Leader's Insight: 5 Crucial Questions on the State of Leadership

From my journal: Few books in my library have offered more quotable material than Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth (Paulist Press, 1989).

Here’s a nugget: “In order to be able to assume the responsibility for other people’s growth, leaders must themselves have grown to true maturity and inner freedom. They must not be locked up in a prison of illusion or selfishness, and they must have allowed others to guide them.

“We can only command if we know how to obey. We can only be a leader if we know how to be a servant. We can only be a mother—or a father—figure if we are conscious of ourselves as a daughter or a son. Jesus is the Lamb before the He is the Shepherd. His authority comes from the Father; He is the beloved Son of the Father” (p. 225).

In the order of thought in Vanier’s two paragraphs, I should like to raise these questions for some of us to ponder:

What is “true maturity” in the biblical sense and is our Christian movement producing those kinds of persons in any reasonable quantity?
What does it mean to “allow others to guide them”? How are “apprentice” leaders guided in growth toward maturity?
Is the notion of Christian obedience still alive in our new view of discipleship? What does it mean to veer away from generally accepted cultural practices because one becomes convinced that they must first reckon with the yeses and the no’s of Jesus?
What does it mean to be a “daughter” or “son” in Vanier’s perspective? And how does that lead to becoming a “mother” or a “father” in the community of faith?
Might it not be profitable to a fresh look to the relationship between Jesus and His Father and see if this is not the primary template of the true Christian life?

Questions like these nag at me because I sense that there are growing suspicions that our Christian movement is simply not producing the kinds of Christ-followers who can stand up to the rigors of this new age in which we are being forced to live. As has been the case for a long time, we are a movement that can get people to cross a discernable line into faith. But once they’ve been on the Jesus side of the line for a while, there arises an insipid boredom and bogging down in terms of spiritual growth and service. If there is any credibility to this wild generalization, then the operational question becomes why?

Words that inspire me:

“I took men to Jesus Christ and left them there.” George Fox

“The one spiritual disease is that of thinking that one is quite well.” G.K. Chesterton

“If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing—to us thou was still
Cheerful, helpful, and firm!”
Matthew Arnold in Rugby Chapel

On vacation: A three-day solo kayaking trip in Northern Maine earlier this month gave me time to observe the loons—beautiful northern birds (about the size of a duck) that possess one of the most blood-curdling calls (screams) one will ever hear. Get eight or loons in a midnight “Bible study” out in the middle of a lake, and your sleep time will be considerably diminished.

Paddle within forty yards of a loon, and it will simply dive and stay underwater for several minutes. It can descend to depths as much as 200 feet, some say. When the loon reappears, it will be a hundred yards behind you or off to the other side of you. It will not let you close. It rarely even permits a picture with the best telephoto lens.

As a pastor I have known some human “loons.” Great at diving into a sea of people and avoiding encounters of any value. Great screamers, too). Read up on loons if you’re seeking a fresh sermon story or two.

Sadness:

People weeping uncontrollably as they watch floods or fires destroy
their homes.

Proud people stripped of their trophy-lives when their secrets are
exposed and they discover that others regard it almost like
a sporting event.

Iraqi people who sided with and assisted U.S. personnel but are now
abandoned, ignored by the U.S. government when it comes
time to admit them to our country.

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