the admin work that can feel tedious). But I’ve noticed there are a few things that I have done over the years that I see yielding a greater return for the work I’m putting in.
These are the things my boss recently called “the heavy skills.” He copied a term meaning the things that seem to be neither hard nor soft but that clearly make the difference in leadership and management as well as the accomplishment of the organizational vision and mission.
What are these heavy skills? Here are some I’ve added to the list. Will you please add one or two?
- Casting vision for a unified cause
- Bringing people together, including difficult people
- Discerning what needs to be focused on in a particular season
- Bringing investors or donors onto the team
- Prioritizing certain things and communicating those priorities
- Navigating what needs to be done when “stuff” hits the fan
- Having HR conversations, hiring, holding people accountable, firing, etc.
- Resting well and maintaining spiritual fervor in dry seasons
Chris O'Dell 