An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. –Winston Churchill
It’s hard to lead trying to appease everyone. In the end you can’t. Leaders often appease because they do not like confrontation. Over my many visits and talks with children’s leaders, I’m finding that this could be one of the major hurdles in leading children’s ministries.
The quote above gives a stunning visual of what appeasing eventually does. Eventually, you will get eaten up by criticism, stress, bad attitude, etc. You can’t lead let alone live by constantly appeasing. By constantly acceding to their demands as (as appease is defined), we allow others to highjack the vision that God has placed in us as leaders.
As a children’s leader you must write out what is negotiable and non-negotiable in your ministry and then stick to it. It’s okay to appease some people, sometimes on some of the things that are negotiable. An example of this could be that you don’t care if there is hand sanitizer by the doors, but you’ll appease the “germ-o-phobes” by placing some by the door. Another example could be that you don’t allow non-background checked adults to work with children. That is probably a non-negotiable for most and you can’t appease the team or adult who wants to work with kids just because it’s easier or for whatever reason.
Do you have any stories of how you did or did not appease? I’d love for you to share it.
-PJ
