Feeling out of your comfort Zone? Have faith!

How do your feel when you are out of your comfort zone? Out of control? Arthur Goode shares how this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Trust God to come through for you!

One of the more interesting definitions of leadership I heard recently was; ‘A leader is someone who is moving a group of people towards an unsustainable future’. It was said in the context of church, and one element of faith is embarking on a venture that you feel a calling to but don’t have the resources for. The idea being that if it is of God then He will come through for you. If it isn’t then you probably don’t want it to succeed in the first place.

My wife and I did this when we sensed the call to start a church in Plymouth 15 years ago. We had a reasonably comfortable existence in the lovely city of Winchester and the children were just starting school. We moved to where we had no job, no church, just a dream and the sense that God was in it and would help it to happen.

Similarly a few years later we took a leap of faith, as a church, to open up a centre in the heart of the city to collect clothes and baby equipment and give it away to those in need. A drop-in developed and over the past decade many hundreds of families have been helped, and the project is well known in the city for the impact it has had.

Moving a group of people towards an unsustainable future need not be about trusting in God to provide, however. It is more about inspiring a group to go further than they would have imagined possible on their own. And in that place of growth comes a certain amount of healthy chaos and crisis, which in dealing with they become bigger and stronger and better. It reminds me of that graphic of a circle, labelled comfort zone, with an arrow pointing outside of the circle to the words ‘where the growth happens’.

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Growth takes you out of your comfort zone

You see, most of us don’t like the feeling of being out of control, or out of our comfort zone and risk brings a certain amount of anxiety. And yet risk, being pushed to – and possibly beyond – our limits create the conditions for creativity to flourish and groups to perform at levels they previously didn’t imagine possible.

And what’s true at a group level is also the case for us personally, as individuals.

Being out of your comfort zone isn’t pleasant, let’s admit it. And finding ourselves on the edge of what we feel able to cope with is not always that enjoyable, or feel that desirable! All of us drift towards comfort, safety and control. But for you to be the best versions of yourself you need to step outside of your comfort zone, to where it isn’t safe and failure is a realistic possibility.

In psychology, attachment theory teaches us that the individuals who are best suited to taking risks and operating outside of their comfort zone are those with healthy emotional attachment – in other words those who have experienced stable and consistent love from a parent when growing up.

This gives the safety of knowing that failure isn’t the end of the world, the courage to give something a go even though it might be scary. Where do you find that dynamic in your life right now? Are you a risk taker, or are you risk averse? Do you hate being out of control? Are you wondering how you can be more confident to have a go – take a chance? Are you a leader who needs to lead your team more into the dangerzone of an unsustainable future?

The solution to all of this is quite simple, as it often is. You want the confidence to step out and risk a little? It’s found in your sense of self, and this is found in love.

St Paul knew the importance of this foundation of love – for all of us regardless of our calling. And he knew that what we couldn’t necessarily rely on from our upbringing could be provided from God. His prayer for the Ephesian church I echo now for you today:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

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