Serving Bread

I could probably write a whole book about not shrinking back from the call and leadership that God has in the life of a leader. In this post, I will focus on one slice of that pie.

The ’80s brought on a motto of “Question Authority!” That mantra seems well ingrained in our culture. There is a general distrust of people in authority, and it seems that leaders who are given authority recognize that people are questioning. It is easy for leaders to want to make friends rather than assert (God-given) authority in the lives of people. Leadership is necessary and will always be necessary. While it is important to build friendship and trust with those we lead, those things are not an end in of themselves.

When we believe the mantra to question authority, our leadership will reflect a level of insecurity. But the people we are leading want us to lead them, and our insecurity will only deflate our leadership. While they may have some cynicism toward authority figures, my observation is that they are typically cynical toward those who lead but have no relationship with the followers (for example, the government). People actually appreciate good leadership.

This past weekend I went camping with a group of my students. Camping was their idea and I gave them freedom to organize all the details on their own. But as we were gathering to leave, I realized that I could not shrink back from leading this weekend. They saw me as a leader and expected me to make the wisdom calls along the way. So what had first started out as “Eddy tagging along” quickly turned to stepping into my leadership role.

We cannot shrink back from leading. When we do that, we are not stepping into the leadership and the vision God calls us. Why do we shrink back from leading? It seems to me that there are three major reasons why we shrink from leading:

• We have believed the lie that leadership and authority are not worthy calls. Yes, there are many examples of bad leadership. However, these examples should only call us to be better at the craft of leadership rather than shrink back because we do not want to be identified as one of them.
• We value not offending others rather than speaking truth. We shrink back from leading because leading requires us to speak truth, and we might offend others. People pleasing is poor leadership. Herod in Mark 6 was a people-pleaser. His desire to please others rather than God had consequences on his leadership (he was willing to give up half his kingdom to a teenage girl) and people he liked (he had to kill John the Baptist).
• We don’t think we have anything to offer others. If God calls us into leadership, he equips us to provide leadership to those who need leadership. This is a great temptation for me. I forget that God equips me to lead others.

I know that I am tempted and often find myself believing those lies and I need to return to Jesus and receive truth from him. My leadership must come from a vision from God. I must know that I am pleasing God not people. In the next school year, I plan on paying extra attention to this element of my leadership and step fully into the things that God is calling me.

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