What do you suppose is one of the highest values sought in churches today? The answer: leaders or leadership!
In recent years there has seemingly been a myriad of books on the subject of leadership that have been published. In my own library I have nearly an entire shelf filled with materials on this one topic...as it relates to the church.
The reason so much is written/read about this matter is that just about everybody I know needs help learning how to lead effectively. There are some gifted individuals that are natural born leaders, but most of us need help with improving our leadership skills. That’s why conferences and seminars dealing with “Leadership in the Church,” “Developing Leaders for the 21st Century,” etc., are so well attended by church leaders.
Just to give you an idea how much focus has been placed on leadership in recent years, in 1997, authors Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus reported that there are “more than 850 published definitions of leadership.” (Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge [New York: Harper Collins, 1997], 4.) And, just imagine how many have been added in the years since.
Without question, our churches are in desperate need of leaders/leadership and training in this area is vitally important. I don’t want to demean the importance of leadership among God’s people. But, I am questioning whether we are focused on the wrong mechanism for developing/preparing the kind of leaders God desires for His church.
It’s interesting to me that leadership is not the major/core tenant of what Jesus taught His disciples. Certainly, they learned leadership from being with Jesus and they were ultimately given responsibility to lead. However, the extraordinary emphasis on developing leaders/leadership in the church seems to be less a biblical value and more a western one. What exactly did Jesus call His disciples to do? He called them to follow Him (cf. Matthew 4:19)!
Think of it this way: can you really lead spiritually in God’s church (or your home), if you are not first a fully devoted follower of Christ? Why then do we give greater emphasis to leadership and not to being His devoted follower?
I think E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien speak poignantly to this matter. They write, “For many Westerners, the term follower connotes a weakness of character, as when a person cannot resist peer pressure but ‘goes along with the crowd.’ Follower connotes a lack of creativity and ambition, portraying the average office worker as a drone dutifully churning out unimportant work under the direction of a (sometimes) talented and successful manager. By contrast, the term leader connotes a constellation of virtues. It implies that a person is efficient, creative, productive and charismatic enough to encourage others to be the same. Businesses want to hire leaders, not followers. And, perhaps ironically, so do churches. The importance of leadership among Christians is illustrated by the fact that one of the most influential magazines for church leaders in the United States is called Leadership Journal...” They conclude, “Leadership is a Western virtue; submission is a biblical virtue.” (E. Randolph Richards;Brandon J. O'Brien. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible [Kindle Locations 2046-2053]. Kindle Edition.)
Listen to this comparison that was written by an unknown author about the differences between leaders and followers.
When leaders make a mistake, they say, “I was wrong.”
When followers make mistakes, they say, “It wasn’t my fault.”
A leader works harder than a follower and has more time;
a follower is always “too busy” to do what is necessary.
A leader goes through a problem;
a follower goes around it and never gets past it.
A leader makes and keeps commitments;
a follower makes and forgets promises.
A leader says, “I’m good, but not as good as I ought to be;”
a follower says, “I’m not as bad as a lot of other people.”
Leaders listen;
followers just wait until it’s their turn to talk.
Leaders respect those who are superior to them and tries to learn something from them;
followers resent those who are superior to them and try to find chinks in their armor.
Leaders feel responsible for more than their job;
followers say, “I only work here.”
A leader says, “There ought to be a better way to do this;”
followers say, “That’s the way it’s always been done here.”
Do you see the subtle message in this list of comparisons? It basically says that followers are inept, undisciplined, undependable, critical, forgetful, and worthless. And, maybe followers are some of these things, at times. But, so are some leaders I’ve known. Isn’t the greater problem in this comparison that the person identified as a “follower” is simply lacking in character?
When reading these kinds of comparisons, is it any wonder that people don’t want to be known as a “follower” in today’s world? Should being a “follower” really be viewed as a negative and not a positive? Actually, I’d hate to work for a man/woman that felt the way the author of this comparison apparently feels about “leaders” and “followers.” Besides, If there are no “followers,” where would the “leaders” be? The right kind of “follower” can help the right kind of “leader” develop the skills he/she needs to be better.
The other side of why some people focus on leadership (in the church) more than following is that it is more appealing to the flesh. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said in one of his last sermons. “We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade.” But it’s also that push to be the leader of the parade that sometimes produces unchecked authority, greed, pride, and even abuse. Dr. King continued, “[The] perverted use of the drum major instinct...has led to the most tragic prejudice, the most tragic expressions of man’s inhumanity to man.” And, he’s exactly right!
Even “the church” has begun to recognize that sometimes we have emphasized the wrong priorities. For instance, we now talk about leaders in the church as being “servant leaders.” And, we call Christians “Christ-followers.” But, have we just changed the terminology or has their really been a paradigm shift?
We could endlessly debate the contrast between leaders vs. followers. My basic purpose is to challenge the negative stereotyping (like the contrasts listed earlier) that is too often associated with being a “follower.” I believe “following” Jesus should be the highest calling of the Christian life! I propose that a person can’t be an effective spiritual leader until he first knows how to follow. Just because a person has the “natural ability” to lead (i.e., in business, politics, education, etc.), doesn’t necessarily mean he is qualified to lead in the church.
What you find in biblical history is that great spiritual leaders were great followers first.
- Joshua followed Moses more than forty years before he was given the responsibility of leading the children of Israel into the Promised Land.
- Elisha followed Elijah for ten years before the mantle was passed to him.
- The disciples followed Jesus for three years before they became the leaders that “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
As you can see, these scriptures demonstrate that our greatest need is to develop as followers (of Jesus) first. It’s out of this pool of people pursuing God that He calls leaders that can be trained for service in the church.
You’d best count the cost, though! It will take a radical faith to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus! In a world that constantly tells us life is all about “me,” being a follower of Jesus means acknowledging that it’s really all about HIM!
Jesus called His disciples from the world of business, government, finance, and other professions. When they left to pursue Christ, they were acknowledging that following Jesus trumped every other ambition or aspiration they had previously held. There could be no competing interests for their devotion or commitment to Him. Anything that diverted their affection and dedication became an idol that had to be purged from their lives (and ours, too).
Please, notice that Jesus called followers, not leaders.
Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him. (Matthew 4:19-22)
If He had followed the path of today’s church, He would have called His disciples from among the religious bodies of the day that held power over the spiritual affairs of Israel. But, Jesus did no such thing. At one point He even raised the bar of what it means to be His follower and many left following Him (cf. John 6:66). He’s not looking for casual commitment that only wants to consume what He offers. He’s looking for people that are fully devoted to Him no matter the cost they must pay.
There are some things you should know when it comes to following Jesus all out...
- You have to leave some things behind (family, friends, business, etc.).
- You have to set some things aside (your ambitions, desires, goals, etc.).
- You have to give some things up (the “right” to control your life).
- You have to lay some things down (to follow to your death).
- You have to do what you are told to do (obedience is the essence of following).
- You have to care for others first (how to serve others instead of yourself).
- You have to lift up your voice (to give HIM the praise and glory).
In a word...you have to “SURRENDER!” Surrender is defined...A: “To yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand.” B: “To give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another.” It’s a term of the battlefield when one army gives up all rights to their conquerors. They lay down their arms and let the winners take control.
That’s what God is calling us to do: “surrender” to Him! And, it’s the only way to discover God’s destiny for your life. Apart from a surrendered life of following Jesus Christ, you will miss out on the eternal impact God wants your life to have. You may amass a lot of temporal trophies from your earthly exploits, but you’ll have nothing to show when you meet God. If you take the short view to life you can go on in a self-determined fashion and live for this world. But, if you take the long view of life and keep eternity in mind, you’ll let go and let God take control of your life. Then your life will have meaning far beyond this world and one that changes the destiny of others in the process.
We sometimes sing the words of an old hymn, but I wonder how many of us really pay attention to what it says! It takes a radical faith to surrender ALL to Jesus, but the journey is unlike anything you have ever experienced with benefits that are out of this world. By the way, passionately following Jesus will change your marriage, impact your children and change the world we live in right now!
All To Jesus I Surrender
All to Jesus I surrender; all to him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust him, in his presence daily live.
I will ever love and trust him, in his presence daily live.
All to Jesus I surrender; humbly at his feet I bow,
worldly pleasures all forsaken; take me, Jesus, take me now.
All to Jesus I surrender; make me, Savior, wholly thine;
fill me with thy love and power; truly know that thou art mine.
All to Jesus I surrender; now I feel the sacred flame.
O the joy of full salvation! Glory, glory, to his name!
All to Jesus I surrender; make me, Savior, wholly thine;
fill me with thy love and power; truly know that thou art mine.
All to Jesus I surrender; now I feel the sacred flame.
O the joy of full salvation! Glory, glory, to his name!
Refrain:
I surrender all, I surrender all,
I surrender all, I surrender all,
all to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
I surrender all.
Closing:
I recently read the story of a woman that was Vice President of a Christian university whose next move up the ladder of success was to become a university president. After ten years in her present position earning the admiration and respect of the faculty and students, she was recruited to apply for the president’s position at another college. Most people in her situation would have jumped at the opportunity to fulfill what had been a longtime ambition for her. Instead, she told her friend that before accepting the offer she needed to see “where God was leading...” As it turned out, she came to believe that God’s will was for her to stay at her present university position. This woman had developed a walk with God such that she couldn’t be enticed away simply because another, more prominent position came open. She had cultivated a posture of following God.
That’s how following God gets worked out in everyday life. And, it’s not until we are fully devoted to Him that we find ourselves on mission with God (“I’ll make you fishers of men”).
A statement that is frequently attributed to Dwight L. Moody (though it originated with someone else) is his famous quote: “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.” Will you be that man or woman today?
