As a leader, do you have relationships that you would consider brutally honest? The kind of relationship where your friend can tell you the truth and where you can do the same? If you are like many contemporary leaders, especially in Christian ministry, the answer is probably no. The fact that many leaders don’t have these kinds of relationships is not only hurting them professionally and personally, but also hurting their families and the people they are called to lead.
There was a season in my ministry life when I was blessed to regularly spend time with a good friend and brother in Christ. He and I would try to get together once a month to check up on each other, discuss life, and talk about ministry. The prime aim was to hold one another accountable for the way we are living as leaders in Christian ministry. We had determined years ago that we didn’t desire to become casualties of church leadership; persons whose entire life is driven by and given to ministry, to the detriment of balance and integrity. Those breakfast or lunch get togethers were always a blessing, even when the probing, prodding, and pronouncements get a little uncomfortable. My friend has since moved a great distance away, and the occasion to meet regularly is gone, but the lessons of those times together still informs my ministry and ministry relationships today. As I think of how we discussed our best attempts to live balanced lives as ministry leaders, I am confronted by the thought that this type of interaction among leaders is not as common as it should be.
Of course I am not speaking of the typical lunches together, or even the dialogue about ministry activities. Far too common in leadership relationships is the idle, self-absorbed chatter about what “we” are doing to become the next great thing. No, what is uncommon is the transparent sharing of thoughts, aches, hopes, and pains, that move leaders from the “all-knowing” position that we typically try to hold, to the “I am a child of God that needs my father’s touch as much as those I lead” position that makes a real and vulnerable.
Most ministry leaders that I have come into contact with, in over twenty-two years of ministry, do all that they can to seem unbreakable. Many, and I can from experience attest to this, are trained that we should model the same strength that Christ modeled before us. I couldn’t agree more with this statement, but why is it that what we model is so different from what we read of Christ in Scripture? Christ was not this detached, emotionless, positional leader, who asserted his knowledge, power, and authority over others. He wasn’t one who was afraid to sweat, bleed, show compassion, or even die for the fulfillment of his mission. Now before you go off the deep end, don’t worry that I am watering down the majesty, power, and position of our Lord. Heaven forbid! I am simply recognizing that his leadership and definition of authority and power were far different from what we see today. Paul states, in Philippians 2:5-11,
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (English Standard Version)
I believe that the beginning of balance, wholeness, and health (considered together these are integrity) in a leader’s life begins with a clear understanding of what we read in the above passage of Scripture. The popular teaching in many corners of Christendom, and particularly on so-called Christian television, breeds an arrogance and entitlement not found in Scripture. Am I saying that Christians are not inheritors of God’s biblical promises? Absolutely not! But Christ, the one who was in the form of God, made himself nothing. The path to Christ’s exaltation was through his humiliation (humbling of himself). The highly exalted name of Jesus Christ was not self-bestowed, as far too many leaders and those who follow them have done, but God the Father bestowed on him a name that is above every name. This highly exalted name, even after its bestowal upon Christ, was not to the glory of Christ, but to the glory of God the Father.
If we are going to fulfill our mandate as leaders, we must first wear the mantle of servants. Our first and foremost desire should be to serve (love, do for, give up for, give over to, obey) the will of God the Father. Gone must be desire to make names for ourselves, while making the name of God the Father and Jesus Christ his son known throughout the world must begin.
How do we do this? Where does this transformation of leadership, ministry, and the church begin? With conversations. Open, honest, transparent, vulnerable, give-and-take conversations among men and women. The very things we are trying to cover, hide, and make seem larger than life, are the things that God wants to take and replace, so that we can be used to his glory. What do you think about it? What do you do to achieve balance as a leader? How do you keep God, and not yourself, first in everything?