Archive for leadership
April 19, 2008 at 12:18 pm · Filed under Jesus, faith, growing in God, leadership
I’m still here. I’m working on a project that is almost done. After next weekend, the year of myself that I gave away for this project will be over and it will be time to hand the reigns over to someone else. I expect to have more time on my hands after that. Many things and people in my life have been relegated to “after the project.” But it’s been worth it, I think. I’ll know more after next weekend. I do know that in this process, I am being grown in such a way that it will take a long time afterward for me to process it all. I am finding out who I am, who I was, and who I was always meant to be. And no, this isn’t about “full time ministry” because I’ve already been doing that, as all believers do. I don’t have an itch that needs to be scratched there. My itch is to know the fullness of Jesus that Dad gave me, all the fullness of deity that is in Jesus, and He that has been given to me.
March 26, 2008 at 4:23 pm · Filed under Jesus, dying to self, faith, fellowship, leadership, struggling with sin
We are significant because we are created in the image of God, by God. But we get that all wrong because our beliefs are wrong. We search our environments for affirmation of our significance (or lack thereof), and when we find it, we turn to God and offer the evidence to him as proof that he should either accept us or reject us.
I have been successful, therefore God accepts me.
I have been a failure, therefore God should reject me and if he doesn’t, he’s probably going to any day now because I’m just going to keep screwing it up.
Or worse, I have been successful today, therefore I am loved. Tomorrow I will fail and therefore I will be hated.
I thought this was not a struggle of mine until I was recruited to deliver the concept and the message to a group of about 100 women over the course of about three months. Now that I am in the midst of “teaching” this concept, I have discovered how much I have to learn about it. Funny (ha ha) how God works sometimes. It’s not like this message was even forced on me. It was completely up to me what the “theme” of this teaching would be. I selected Significance because I discerned that it was something many people struggle with.
What I have found is that I struggle profoundly with it and I didn’t even realize. But through some life events that have illustrated to me so very clearly that I have found my significance, in large part, through my role as a mother, I have become a living example of that struggle to those 100 or so women, and I will continue to live out this struggle and this journey of discovery right in front of them for another month or so, culminating in a weekend event of intimate Christian community where we will share this teaching with 36 more women.
It is so humiliating to be placed in a leadership role and find that your role is really to be transparent and vulnerable as you lead. But what else should I have expected to be asked to do by my brother Jesus? It’s rather disturbing to think that I actually expected to lead from an “I’ve arrived” perspective. I should have known better. Leaders are simply those who are willing to take the first step in becoming better followers of Jesus. Willing to be the first to take up the cross and die to self, willing to serve first, willing to be broken first, willing to be watched by a Christian community as the Potter shapes and reshapes.
I can’t even really claim credit for being willing. I feel like I was drafted. At least I’m willing not to go AWOL, yet.
Psalm 8 speaks of this flow of significance, which is from God, through me, and to the world:
1 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.
2 From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise [b]
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [c]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
And William P. Young speaks richly to this idea of our significance in his book, The Shack:
“The truth is this: “Significance originates from ‘being’, not from doing.” Doing adds nothing to our significance and doing takes nothing away. Doing is directly related, not to significance, but is largely an expression of who we think we are. “As a person thinks in their heart, so are they (so they will act).” Because we are already significant, our choices and actions matter. It is not the choices that make us significant, it is our significance that make our choices meaningful. Every human being is significant by nature. They are imprinted with the very image of God, they are each the center of God’s love and goodness. True significance is individually wrapped up in the uniqueness of each person and each one being created in the image of God, regardless of what Madison Ave says, or how an individual may be damaged or broken. “
There is really only one way we can identify ourselves, and that is by our status as children of God. There is nothing else that can remain, in the end. Everything else that we might draw some significance from can be taken away. Motherhood, accomplishment, power, fame, intelligence, health, wealth, relationships, beauty, youth, age, wisdom, whatever. It all goes away, it is all shifting sand. This is my lesson to learn, and I’m not sure how that’s going to happen because I am one of those damaged and I fear, permanently broken individuals. All I can do is submit myself to Jesus, and like Paul, say “follow me as I follow the Lord.”
March 16, 2008 at 1:50 am · Filed under Jesus, leadership, little "c" church
From time to time, I find and post old stuff I’ve written. This is one such stuff.
Do you believe that there is one specific God-appointed spokesman in your life? Some people believe that. That’s the “car” they’re following, if you read my previous post. Some people believe that they don’t have to do the work of seeking Jesus because there is this person (many times it is “their pastor”, if they are of the Protestant persuasion) who is doing it for them. They don’t have to get real spiritual, because that’s the Pastor’s job. They talk about being fed, as though they were a little baby.
Do we really want to be treated like babies? When I am a spiritual baby, it is good to have someone more experienced to point me in the right direction. But very soon, it is time to grow up and become an adult. Babies are cute, but even a ten year old baby is grotesque. It’s just not right. But that is what “local churches” are churning out: perpetual infants who cannot walk or feed themselves or even grow properly because they do not know how to go to Jesus, hear directly from him, and apply his truth to their life.
Even our accounts of Jesus’ communication style show that he didn’t have one appointed spokesperson. Usually, he communicated directly with the person speaking to him. I’m not saying that he doesn’t use other people to deliver his message. Once, he spoke to Mary Magdalene and told her to go tell the disciples what he had said. I bet that was a shocker. He spoke through a lowly woman to the ones in Jesus’ inner circle. But no one, not Mary, not the disciples, no one, was Jesus’ designated spokesperson.
Jesus wanted us to follow Him directly. He said, “John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light. … You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” You see, the people followed John, but when Jesus came, he told them to follow him. Do you think that we cannot follow Jesus now because he has gone to be with Father? Do you think that because he is not here in the flesh with you, you cannot speak with him, have a conversation, sit with him, be comforted by him, learn from him, hear him?
It is hard for us humans to see or understand anything that is not fleshly. But Jesus said that the flesh profits nothing. This is not a Gnostic teaching - these are the very words of Jesus! “The Spirit gives life,” he says. “The flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” Is all flesh evil? Absolutely not! Jesus came to us in the flesh. He certainly was not evil. God chooses to have each of us born in the flesh. It is not evil. But we are to put our eyes on the Spirit, not on the flesh. This is a lifelong process. Jesus was trying to convince his disciples to look beyond the flesh (the car right in front of you), and see the spiritual possibilities.
Keep crying out to him! It is possible for us to follow Jesus directly. Do we get it right most of the time? Probably not. Look at Peter - he was bold enough to get out on the water, but he messed up. He was bold enough to tell Jesus that he would never forsake him or deny him. He screwed that one up big time. Is God big enough to handle our mistakes and still keep control of the world? Absolutely! Does he want us to give up trying to see with spiritual eyes just because we make mistakes? What do you think? Should we give up and cede our access to Jesus to another person because we are scared we’ll get it wrong sometimes? Who deserves my trust more - another person, or Jesus himself? Nothing can snatch me away from Jesus. Nothing can separate us from his love.
Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to listen for Jesus and to do what you believe he is telling you to do! Don’t let your fear or lack of ambition keep you tied to a human teacher. Listen to those who are over you in the Lord (those who have been a believer longer than you and are more mature in their faith) but do not set them over you as rulers! Do not make them a substitute for the precious voice of Jesus and the relationship that he wants to cultivate with you.
Jesus said, “follow me.” Will we do that?
March 4, 2008 at 4:16 pm · Filed under ideals, leadership, little "c" church, paradigms, struggling with sin
Leadership is a hot topic in American Christendom and in the American political system right now. As it happens, I am leading about 100 people for a few months, as we prepare to facilitate an intense three-day spiritual encounter with Jesus for about 36 women. So I’ve been thinking about the dynamics of leadership and struggling with our paradigms versus what the kingdom of God really is. What I see in this experience, is that people are clamoring for leadership. This is true across the board, in all walks of life and in all different faiths and traditions. Everywhere around the world, people look for a leader and when they find one, they follow. And this is a good thing, because we are all built to follow Jesus.
The bad thing is that there are so many leaders in this world who do not lead in a godly way. True godly leadership involves no agenda for personal gain. None. True godly leadership, whether in corporate America or in religious circles, is bent only on seeing other people built up, encouraged, strengthened, and equipped, by our service. True godly leadership doesn’t take on the mantle of “servant leadership” as a means in order to increase profits, numbers, obedience, or productivity. And because it is such a virtuous aspiration, true godly leadership is impossible unless the leader is submitted to Jesus on a moment by moment basis.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about leadership in Christendom or in corporate America. The principles of godly leadership don’t change, because spirituality is not compartmental (at least it is not supposed to be). No matter what the arena, according to God, leadership is only supposed to be for the benefit of those being led. I realize this notion is completely at odds with the corporation (and remember that your local little “c” church is a corporation).
and that’s a “whole other” blog post: even though I believe in capitalism, I think corporations are evil, and I’d be happy to tell you why.
Unfortunately, because of human nature, given enough time, human leadership always ends up satisfying some kind of need on the part of the leader (if it didn’t start that way, that is, and much of it unfortunately starts with the leader’s agenda in mind).
Followers usually idolize their leaders, whether they’re spiritual leaders or business leaders. They reverence them. They honor them. They clamor after them, just to be in their presence. They stand in line after hearing them speak, to ask questions or just to say thank you. They pay them. Sometimes they pay them a lot of money. They give leaders power, over them, and over other things in their stead. And perhaps most dangerously, they cede their personal responsibility to leaders and ask these leaders to “take care” of them. Once again, this is true in religion and in politics. The nanny state is alive and well in both realms, I’m afraid, and this is because we have created the systems, both religious and political, that support this kind of thinking.
Selah.
Because we, the followers, want our leaders to take care of us and make our decisions for us, and protect us from ourselves, we, the leaders, take that power and money and admiration and lose our focus, and instead of empowering and strengthening our followers, we fall into a horrible conflict of interest in which our best interests are served by fostering dependency. And the more we foster this dependency, mitigating personal responsibility, the more whinging, clingy, selfish, and immature our followers become and the more parasitical.
This is what we have created in our political system, and this is also what we have created in our religious system.
Leaders in both systems take our money and make the decisions for us about who will benefit from that money, redistributing it as they see fit. They take our personal responsibility away and protect us from ourselves, telling us that they know better how to raise our children than we do, telling us that they know better than we do what we need to know, that they know better how to keep us “safe” in this big dangerous world. And sadly, they take our misplaced adulation and swell their own breasts and build themselves up, instead of refusing to receive it and determining to live a life of obscurity, so that those who have entrusted their lives to them are enriched with the blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Slow down and really think about it.
