The Dangerous Game of Leaving a Legacy

Leadership writing and culture is laced with the pursuit of "legacy".

I have taught it, I have lived pursuing it, and I have paid for it.

For me personally, this topic is very fresh because soon I will be concluding a ministry I founded.  During this ministry-building journey I burned out in my pursuit to 'press on' and make it a legacy-making endeavor.  I blogged about this here.

Of course let's be real -  there are people we know and recognize who leave legacies that ripple across history.  I think of Paul the apostle.  His actions, the records of his pursuits & his personal writings left impact that continues to shape the world.  Amazing.  But lets be real again.  For the vast majority of us there will be no record of our contributions and no universally acknowledged legacy.  We move about in simple faithfulness, our contributions known perhaps to a small circle, and to God most certainly.

How do you feel about being mostly unknown to the world?

The answer to that question is found in shifting to a new perspective on 'legacy'.  Stop pursuing efforts so that you will be remembered.  Think about this...it is through the largely unrecorded and unnoticed faithfulness of Gods' people that the world is changed and the Kingdom of God expands. There was only one Paul.  He didn't build the Church we see today.  God did, through billions of other followers of Jesus all through history.  They were mostly obscure and unknown , but in the hands of the Master, their 'legacy' is a global Kingdom that now permeates the planet.

I now feel this battle between legacy and obscurity more acutely now that I am about to conclude my ministry.  In the past it was a hope of mine (no, it was a driver) to "leave a legacy".  Admirable in some sense, but I have learned it is a dangerous pursuit.

Living to leave a "legacy" can be a pseudo-spiritual cover for the dangerous game of self ambition. Living for the "well done" shifts perspective and posture to that of a servant.

An important question to ask for all who follow Jesus is: Who determines legacy?  If it is you, then you better work your ass off and sacrifice everything in the pursuit of that goal.  However, if you truly believe that the Kingdom of God is actually Gods' and is therefore built according to His plans, then there is only One who determines the legacy.

Don't work to leave a legacy.  The brutal truth is that 50 years from now the world and even your family who are still alive won't remember much about you.  But God will leave a legacy through your faithfulness to whatever you put your hand to as His servant.

There is a sense of liberation that comes when you stop striving to leave a legacy.  That enables you to do something, and to do it very well.

Work for the 'well done'.

Harv Matchullis

Faking Faith

It took a personal burn out and a long reflective walk on the Camino to clarify for me how much I had led a leadership life that faked faith.  I said I believed in Gods’ power.  I acted as though it was all mine.

The ministry work ethic and leadership drive of North American Christian leadership culture places a great deal of importance on effort, skills, high-quality materials and events, performance evaluations and KRA’s.  What is ironic (and tragic) is that we as leaders will publicly use a rhetoric of faith in God’s leading and power, but then our execution demonstrates something very different.  It’s a vocational hazard of leaders to inspire with words but lack aligned execution.  I find it especially poignant when faith leaders speak of ‘trusting God’ and ‘prayer first’, but then spend tremendous leadership, organizational and financial energy to organize their efforts as though God’s involvement didn’t matter.

Many of us act out of a functional atheism concerning the sovereignty of God.  However the truth is, only He can produce faith.  Only He can draw people to Himself.  Only He can restore the world to Jesus.   

He is the Master Builder.  I am the worker. How does that relational dynamic show up in your daily efforts?  How much better to lead, live & love in the world and space you occupy with a calm trust in the sovereignty of God to do what only He can do.  

Maybe I am saying slow down and ‘faith up” because I just don’t want to work so hard anymore.

Maybe I am saying all this because after 35+ years of ministry I am tired.

Maybe it’s because my burnout stole something from me.

OR...

Maybe I am finally discovering what it means when Jesus said His yoke is easy & light.

When was the last time you felt that your yoke of ministry was ‘easy and light’?  Was Jesus lying to you about this or is something else off?  Perhaps it’s time for you to step away and re-examine whether you are faking faith in your leadership activity.

The Way of Wilderness

A few km east of Santander, Spain

Authors note:  After a period of sporadic engagement with this blog, I'm back.  I begin with a series of thoughts and reflections stemming from my sabbatical experience in 2017.  For part of the sabbatical I took a (very) long walk to rest, rejuvenate and relax after a period of burnout.  That walk was on the Camino del Norte in Northern Spain.  281 Km in 15 days along the mountainous coast along the Bay of Biscay.  Though I was still in the dry and cracked personal and leadership wilderness, I encountered the incredible beauty of this natural wilderness...and found Jesus waiting for me there.

If you have not yet walked into a personal wilderness, you will.

My story:

I WAS DONE.

For 34+ years I  have been a Christian ministry leader in Canada and around the world.  I thought I was resilient and indefatigable, but I had reached a breaking point.  For many reasons I found myself in a new landscape - a dry, barren wilderness of mind, soul and body.  I told my ministry board in Feb of 2017 : "I am done.  I'm exhausted physically & emotionally. While I can still 'see' into the future of this ministry, I am completely disconnected.  Professionally I can still perform, but its like I am having an out of body experience each time I speak or serve.  I can do it, but I am an autobot.  I can't go on and I don't know what to do".

With that I declared my leadership bankruptcy.  I had no plan of what to do. The first and only act I knew to do at that point was finally admit it.  Yet it took a long time.  I am fiercely independent and a 'press on' kind of guy, so this was a monumental admission.  There was no plan on my part for what was next, but I knew if I didn't take the first step of personal acknowledgement, I truly was 'done'.  Time to exit ministry and maybe even faith. It was that bad.

My board graciously granted me (and worked hard to provide) a 3 month sabbatical.  I owe them a great deal.  To my board - if you are reading this - I am humbled and indebted to your faith and courage to make this happen.  I know it wasn't easy organizationally. You did the right thing.


On my flight from Canada to start the El Camino in Spain I started reading Eugene Petersen's "The Jesus Way".  How serendipitous.  "El Camino" in Spanish means "The Way".  One quote pierced into my personal situation:

"Wilderness time.  Desert time.  Time to see the way of Jesus tested against the devils' way.  Time to  feel the terrible pull of temptation away from Jesus' way and realize it is a temptation to embrace illusion and to believe a lie.  Time to become aware of the immense and hidden abyss between the way of Jesus and the way of Satan." (pg 30).

Jesus was deliberately tested in a wilderness to determine if He would choose to act according to the ways of His Father or the way offered by Satan (Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4). Jesus, the Son of God was led into a wilderness experience.  Did you read that correctly?  He was led into it.  A wilderness.  Deliberately.  By God. I emphasize these things because while at times I beat myself up for ever getting to the point of burnout and 'wilderness', my experience was not beyond the purposeful intentions of God for my testing and maturing.

On the road of leadership are tests.  Often wilderness is the context where God administers those tests.  In the wilderness you are stripped down to the essentials.  Survival becomes paramount.  What's most important comes into a focus you likely have never before experienced, because your very survival depends on that level of clarity.

My wilderness experience was a time to feel at a core level just how much I had embraced the illusion and lie that personal leadership skill and effort was the means to accomplish the mission of God in this world. I had plunged into the abyss between the way of Jesus and the way of Satan.

Jesus is our 'Camino'. He is our Way.  Jesus as the Way also means that the ways of Jesus are a part of the Way.  Once you have abandoned doing things according to His ways, you have succumbed to an illusion and believed the lie of Satan.  Over time, I had developed my own 'way' - driving to the ends according to my own means.  My ways were respectable and frankly, a reflection of  Western Christian leadership culture and expectations. Optically it all looked good.  The industry of Christian leadership training & seminars would affirm my approaches.  People went along with my tactics.  However, behind this illusion was a self-determined striving that lead to cynicism, emotional distance and a soul-sucking emptiness as a Christian leader.  When you live in contradiction to the Jesus way, even while trying to serve His purposes, those are the results.

Are you headed for a wilderness?  Are you already in one?  At the risk of over simplification, I offer  4 starting thoughts for your wilderness journey.

1. Don't beat yourself up over it.  Jesus is there and He is intending to test you.  Surrender to the lessons that will confront you.
2. Be courageous and admit where you are. Stop 'sucking it up' and plowing forward. You can do it for a while but at some point you will implode.  Your mind, body and soul were not built for that level of stress.  Something is gonna give.
3. Confront your fears around vulnerability and tell someone. I told my wife before anyone else, but she saw it long before I admitted it.  It was also hard, but necessary to eventually tell those who shared leadership with me.
4. Surrender any sense of control over what's next.  You are likely in this place because of control issues.  Jesus' full intent is to shift control from you to Him. (That truth easily rolls off our preacher-tongues.  It does not so easily show up in our daily service to the Master).

Much more to come...I'd love to interact with you if this is useful to you. Sign up for this blog to get regular updates, leave a comment or contact me personally at hbmatch@gmail.com

Harv Matchullis
...still leading, but from a different posture...