Kansas City has been home to our family for nearly 23 years, a period during which the city has celebrated multiple Super Bowl victories. I love the Chiefs! Yet, the team you cheer for at eight years old holds a unique place in your heart, and for me, that team was the Detroit Lions. I shed many, many tears over the Lions’ losses. I clearly remember the devastation of Eddie Murray going wide right in a 1983 playoff game against Joe Flippin Montana and the 49ers. The tears flowed!
Since moving to KC, I hadn’t been back to Detroit to see the Lions play or visited Ford Field. That changed this past December when a buddy and I planned a trip to watch the Lions vs. Cowboys game—a game the Lions dominated, I might add! With a win secured, we had the next day to explore Detroit. What do two dudes do after a great football game? Go back to the cigar bar? Maybe visit the Motown Museum? No…we went to a huge used book store, of course! Four floors to explore cheap used books; I quickly discovered the dedicated Thomas Merton section and where Merton was, Nouwen had to be close. I found Nouwens, 1974, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations of the Christian Life which turned out to be a life-giving gift.
Nouwen’s concise, compelling reflections offer an essential foundation for leadership renewal that aligns closely with the mission of Cultivate Renewal. With great insight he addresses the silent burdens of leadership, particularly how self-worth and indentity can become tied to performance. The paradox is that as success increases, so does the intense desire to achieve even more, and then the fear of failure intensifies. This is a clear path to burnout. Often the very desire and increased effort leaders put into impacting others and their communities obstructs the genuine care, joy, and transformation they hope to achieve.
Nouwen highlights that the “secret” of Jesus’ ministry was His practice of withdrawing from the crowds to a “lonely place” early in the morning to pray (Mark 1:35-39). He offers the insightful perspective that, in this solitude, “Jesus finds the courage to follow God’s will and not his own; to speak God’s words and not his own; to do God’s work and not his own.” In the lonely and solitary place we are reminded of Jesus’ own words “By myself I can do nothing . . . I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30).
At Cultivate Renewal, we invite leaders to step away and seek a “lonely place”—a space for solitude and community, “in which there is little to defend but much to share.” This withdrawal is essential so that the successes and failures, actions, concerns, and pressures of leadership “slowly can lose some of their power over you.” Renewal takes root with the reminder that it is “the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (John 14:10).