While I would say that I enjoyed most of my time at LC and grew a ton, I am blown away by the lack of leadership. This organization totes that they want leaders. I don't find this to be true. They want people that will do what they're told. They don't want new ideas or ideas to be challenged. It's an organization living in the past. While it used to be a place of innovation, creativity, and charting a new course, the concern to protect what is is VERY STRONG! When you challenge those ideas or ways, prepare to be edged out. After no feedback being given by my direct supervisor for at least 6 months, they brought in the "BIG GUNS" from headquarters to make decisions. It wasn't a means of finding out what actually happened. It was a seek and destroy mission. LC promotes the idea of "seek to understand." Which is a great way to leading and just being a human being. In my instance, this did NOT happen. The "regional manager" came up to "fix" the problem. And I was viewed as the problem. No coaching. No help. Just ousted. I had poured nearly 5 years into this place and was on track for becoming a campus pastor. The whole thing flipped in 36 hours. I had met this individual one time prior to this encounter. He was able to sum up that I was the problem in 36 hours. Full backing, albeit blindly, backing existing campus leadership. Especially in light of having such a strong "leadership" bent in the organization, this was such poor leadership. Get rid of the politics. It's pretty wild how "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" exists so heavily in a church. I used to admire this organization so much. It breaks my heart for it to operate this way. And while I thought maybe it's a one off instance, it's not. It's systemic. There are SERIOUS problems in LC. After leaving, the amount of similar stories to mine is cause for great concern. After investing this much time into an organization or as LC would put it, a calling, to be disregarded like yesterdays trash is not becoming of Christ followers.
