Serving Bread

I recently led a meeting of a small team of stakeholders in our ministry. These students form what we call a “core team,” which is a team of young and emerging leaders. As a young and eager team of students, they are learning how to take risk in their faith and in serving others.

We studied John 1, and looked at the relationship between Jesus, Andrew and Peter. Peter is one of the heroes of the Church. Although he had several lapses of judgment in his discipleship, he is known to have been the founder and leader of the Church upon Jesus’s ascension.

But for Peter to have become Peter, he needed his brother Andrew. Andrew was the one who had to take a courageous step of faith to know and trust Jesus. Jesus spends about half a day with Andrew and Andrew is convinced that Jesus is the Messiah. Andrew’s conviction leads him to be the matchmaker between Peter and Jesus.

Although leadership does not have to rely on solid relationships, trust in relationships increase our influence in leadership. The leaders in my life who have built trust and built a relationship with me are the ones who earn a greater level of respect and are allowed a greater privilege in shaping me as a follower.

When we build trust, we build better relationships. When we have stronger relationships, our leadership gains even more influence in the life of people. One of the women at that core team meeting mentioned that by visiting her regularly and building a relationship with her, I paved the way for her to be a part of our community for the last several years.

Positional authority without relationship building will inevitably weaken the leader’s authority. Jesus could have called Andrew and Peter to follow him on the sole basis that he was God. But the Scriptures tell us that Jesus spent an afternoon with Andrew. We don’t know what happened during those hours, but I imagine that they built a stronger relationship.

That evening, we went to the dorms to meet new students. Rather than see ourselves as simply people passing out flyers, we saw ourselves as people who are building relationships and connecting people to Jesus

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