Dear Fellow Trekker,
As most of you know, leadership was my profession, remains one of my passions, and is always a priority in my thinking. Leadership is a function in life, thrust upon us continually or periodically based upon life roles, and we all are either good or poor leaders.
This month I want to encourage you to be a good spiritual leader. One must understand ultimate leadership in a spiritual sense. Embracing the eternal perspective (of which we spoke briefly last month), a spiritual leader is one who is moving back into relationship with God and taking others with him (or her). Spiritual leadership will involve influencing and serving others. It will reflect a blending of natural abilities and spiritual gifts, but if effective, it will be distinguished always by spiritual empowerment outside of oneself. True spiritual leaders are never self-made, they are God made. Men of God, who are exemplary spiritual leaders, are men of priority, of power, and of passion. Please note: the best book on spiritual leadership, apart from the Scriptures, is the book by J. Oswald Sanders “Spiritual Leadership”, published about 40 years ago, but still available. Get it!
If you are to become an effective spiritual leader, you must desire Christ only. He is the essence of true spiritual leadership, the perfect leader. He came from the Father to reveal the Father; He came to serve and provide His life a sufficient payment in order to take all humanity back to the Father. He is the Example, the Provider, the Burdenbearer. He is in perfect relationship with the Father, and takes us into the relationship. We go back to the bosom of the Father only through Christ.
Jesus Christ, as the Truth and Life, must always be the Way as well. We may want to do it “my way”, but we need a guide and an empowerer if we are to scale the heights of spiritual leadership. In our leadership roles, this Truth comes home quite often. At least I find it so. Recently, two of my grandsons, Tyler and Austin, were with us. Very near our townhouse development is our own little “Garden of the Gods”. I took the boys there to discover and explore some new territory. I was leading the way; I knew the path; I knew where we were going; I had been there. Tyler, the oldest, said, “I want to go down this way, Grandpa”, off into a little cavern, while I was up above. Soon his brother said, “I want to go with Tyler. May I Grandpa?” I said yes… big mistake! They didn’t know where they were going, and I abdicated my responsibility of leading them. You guessed it! They got lost, and I proceeded upon my merry way… the higher road, but alone! We never married up. Returning home forty minutes later, I was greeted by a disturbed friend/wife and Austin. Where was grandson #1, Tyler, I asked? He was home. That saved me. The boys told me how they got lost, returned to the trail, called for me repeatedly, but in vain, and then retraced their steps home. I was relieved they were home, but their leader, I was not!
Leaders must “know the way”, but they also must passionately “tend the sheep”. Sheep love to bleatingly go their own way! So do humans! I Isaiah said it well in his narration, “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, everyone, to his own way.” Leaders, as shepherds, must know the way to green pastures, and keep the sheep (the grandsons, the soldiers, the parishioners, the teenagers… (for whomever you are responsible) with them. Failure to do so, for any reason, is a failure of leadership.
An absolute truth in spiritual leadership is the undeniable fact: One cannot take others where he or she has not been. As Christ had total obedience and intimacy with the Father, so must we be in like relationship with the Savior. And as Jesus said, “I do nothing on my own, but only what the Father does through me”, so do we do nothing on our own, but only as we are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The trek back to God on our own is treacherous and impossible. Without a guide we fail. Life is too unpredictable; suffering is inevitable; our choices repeatedly so regrettable, we won’t make it. I am reminded of the story of Ernest Shackelton, which we tell in part on our Youth Compass website for the purpose of recruiting youth workers to reach third culture kids (TCKs) around the world. In 1914 Irish explorer Shackelton set out to explore Antarctica. He needed a crew for the hazardous voyage. How did he get men to volunteer for such an adventure? Shackelton placed the following advertisement in the London Times: “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return doubtful.” In spite of this ominous warning, brave men signed on for the crew. (And staff are joining Youth Compass.) Shackelton pledged that no one would die on the voyage, and to the assembled crew before embarking, he declared, “Follow as I lead, do what I say must be done, and I’ll get you home.” And sure enough, he did, eventually.
This is a human glimpse; a limited analogy of what the leader sent from God and from Nazareth did for us all. As we spoke in the March newsletter, Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will…” do something… make you fisherman, empower you to be leaders, take you home to be with the Father.
Today’s true spiritual leader knows (as Christ knew) where they have come from, where they are going, and therefore are able to “pick up a towel” (Gospel of John 17:3) and do the will of the Father. Spiritual leadership always engages the eternal dimension, and shucks willingly man’s standards of leadership success. Priority #1 is pursuing one’s own relationship with the Father, and priority #2, taking others with you!
Spiritual leaders naturally assume responsibility for taking others back to the Father. The Scriptures are replete with our obligations to others… “to whomsoever much is given, much will be required”, Luke says in his gospel. We come to Jesus individually, but we go to the Father with Jesus, collectively as one body, the Body of Christ. True spiritual leaders understand well this distinction.
God bless you my young leader friend. Sally forth with confidence daily into the presence of the Father and take
others with you.
Your fellow trekker,
Jim Meredith