Treading Water

Treading water is the first fundamental swim skills a new swimmer learns. Mainly, treading water is important as a holding pattern: even if you can’t swim, if you can manage to keep your head above and tread water, your chances of surviving in water are good. And so treading water is taught as a preventative measure for when one is in over her head.

I’m feeling like I’m treading water. I’m embarking upon a semester long adventure into the big wide world of leadership studies. Talk about biting off more than one can chew! People go to big name graduate schools for fancy sounding degrees, spending years of time and energy on this subject. What will I possibly be able to accomplish in a mere twelve weeks?! My first tendency is to view this project as an exercise in survival: Can she manage to walk away from twelve weeks of study having made any progress in understanding or synthesis? Oh, I hope so. But I also hope for more: I hope to push the conversation surrounding the relationship between leadership, leadership development, and the church. My aim is not to walk away from this semester with perfectly identified and completed answers, nor is it to be more confused by the ambiguity and multifaceted nature of leadership. Rather, my aim is to have explored and struggled, yet established a series of understandings that place parameters on the discussion of leadership and its role in the faith community, and provide boundaries for it.

I hope to make progress beyond treading water. The shore, while distant and illusive, is out there. And the journey to it is so more exciting and full of adventure than simply trying to stay afloat. Here’s to learning to swim.