The Practice of Leadership Journaling

Blog by Alan Fadling

One of the fruitful practices over most of my adult life as a leader has been keeping a journal. I know not everyone writes in a spiritual journal. I don’t mean this as a guilt trip if this hasn’t been a practice for you thus far. I simply want to share the benefits I have experienced from it to either encourage you in your own present practice or invite you to experiment with it.

I’ve been keeping a personal journal since 1990. Currently it runs over 11,600 pages, contains about 7.8 million words, and covers 34 years of my life. I don’t offer those statistics as a way to impress. There are many pages in my journal that you wouldn’t find interesting at all. I share the numbers simply to illustrate how important this practice has been in my life and leadership.

A Digital Journal

I’ve been keeping a journal since I was a young pastor. I know that many people who keep a journal prefer to write their entries with a pen in a physical notebook. I see the value of that as well and have often used a paper journal. But most of the time, I journal on my laptop. Let me share how that story begins back in my late twenties. (Please bear with a brief lesson in bygone computer technology!)

When I was a student at Fuller Seminary in the late 1980s, I owned one of the first truly portable computers. It was the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100. It ran on 4 AA batteries and had a total storage of 24 bytes. Not gigabytes, kilobytes, or even megabytes. It had 24 bytes of memory.

I was one of the few students typing notes into a computer during class when everyone else was writing their notes on paper. The amount of memory in this computer was so small that I almost filled it typing notes for just one two-hour class. I would download that data onto a cassette tape and erase the computer’s memory so I had room to type notes for the next class.

When I got back to my office, it took a while to upload all that material to my IBM laptop computer for editing. But all of this led to my habit of capturing not only notes but also thoughts, insights, and prayers on a portable computer.

So, even though I do sometimes physically write with a pen in a blank journal, I still go back later and type it into my computer journal. I keep my journal in a running series of Word documents. Right now, I’m journaling in the 180^th Word document in a series that goes back to January 1990.

One of the benefits of this practice is that I can go back and review a slice of my life from any season since 1990. I can do this by searching for key words and phrases throughout my journal documents or by opening a document from a specific era of my life. I’m able to see where I was, what I was learning, and what I sensed God was doing in my life. I’ve learned a lot about myself from this kind of life review.

Here are a few of the reasons I’ve continued the practice of keeping a spiritual journal as a Christian leader.

An Honest Journal

When it comes to the practice of journaling, the first thing to remember is that we do well to write with the assumption that no one will ever read it. The great challenge in the practice of journaling is being honest with myself and being honest with God. I’ve sometimes caught myself writing in my journal as if someone were reading over my shoulder or as if I were writing one of my book manuscripts. It doesn’t help when I write in my journal with an audience other than God in mind.

My journal really is a meeting place between God and me. I imagine every entry as a conversation with God or at least in the presence of God.

And there is nothing God does not already know about my past story and my present circumstances. He knows my shortcomings and offenses. He knows my secret hopes and dreams. He knows just how he has made me. There is nothing in me that isn’t perfectly safe to bring into the presence of this all-knowing God who also happens to faithfully love me. So I aim to journal as honestly as I can.

Having said all that, I admit that I have used edited excerpts from my personal journal in every book I’ve written. They have found their way into emails and podcast episodes. But this always comes later. I’ve tried never to write in my journal with the expectation that anyone else would ever read it.

So, for example, I often write my confessions in this journal. Again, I seek to be as honest as I can be with myself and with God. Whatever I bring into the light of God’s mercy and grace can be cleansed, healed, and restored. One of the occupational hazards of vocational Christian leadership is getting into the habit of living a functional role rather than living an actual life.

But I’ve said before that your own life being transformed by God is one of the greatest resources you have as a spiritual leader. Leadership techniques and strategies are servants to your actual life as a leader. Your influence is mainly a fruit of who you are becoming in God. So, the first benefit of leadership journaling is self-knowledge and living as honestly as we can.

Reflection

• What is unique about leadership journaling as opposed to personal or prayer journaling?
• What has the practice of journaling done to deepen your leadership influence?