Leadership is the spiritual gift of those Christians empowered by God to lead the Church and its ministries in pursuing its mission.
I was ordained as a pastor in 1984, four-and-a-half years after I'd left the political world and started seminary. Time and again, seminary classmates had affirmed that I was "a leader." And it's true that throughout my life, including those years before I went to seminary, whenever I was thrown in with a group of people, I seemed frequently-- and involuntarily--to emerge as a leader.
But I’ve learned that while it’s good to have a gift repeatedly affirmed like this, there’s a danger that we may become the victim of our own “good press.” We can get too sure of ourselves, at risk of developing the greatest mistaken attitude that leaders can adopt: a sense of entitlement. People with this attitude see themselves as being in a superior class. Those with a sense of entitlement may be "bosses," who throw their weight around, but they're not leaders. Bosses can't inspire respect or superior performance in others; leaders do that. And they don’t do it with coercion. They do it with persuasion. But leaders who try to persuade others without the guidance and the empowerment of God’s Holy Spirit put themselves and those they lead on a track--fast or slow--to meaningless motion.
In the Old Testament book of Genesis, you'll find the story of Joseph, favored son of the patriarch, Jacob. When Joseph was young, he apparently had a strong sense of how his father's shepherding business should be run. He also had the gift of "dreams," a spiritual capacity for envisioning things. While he was undeniably imbued by God with the capacity for visionary leadership, Joseph demonstrated his lack of maturity when, as a young man, he used his gifts to squeal on his brothers to their father and when he gloated over dreams indicating that one day he would be their lord. It was only after enduring the crucible of hard experiences that Joseph's leadership qualities, once a justification for arrogance, were tempered by the realization that a real leader is, first and foremost, a servant of God and of others.
Of course, the ultimate servant-leader was Jesus Christ Who, on the night of His arrest and betrayal, did the slave's work of washing His disciples' feet. He then told the disciples that anyone who aspired to be with Him or to do God's work in the world must learn from His example and be a servant too.
The Church needs leaders, lay and ordained, to do its work. God has gifted some for leadership. But without adopting the attitude of a servant, leaders will never fulfill the promise of their lives. They'll be fatally focused on themselves and fail to advance the mission of the Church.
Pastor and leadership guru John Maxwell often answers a question he rhetorically poses, “How do you know if you're a leader?” Easy, Maxwell says, turn around and see if anybody’s following you. If you are a leader, then by all means, get on your knees right now and ask God to give you a servant’s heart. A leader must be, first and foremost, a servant of God and of others.
Leadership is the spiritual gift of those Christians empowered by God to lead the Church and its ministries in pursuing its mission.
Bible Passage to Ponder: “The last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16)
[This post is largely a reworking of an installment of my series of blog posts, Leadership Lessons.]
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