Dear Trekker,
You, trekker, know the value of rope. Tie into the end of the rope, step off the ledge and you are committed! No turning back; you have entered the realm of high adventure. Climbing, rappelling and mountaineering have always brought self-discovery and teamwork, invaluable lessons along the path of leadership. A ropes course of high adventure is equally invaluable. How sad “coming to the end of your rope” is a phrase associated with failure!
The rope was in my classroom of spiritual leadership for a group of teenagers this past weekend. For General Dwight Eisenhower, our 34th President, it was a piece of string, not a rope. Supposedly he loved to teach his generals and young colonels leadership by pulling a piece of string across his conference table stating with the wry Ike grin: “You can pull a piece of string anywhere you want it to go; you can push it nowhere!” This lesson has stuck with me for about fifty years since I first read it.
Imagine the joy realized by an old trekker imparting principles of leadership to teens. I set up the seminar room circularly and walked into the center with my only prop being a six foot piece of rope. My opening question was, “Who do you believe is the greatest leader of all history and why?” What a bevy of replies. A few hit the answer… Jesus of Nazareth!
I proceeded to demonstrate how, at the end of the rope, you could pull it anywhere you want it to go, and could push it nowhere! The rope is as people who follow a leader. No followers, no leader! You manage things, but you must lead people. And if you would be a leader, you must first be a follower of the greatest leader that ever lived, Jesus Christ.
I introduced them to the simplest, most direct leadership equation ever uttered: “Follow ME…and I will make you…fishers of men.” We explored my definition of Christ leadership: “Standing in the gap between God and people, and taking them back into the presence of God.” Jesus did in fact do that, and we have today the privilege and responsibility of carrying out this mission on behalf of Christ, being Jesus with skin on, through the indwelling presence and power of God the Holy Spirit.
How Jesus demonstrated leadership! He was humble, yet a high-road chap. He was out in front, where occurs life’s wildest challenges while walking with God. “Follow me as I follow Christ” was the way a great human leader, the Apostle Paul, put it.
We cautioned the teens that the learning curve may be steep for each of them. They will misunderstand and be misunderstood. We took them to a well-known leadership passage in the New Testament (Mark 10: 32-45) where James and John, sons of Zebedee, while walking to Jerusalem with Jesus “leading the way”, made a most odd request. “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” The other disciples were ticked off and rightfully so. Followership does not demand special privilege, nor does leadership dictate it. The occasion permitted Jesus to teach, not only by practice, but by principle. (Read this passage for sure, for yourself.)
What joy to have been able to share the three essential elements of Christ leadership: setting the pace, serving others, and self sacrifice. Jesus was always out in front, leading the way, facing the storms, knowing that He had been prepared by the Father and was sustained by the Father. He determined to do nothing but the will of the Father. Trekker, the life of Jesus as follower of the Father in heaven is picture perfect! He was the Presence of the Father on earth; He did only what the Father desired Him to do. He was the first servant leader! (Robert Greenleaf, another fellow Hoosier, is touted as the founder of the ‘servant leadership’ school! Don’t you believe it… it all began 2,000 years ago!)
Others are served when we love as Christ loved and give as He gave. Leadership is serving others so as to set them up for success: being the example, encouraging, providing necessary resources to do the job, delegating and allowing freedom to learn (and fail), teaching, training, observing, listening, reviewing progress with them. Servanthood is an endless, repetitive cycle. We are limited only by our imagination of how to carry it out, as we consider others more important than ourselves. Jesus closed the dialogue found in Mark with these words… “to give his life” a ransom. The ultimate clincher of self-sacrifice is self removal! How strange that so many leaders cling to power, prestige, and position. Many cannot “get out of the way”. Dying on a cross not only ultimately “saved us”! It provided the greatest leadership opportunity a man, woman or child could ever know… the privilege and responsibility of leading others back to God! What could be more worthy, more exhilarating, more fulfilling in life? Nothing trekker, nothing at all. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation, taking others back to God!
Trekker, spiritual leaders are made as well as born… again! God will do His part, “He will make us” to be “fishers of men.” Let’s not try to be what we can’t be! Let’s be what we can be and are made to be! Pace-setter servants, dying to self and to the world of wandering people, waiting to be led back to God. And let us be that rope of human leaders following behind the Lifegiver, Jesus the Christ.
Trekking with you and Him,
Jim Meredith