At a conference sponsored by my friends at Leadership Network, Henry Blackaby pointed out the gaping difference between being a leader and being a spiritual leader. Blackaby, well-known for his workbook Experiencing God (written with Claude King), identified signs of an authentic spiritual leader. Maybe you’ll find these as probing as I did. Here are my notes:
— “A spiritual leader is one whom God entrusts with other people he calls.” Are other people being drawn into ministry because of what they see in you?
— A spiritual leader teaches people to fear God. “When you lose the fear of God, you lose the fear of sin. When you lose the fear of sin, you’re of no use to God.”
— A spiritual leader knows God and knows the way of God. A spiritual leader knows when God is speaking. He knows where God is going and follows him. As Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice, and they follow me.” A truth that runs from Genesis to Revelation is that God speaks to his people. They always know the one speaking is God and they know what he’s saying.
— A spiritual leader does not lead the people of God outside of the ways of God. A spiritual leader does not violate the ways of God. He cannot accommodate. God will honor that. And God will deal severely with those who say they’re following the ways of God but are not.
— A spiritual leader, when he needs help, turns to God. Many turn to worldly wisdom, but the worst moment in Israel’s history is when they asked (1 Sam. 8), “Make a king to judge us, like the other nations.” God’s people were called to be different, to not be like the nations, and asking for a king was to reject God, who had led them into battle and provided for them.
— A spiritual leader takes the Word of God with absolute seriousness and obeys the commands of God; then teaches people how to obey them.
The bottom line, says Blackaby: The way God works is totally different than the way the world works, because the goals are totally different. If you want to build an organization, human wisdom will do it, but if you want to reveal the ways of God, you have to use God’s ways.
—Kevin A. Miller is editor-at-large of Leadership Journal. (To subscribe to Leadership, go to www.LeadershipJournal.net.) To reply to Kevin, write Newsletter@LeadershipJournal.net
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