Josh Hunt
| Leadership is over-ratedLeadership is over-rated. Followership is under-rated. For every Nehemiah that God calls, He calls thousands of workers on the wall. For every Moses, millions of followers. Most of us are followers. Few of us are leaders. We need to follow well. The key verse on this is likely one you have never heard preached on: Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. Hebrews 13:17 [NIV] We don't hear this preached on because it is a bit awkward for the pastor to preach on it. If he did, it would go something like this: "Listen to me! Follow me! Obey me! Make my life a joy! God said so!" Truth is, God did say so. When was the last time you asked someone why they were doing this or that and they said, "Out of obedience to my pastor." Read Hebrews 13.17 again. I work with a lot of hard-working, sincere pastors who are trying to lead their people to do what God would have them to do. Some groups are more difficult to lead than others. Try to be in the group that is easy to lead. An example at my churchMy pastor has recently launched a church-wide emphasis on prayer. He and the staff went to a Brooklyn Tabernacle prayer conference a few months ago and have been prayerfully considering how to make prayer a more vital part of our church life. The plan they came up with calls for canceling the Wednesday night service, which has long ago ceased to be a vital church-wide time of prayer and had turned into a hodge-podge of good activities for every age group. In its place, they are putting a Tuesday night all-church prayer service. Part of the desire to change nights is just to draw attention to the fact that this service will be different than what we are used to on Wednesday nights. All activities that were on Wednesday night will either be moved to Sunday night or cancelled. If you want more details, see http://www.zianet.com/fbclc/Herald/Sep07.pdf Now, for a guy like me, I might be tempted to think, "Why are we talking about this? We can all pray at home. Let's talk about doubling groups. Let's talk about giving Friday nights to Jesus. Let's talk about evangelism. " I might be tempted to think that, but I think, the more biblical attitude is to repent of that kind of thinking and follow my pastor. After all, he is asking us to pray. Probably a good idea, ya think? No yes-menThis does not mean being a yes-man. This does not mean agreeing with everything your pastor says. It does not mean that we don't ask questions. But, it does mean we have a bias to follow. We have an assumption that we will likely be willing to follow. We might fine tune and adjust the plan, and learn as we go. But, the default mode is to go. Attitude is everything. Tone is everything. If you couch your comments in a "I believe in you and appreciate you, pastor" kind of tone, he will likely welcome your comments. Also, the ratio is important here. If all he ever hears from you is how you think he can do better, he is not likely to respond positively. If you are constantly saying, "Atta-boy" to your pastor, he is far more likely to hear your push back. I remember when I was on church staff there was one particular couple who, on one level, probably helped me to be a better minister. They had lots of ideas about how I could do a better job. I didn't implement every one of their ideas, but I implemented several of them and I am sure the ministry was better because of it. But, it seemed that ALL they had to say to me was what I was doing wrong and how I could do this or that better. It got old. Fast. Don't be that way to your pastor and staff. What keeps churches from growing?I have never heard anyone say this, but there is a reason why many churches are not growing. Lots of us know about it. Few are talking about it. Why are many churches not growing? It is not because we are not purpose-driven enough, or missional enough or simple enough. Why are many churches not growing? Mean people. Mean people. Just plain mean. I talked to a pastor recently whose wife was physically roughed up by people in the church. They didn't like the direction he was leading the church, and he is a pretty big man--6'3" and 200+ pounds. They didn't like the way he was leading, so they decided to beat up on his wife. True story. Mean people. Hateful people. People who are just plain mean. And, there is a reason they are with us, and a reason why they have such power. Nice people will get out of the way. Nice people will often get out of the way and let mean people rule. Mean people like to rule. For nice people, leadership is just work. For mean people, leadership is power and it is a craving of their soul. For churches to create the kind of loving atmosphere that glorifies God, attracts people and nurtures our soul, we must learn to deal with mean people. Mean people don't follow Hebrews 13.17 very well. Can you take this too far?Of course. Taken too far, you end up in Jonestown. Jesus spoke of the narrow way. It is narrow because it is so easy to fall off one side or the other. But, for every church I see who followed the pastor too willingly, or too blindly, I could show you a hundred where they wouldn't follow the pastor if he were the Apostle Paul, Moses and Nehemiah all rolled into one. Of course, if your pastor asks you to do something immoral, unethical, unbiblical, wrong, or just merely stupid, you won't want to follow. The apostles set the example here: we will follow God, not men. ApplicationFollowing God normally means following people. For most, it doesn't mean leadership; it means following and following well. Need someone to follow?
God has called many of us to be leaders and we need to learn to lead well. But, God has also called us to be followers and we need to learn to follow well.
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