Trust is a bit like the eggs in a chocolate sponge cake. 

You can put in all the ingredients but you need the eggs to bind it all together and make the cake actually rise.  Ok, so maybe not the most profound analogy but you see what I’m getting at: without trust in God as your foundation any attempt to live authentically for Christ will ultimately fail.  However, trust, somewhat frustratingly, is not something you can develop in the abstract.  It involves faith and a willingness to be vulnerable. 

Now if you’re a high achieving, driven individual, and to be honest, they’re the kind of people who tend to be attracted to the public sphere and the Leadership Programme, the thought of being vulnerable is scary.  I mean, who wants to face their own weaknesses and inadequacies?  Much safer to cling to your illusions of control. 

I’ll admit, hands down, that was where I was at when I started my year with CARE. 

I knew that God doesn’t call us to be perfect but to be faithful, but I was unable to get that from ‘head knowledge’ to ‘heart knowledge’ in my own life.  Make myself vulnerable?  No thank you; that would be a sign of weakness and surely it would ruin my effectiveness for God’s Kingdom. 

Yet over the course of the Programme I began to realise that shunning vulnerability often served as an excuse to avoid honesty with myself and with God.  Letting God pierce through my misconceptions of who he is and of my own identity just seemed too risky.  What would happen when I didn’t like what I saw?

But I knew I didn’t want to be in limbo – simply knowing God’s love as a concept.

Taking the plunge and learning how to be vulnerable is definitely not easy!  It’s challenging and takes a lot of support and encouragement; it requires time and relationships and can be as messy as making a cake with a 3 year old.  And that’s where the Leadership Programme came in handy; people willing to walk that journey with me.

Hi, I’m Katie McAvoy, the Associate Director of the Institute for Faith and Culture run by CARE.  I’ve been involved with the CARE Leadership Programme since 2008. 

The Programme equips the rising generation of Christians (that’s you and me!) to be leaders in the world of public policy and wider culture.  If what I’ve been talking about excites you then you can find out more about the Programme by visitingwww.care.org.uk/leadershipprogramme.