Think less about leadership
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 12:41AM Came across this quote from a commentary on Ephesians by Klyne Snodgrass:
The servant leadership Jesus requires is only the application of the gospel to the task of leadership. If leaders cannot apply the gospel to themselves, they are not leaders.
Also found this article today, sent to me by Mike Murdoch:
Not a week goes by before another leadership book or three crosses my desk. In a pile of recent church books sitting in front of me sits The Soul of a Leader, The Leadership Dynamic, and Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership...
In our culture, leadership has become a "cult" — in the sense of an obsessive or faddish devotion. And Christians have been initiated into it. Besides the books that sit before me, there are many others authored by big-name pastors — or former pastors, since some pastors have managed to parlay their leadership insights into whole careers. Christian colleges are all about "developing future leaders." And there's the famous Leadership Network. And Leadership journal. And on it goes...
Leadership is but only one of the gifts. And it's not by any means the most important. Any man or woman who imagines otherwise is, to not put too fine of a point on it, a fool. When it comes to spiritual gifts, St. Paul never suggests that is it something one should strive for — he thinks prophecy is much more important (1 Cor. 14:1). And when Jesus talks about the topic, he tells his followers to reorient their priorities completely: think less about leadership and more about servanthood.
Good stuff.
Reader Comments (2)
This is my biggest frustration with all these leadership books. They give way more focus to Jesus as a leader and way less to Jesus as a servant, which is much more important for the average Christian to learn. Our culture teaches us to have no problem thinking we should be in charge, it is figuring out how to listen to and serve others that we're missing. Every time I read about yet another leadership book I can't help but roll my eyes. I think we've got that part down.
Hooray!