The 3 C’s of Celection

How can we be sure,

A partnership will be right?

How will we know,

It will be blessed in God’s sight?

There are three qualifications,

We need to ensure are in place,

Through Character, Competence, and Chemistry,

In a partnership, we see God’s grace.

Character, Competence and Chemistry

In any partnership – marriage, employment, friendship, etc – we need these three qualities; to be found and to be nurtured. A partnership has little or no future if these components are neglected.

Christian Character makes us ready for partnership. Character is the predecessor of competence, because character is the ‘how’ and the ‘why’, where competence is the ‘what’. Character cannot be faked, because it has an ideology about it driven by the values we hold dearest.

Character is who we are when the lights are turned off. It’s the material incandescent before God, yet dim before humanity when reputation takes precedence.

Competence is so fundamentally necessary. It’s about being prepared to give more than we receive – by also being humbly able to receive – is vital in any partnership. To give more than we receive establishes a thriving plant of fruitfulness. Competence, in the context of partnership, is all about the fruit of kindness, patience, compassion, all coming together in grace. What we have here is spiritual competence, which is a meld of mental and emotional competence.

Chemistry is the final component. As we step into the idea of partnership there has to be a meeting of minds and hearts. There has to be some essential alignment in ideas and method. We don’t need to be clones, but we do need some convergence of purpose, vision, and values.

Without chemistry it can seem that an abundance of character and competence comes to nought, but, equally, character and competence enhance the chances of chemistry coming together.

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Effective partnership is undergirded by character within both, the competence of both, and chemistry between both.

There is little that come be done for a partnership that fails for these qualities.

If one person has character and relational competence they still need to discern if there is chemistry between them and another person. But where there is a lack of character or competence, the partnership will inevitably struggle.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.