Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Christ never demands that we be leader

"Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ." -Matthew 23:10 (NASB)
Tomorrow thousands of church leaders from around the world will participate in an annual event where they will be challenged to become great leaders. That's fine, I guess. In their time they will hear challenges from people who have built giant organizations and super-sized churches, are called leadership gurus, and who have led nations into war. But will they learn what it means to be what Christ is calling them to be?

In the Gospels, the term leader never refers to any human in completely positive terms. Jesus is the only positively referenced as the leader. The closest it comes to lifting up human leadership is the encouragement for those who wish to be leaders to be servants. Sadly, many Christian leaders consider this to be a pathway to leadership. "If I serve my organization well, them I am a leader," they say.

They are wrong. That's only a path to disingenuous servanthood.

The church today doesn't need more leaders. It needs more disciples. People who honestly follow Christ in all things. The true leaders among them will be those who, as disciples, share Christ's story and their own story in Christ with the next generation whether the next generation is chronologically younger or spiritually younger.

My advice...Don't follow the people whose life goal is to be the great leader. Follow those whose goal is to follow the One Leader.

Lord, make me a follower, and make me happy to be so.