GlocalNet

What we need more of today than ever before in the church and society is leadership.  I’m convinced that what we pass off as leadership in reality is management.  There is nothing wrong with management.  For any ministry that is going to grow, there has to be good, clear, focused management.  However, management is only secondary to calling and vision.

Leadership that is driven by calling is never a call to a position but to a mission.  Yesterday, we commissioned a young lady in our church who is going to teach English in Asia.  I told her she would make it--not because she felt “called” to ministry, but because she felt called to something specific.  She has a mission from God.

I don’t see Moses politicking for being the leader of Israelites. If anything, he was running and hiding from it.  When he stood before Pharaoh, I don’t see him giving him his purpose statement or asking Miriam to let Pharaoh or the children of Israel know their 10-point strategy of plagues!  It was simple. Go deliver my people. And, he did it.  Not with the blessings of the Hebrews, but in spite of them.  The same would be true of Abraham, Noah, David, Paul, etc.  They didn’t inherit organizations; if anything, organizations were created around their ministry or specific call. 

Something else I’ve noticed is leaders want to go as far as they can and will use their last breadth to stretch out just as far as they can get.  For Peter, the guy who was crude, rude, and coarse, why in God’s name would Jesus make him the leader of the early church?  Couldn’t he have done better than that? Furthermore, why didn’t he get some highly educated and respected rabbi from Jerusalem--not Hicksville, Gallilee!  But, this country bumpkin who fished nayked (spelling proper!) at night winds up leading the church.  He doesn’t just lead it, he moves its headquarters to Jerusalem in the heart of all that is cultured and wise.  For him to declare that Jesus is the Messiah is HUGE.  He does it, even gets a revelation from God that the Gospel is for Gentiles.  He had to work through his own culture and background...but enter Paul. 

Does Paul, a few years behind Peter, dream of taking over for Peter?  “Wow, I feel called to enter the ministry--maybe I could one day get Peter’s job.” Not at all. Instead, he takes it as far as he can; he takes it full bore to the Gentiles.  The revelation that Jesus is the Messiah is huge for Paul, but what the mission is, how do we get him as the Savior of the world. This was bigger than just the revelation of who Jesus was--it was what he wanted to do.  He even calls himself the Apostle to the Gentiles. There is no question of his leadership, Apostle, or his mission--Gentiles.  Why would he do it?  He had massive headaches with everyone, Read Corinthians, Galatians--most of his letters he’s having to reclarify the truth or correct someone.  It’s a wonder he didn’t give up, go back to Jerusalem, return to Judaism and really persecute Christians when you read his Epistles; it was hard!  BUT, he saw beyond his circumstances.

Call is not determined by focus groups, polls, but by God.  What has God called you to?  I guess that’s why I love church planters and people who start ministries because it’s about call.  However, that’s also why I get sad sometimes because to start is one thing, but to finish, that is where the credibility comes in. Not that I have a dream or mission, but that I have fruit.