"Leading On Empty" Sneak Peek

Wayne Cordeiro

(An excerpt from the Preface of Pastor Wayne's new book, "Leading On Empty" to be released February 2009)

Preface

How do you lead when you don't feel like leading? And how do you sail through the dead waters when the wind has died and that which was a festival now demands the intentional? When exhilaration turns to perspiration?

Like pages torn out of my journal, this book chronicles my collision with burnout and my subsequent journey to a newly defined life.

Much like C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed, this book doesn't have symmetrical chapters followed by objective clinical prognoses. (When you are going through a season of burnout, nothing is symmetrical nor objective.)

During this winter season, the only thing I had to hold on to was the disciplines I had already built. In the night, a sailor cannot see land, nor can he get his bearings from the coastline. He must navigate by trusting the dimly lit buoys already set in place. In the same way, when you go through dark seasons, you will be restricted by, or released to what has already been established within your soul. This book will reveal those disciplines leaders must build before navigating the open seas, and if you are already storm-tossed, it will give you practical helps that will buoy your resilience.

One daily discipline I kept throughout my journey was meeting with God each morning, and through a regimen of journaling those discoveries, I would find direction and assurance. Within my spiraled "Life Journals" were chronicled the ups and downs, the stagnation and progress, the failures and triumphs of that season. I wrote in the darkest of times and the best of times. I wrote when I couldn't speak. I even wrote when I couldn't hear God.

What you have in your hands grew out of those times. It is not a textbook case study with a clear, linear progression. I have allowed some of the experiences of ambivalence to remain as a written witness of where I was and how I came back again to the sunlit lands of emotional health. This treatise is not sifted, smooth and refined, but like a tall glass of organic orange juice, you'll recognize some pulp. You might even chew on a few seeds.

But that doesn't take away from its value. Instead, I hope it makes it even more trustworthy and healthier.

I want to say "Thank you" to my dear wife and family who saw me through this protracted season of transition. And to our staff of New Hope who pulled together rather than apart.

(Stay connected for more Sneak Peeks of "Leading On Empty.")

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