Alignment for your assignment

Right alignments are crucial to your assignment. I have said this numerous times to people who seem to be doing everything right, with limited results, and overwhelming challenges. The same way we were not meant to walk out our faith without the fellowship of other faithful’s, we are not meant to be in authority without aligning with authority figures in our lives. I can understand that abuse has happened to some people so they disregard the need of something based on their experience. This is dangerous because if our experiences inform what we believe then our truth will never transcend what we have known. 

I would like to help people come into this blessed place of alignment. I realize it is not as easy as it sounds for a number of reasons. I have two ways on how to go about finding and aligning with authority over your life. My target audience for this is those in lead ministry positions who are thinking about this for their life or for the life of their ministry. It’s one thing to be convinced you need it and it’s another to know how to go about it. I want to share how to do the latter. 

Two things you should be on the look-out for:

 1. Relational compatible

2. Vision compatibility 

Relational compatible is determined by interaction. It’s when I am hanging out with a person talking and connection happens. Let’s put it this way, I get them or get the way they are. There is a resonating that comes from how they are with me and how they receive me. I don’t look for them to be exactly like I am in personality or gifting’s.  I let the intuition of our interaction help me. This is heart level stuff. Do I feel safe around them? Would I trust them around my family? Things like that. There’s a social component that I’m getting the right vibes from. They don’t need to be my best friend or totally relatable. In fact, because of their level of authority, I don’t expect to be so chummy with them. The principles in which they live are what I befriend. 

Vision compatibility is more of the brain level stuff. Here is where they share and I listen for key phrases and practices that they mention. I will examine the fruit of their work. I look to see if there is commonality in the direction they are going. I ask questions about where they’ve been, where they are, and where they are going. It’s through these inquiries where I learn how they think. When I feel like there is only a clear frequency and no static in what they are sharing that tells me we have vision compatibility.  

Wrong alignments for me have resulted in delays in mission, obligations to one another that feel uneasy and benefits that seem to only go one way. I’ve learned I can be friends, fellowship and partner with people without having to align myself to them. The right alignments result in sharing our strengths with one another, each wanting to see the other become successful and everyone’s clear about the part they play so the pressure to perform is lifted because relational trust rules. 

I have been putting a list together of what has come about in my life and the life of our church since being aligned with the right people. The list includes sitting at tables with people I would have not met on my own, prospering in ways that we were not prospering before that and doors being opened.  The list goes on.  Alignment makes it so that what is flowing from the head comes onto the beard. The beard speaks of having the maturity to grow. What a good picture of what alignment is. Alignment is maturity to connect with headship like a beard does to the hair on head of a high priest leader.