Keeping it real

Rule 1 = Be yourself. I watched someone deliver an archery training session to a potential youth leader, when this guy delivered his own session to a bunch of kids it was word for word what he had heard, including jokes. It was naff to the extreme, but worse than that, was the lack of credibility he received as a leader in the eyes of those kids. Should we aspire to be like someone else then?? Yes Yes Yes!! Every time you get the chance to work with other people take the best, adapt it to you and your setting and use it. I love trying new ideas, and ones I have seen or adapted – my best to date is making a coracle out of plastic pipe, polythene sheet and either string or parcel tape. (A coracle is a round traditional boat found in Wales and Africa, though called something else there). Ok! How does this work in real life? What are you comfortable with? Are you a joker or the quiet type? My big mistake on this one was trying to live 3 different lives!! In church I was more spiritual than God, at work I blended in with the crowd, and did what they did to fit in, at home I lived somewhere between the 2. One day at work, a colleague was chatting whilst we had spare time, he asked what I believed about various things (I had my nice as God persona on for this). He wound up the conversation by calling me a hypocrite – trouble is he was right. The net result was me changing in all 3 areas, my Christian friends thought I had back slidden and sometimes at work I would pray for someone, or try out some act of random kindness. Most of all I became comfortable in my own skin.