Reflections on Leadership 3: Who's leading What, Where?

I have shared already that leading the Body of Christ is about where God want to go with the group, so now the question of leadership comes to: Where is God leading them?

One often overlooked perspective is that where God wants the group to go will not, just because you have been elected a leader, necessarily be where God wants you to go; part of the confirmation of one's calling as a leader is to see that those two things, where God is leading you and where God is leading the group, work together in some way. Therefore, where your group goes, the path that you as a leader is called to clear out, will be directly related to where your group is with God; where you are going is to be their next immediate step.

At all times, your people are learning to be better disciples (I hope that is the case anyways), and your job as a leader is not to be the beacon up front a mile away, having no connection to the group but always signaling "come here" (like pushing for street evangelism, when you have a real inkling that a lot of your group have never truly encountered Jesus, let alone share Him). Neither is it your role to be keep yourself in the middle of the pack, trying to be "humble" and be one of "them", but never answering your call to lead.

Taking myself as an example, as of this writing, I have been out of school for over a year. That does not necessarily mean that my time here at Mac is over though. I know that God has placed on my heart a fiery conviction, an overwhelming zeal, to rediscover church; to realize the glory found in the New Testament Christian community in the here and now. And Mac is the one place where I know lots of people, more than any other place I'm connected to, who want to see exactly that too. Plenty of other people here, believers and non-believers alike, are wondering if there's more to the Body of Christ than two hours worth of emotional music and convincing teaching.

I'm blazing new trails all the time, whether its scrapping the newcomers team so that we could empower our whole community to give our new friends a less scripted welcome, or petitioning the elder board and pastoral staff to allow for more of our lay leaders to speak at service, or throwing a bible lesson out the window for a night because someone really wanted to know if you need to be baptized to be saved. So in that way, leading a student church here at Mac, even though I'm no longer a student, still makes sense for me, because I know my heart is lined up with the yearning here for more than the same old church service, and I know where God is prompting me to go first in that trail is where my guys and girls need to go next.

As a leader your simple task is to be at the front of the pack, to try things first, to fail first (more importantly to admit that you made a mistake first), to inch on forward shouting "FOR THE KINGDOM!!!!!!" first, staying connected to your people all the while, going towards a communal beacon, powered by Jesus Christ. That beacon has a name, it is called vision.