TOGETHER: Pray for courageous servant leadership

Posted: 3/17/06

TOGETHER:
Pray for courageous servant leadership

Leadership is the crucial ingredient for success in any enterprise. Leadership is the difference between a “mob” and a life-giving movement.

Leadership is not about gathering all the power to the leader. It is not about manipulating the church or organization to give the pastor, or the CEO, or a committee, or the deacons, or a board power for which they are not accountable.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

Any church leader will find the Apostle Paul’s example remarkably helpful. As he was raising money to relieve the famine victims in Jerusalem, he was careful to give a report of the offering’s progress. He sent a respected leader to give an account of the use of the money they were gathering and distributing on behalf of the churches. “We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men” (2 Corinthians 8:20-21).

As the Enron trial demonstrates, when business leaders take advantage of their positions to misuse dollars and betray public trust, people can really be hurt. Failure to tell the truth—to respect the trust of employees and stockholders—results in brokenness and shattered lives.

And what is true for business leadership is essential for leadership in the local church and in our denominational life. I would encourage all pastors and ministers not to seek unaccountable power in the affairs of the church. That leads to mistrust, to arrogance, to mistakes that can destroy the usefulness and future of your church.

One of Jesus’ great insights was that the best leadership arises out of the heart of a servant. Servants serve a greater cause than themselves. They want what is best for others, for the common good. Their reward is in the blessings that fall on the lives of others (Matthew 20:20-28).

A goal in establishing the BGCT Congregational Leadership Team is to inspire courageous servant leadership. Our churches will make a transforming difference in members’ lives and in every community when we marry God’s truth and saving gospel to the faithful and courageous lives of servant leaders.

David Hackett Fischer’s Washington’s Cross-ing describes George Washington’s military leadership in the Revolutionary War. He took a nonprofessional army, men who “lived free” and were not accustomed to taking orders, and molded them into a fighting force. Washington, a Virginia aristocrat, had to learn a new way to lead. He rallied his soldiers when they were nearly frozen, with no shoes or blankets, and led them to victory. He did so by a “maturing style of quiet, consultative leadership. His method was beginning to work in this army of free spirits. It was uniting cantankerous Yankees, stubborn Pennsyl-vanians, autonomous Jerseymen, honor-bound Virginians, and independent backcountrymen in a common cause.” He learned to “treat a brigade of New England Yankee farmboys and fishermen as men of honor, who were entitled to equality of esteem.” He understood the need for discipline, but he also lifted a new idea of rank—“gentleman” was not a title bestowed by birth or wealth; it was a moral condition based on courage, performance and integrity. Honor was not defined by “rank or status or gender, but by a principle of human dignity and decency.”

Let all leaders pray for their people. And let us all pray for our leaders.

We are loved.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.