Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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Christian Leadership

Recent headlines, proclaiming the discovery of still more scandal entailing dishonesty and abuse of power and position not only by business chief executives, and by politicians, but by leaders of the Church, are stunning reminders of how little both nations that call ourselves Christian, and institutions that call ourselves followers of Christ, have learned from the founder of the "Faith," Jesus our Lord. It is evident that we have pretty much completely ignored the lessons Jesus taught and the model Jesus lived.

Jesus had a clear picture of what a leader and what leadership needs to look like to reflect the values of the Kingdom of God and God's will. No where is that picture more plainly stated than in Matt 20:25-28 (NIV).

Jesus called them together and said,"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Most often, Jesus' model is called "Servant Leadership." Jesus took the common leadership practice of his day (and, sadly, it's still the common leadership practice of our day) and turned it upside-down. Essentially, Jesus asserted that anyone who wants to lead in the Kingdom of God, has to not only be willing to, but has to actually do, the water toting, the feet washing, the "waiting table," and the other "servant" jobs. In other words a leader needs humility; and the mark of humility is unwavering honesty and to not think of ourselves as "too good" to do any job that needs done for the Kingdom.

One of the last things that Jesus did as leader, was to strip down, wrap a towel around himself and wash his disciples' feet. What we, who follow Jesus, too often fail to realize is that Jesus offered this act as a gauge by which any future leader of his disciples will be measured. We can argue with John's Gospel all we want, but the lesson is clear; if our feet are not washed by Jesus (if we cannot be honest enough to admit that our feet touch the ground and we get dirty), we cannot be followers; if we do not wash the feet of the saints (take on the role of servant), we cannot be leaders.

If we are to lead like Jesus, like Jesus taught and lived, there are things we need to do.We need to go to where the people are: spiritually, emotionally, physically. We need to remember that God, in The Incarnation as Jesus, came into the world to be as we are. God initiated the bridge between the divine and the human.

We need to become immersed in the lives of people and listen to them. We would do best to learn 90% of the time by living with and like the people; and, then, learn the other 10% of the time by talking and doing. For the some 30 years of his life, Jesus spent 27 years mostly listening while living as a carpenter among the people. He talked and did ministry for only about 3 years.

We need to model the values, beliefs, purposes, and goals that we have. We dare not just talk. There is no room in Christian leadership for "do as I say, not as I do." We dare not ask others to do or to give proportionally any more than we have already done or given. When Jesus asked others to leave their families for the work of the Kingdom, he already had done so. When he asked others to sell what they had and give to the poor, he had already done it!

We need to have clear assumptions about the nature things and the way things are. Jesus lived his assumptions that:

1) God is compassionate and near;
2) self-transcending love is the glue that holds together everything that exists;
3) there is enough of everything to go around; enough food, clothing, love, healing, forgiveness, etc;
4) there are consequences to everything we do;
5) we can always start over because God loves and forgives us.

We need to learn to turn everything around and upside down ... repentance means, "to turn around"; Jesus said the first shall be last and the greatest shall be the least; Jesus took every role, status and relationship and looked to see what would happen if it was turned around or upside down. Mostly, Jesus checked to make sure everything was really pointed toward God.

We need to be in touch with reality, even the unpleasant reality of failures. That means not giving in to the temptation to denial. It means honesty, confession, repentance and penance. It means that honesty should not be punished. And, it means that we need to seriously learn about mercy and forgiveness.

We need to be ready to start over. Sometimes even the best efforts die and perfect people get crucified. It is ever so hard to remember the lessons of the Resurrection. After the confusion of failure, betrayal, death and grief, there can be amazing and unbelievable new life.

We need to recognize the need for and the importance of intensive, intentional spiritual community. Jesus did not try to do it all by himself. He was alone at the end, not because that is what he wanted, but because the people he trusted abandoned him. The Risen Jesus sought out and forgive; he recalled those who had forsaken him. Those who had been part of that intensive, intentional, spiritual community that grew around Jesus, ultimately became the new leaders of the new creation begun with the Resurrection.

The role of the leader is to do what it takes to help people work together to get done what needs to be done. That means teaching other people to be leaders, too. Jesus left leaders to do the work of the Kingdom. If we are not producing leaders as a result of our leadership work, we are not leading.