The next three sections are linked obviously and if it weren’t for how important they are, I would be minded to combine them into one large topic. That these three ideas are interdependent will become clear soon if it is not already obvious. The three ideas are servant leaders, equipping the saints and that each must do their part for the Body to come to maturity. So leaders must serve the people for them to become equipped to each minister in the way God wants to use them. EACH member of the Body has a part to play, if they choose to help, if someone trains them and if the leaders allow them to serve. But let’s tackle these ideas one by one.
Many of our main doctrines or ideas we like to quote often come from only one verse in the Bible. Sometimes there are two. Some verses God says the same message TWICE in the same conversation, it must have been an important point he wanted to stress to do that.
But don’t you find it odd then that Jesus telling the disciples if they want to be Great they must be Servants, is an instruction he says not once to them, not twice, he even says it twice in the same chapter of Mark 10! I think he makes this straight direction in the Gospels no less than 9 times!! Then count the times in the Epistles, Torah and the Prophets.
And yet people STILL don’t do it!!
They think ‘leadership’ is not part of the ‘gospel.’ They care about Doctrines, but not Behavior? They care what The People do, but not the Leaders who model the character the people are meant to copy? Really? And do they still think God will move and heal and save in their midst? He may, but not because of them, he will move in spite of them usually, for the sake of the wounded hurting sheep!! Isn’t that what he made them shepherds for? It is to cover and protect and heal these wounded sheep! Their leadership style has a DIRECT IMPACT in their ability to do this. So YES leadership is also a part of the gospel, the part where leaders PROVE it is true!
Why do people think the Bible is our instruction manual, yet when it comes to leadership we still feel like we don’t have to follow his plain instructions?
It’s obviously because power over others is a DRUG and most people in leadership positions are ADDICTS. Do you think a drug addict would make a fit leader for the people of God? Can such leaders and council of elders who empower them be entrusted to police themselves? This is Pergamum!
This message on servant leadership is so important, and so difficult for us to follow, that Jesus is recorded saying it almost ten times just to the disciples in the gospel: If you want to be Great, you MUST BE a servant. If you want to LEAD you must be everyone’s SLAVE. In this brief summary I am trying to be, yes, brief! But let me give you three verses already:
11“‘The greatest among you will be your servant. 12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 13“‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
42“Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.’”
2b“…Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? …. 4“You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. 5So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals.”
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10“This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.”
Jesus explained his heart to me regarding leadership in several ways, some object lessons, some prophecies. One was the very long research paper on the prophetic meaning of condition of the Church in Pergamum. It’s worse than you ever imagined and yet it’s a common ailment in our modern churches, even in, well, especially in the Laodicean Age we are living in. When “people do whatever they want,” you end up with Pergamum leadership, and with persecution against anti-pas who opposes untouchable religious leadership, and hirelings are employed like Balaam and the Nicolaitians who literally “devour” the sheep and “rule them like tyrants.” That is a lengthy, well researched scholarly article on this leadership error that is worth reading for anyone who wants to be a pastor or elder. The link is here.
But the main and most clear insight I have on leadership came from this conversation and vision from Jesus where he said he would explain the style of leadership in the World to me, and Jesus said it’s when the leaders stand on top of the organizational pyramid looking down on the people telling them things like, “No, you can’t come up here! No, you can’t have a raise. You don’t deserve it. I’m the boss, not YOU!! The answer to you is NO!” I understood this could be called the “spirit of No!”
Then I saw him take that pyramid and turn it upside down and lift it over his head and he continued saying he was now going to show me “how leadership is” in his Kingdom and he said it can be called, “The spirit of Yes!” And he was UNDER the pyramid, holding the whole organization up himself and telling the people things like, “Yes! Yes, you can do it! You can achieve your calling. You can achieve that goal. In fact, I’ll help you—and together YOU WILL SUCCEED. The answer to you is Yes!”
Jesus said this is leadership in the Kingdom. Worldly leadership does not exist WITHIN the Kingdom. Acting in worldly leadership therefore must prevent such leaders from operating with the Kingdom in some vital areas at least. This kind of behavior repulses the Kingdom, offends the Holy Spirit and harms the Sheep that Jesus DIED for to cover, heal and comfort. God is AGAINST such shepherds.
Godly authority exists to transform people into the image of Christ, to build people up. It is to lead the church like a parent with a large family trying to raise ALL their kids to achieve success, not like a king trying to preserve their family dynasty in the midst of all those pesky commoners! Or it’s even like a high school or maybe state university soccer or football coach who has no real personal ambition to be famous, but just wants to give the kids he trains self respect, to help them learn how to achieve their goals, and sure maybe to try and win a state trophy for themselves, why not! Jesus did not say we cannot and should not seek to be great! He said, Ok, do that! And THIS is how to do it! Be a SLAVE to the PEOPLE you are over! Serve them! Make THEM shine like stars in the darkness. So go for the gold, but because the coach can’t play as a striker in high school soccer, or as Z receiver in college football, he can only be great if he somehow instills greatness in the children he is a leader over. He has to make his team achieve the dream of greatness he has in his heart, and Jesus would NEVER do this with an Alpha Dog mentality—not ever with a Pecking Order mind set!
Yes there are selfish and greedy coaches too who push kids to win for their greedy pride. There is corruption in the world in every nook and cranny. But the analogy holds true in large part.
Jesus did this to and for his disciples, so surely you can do this to your church members too! So this is the key to servant leadership and a much better model of a church leader, certainly not as a CEO, not as an entrepreneur using the people like a sales force, never as a worldly investment banker or some kind of cash cow project manager. You are building an army, [that’s right, it’s Ezekiel 37!] So as a leader of a church you should not really trying to take on the whole world all by yourself! Equip the saints to do the work of the ministry, and the Body will come to maturity as each does its part. As a pastor your role is to lead them like a servant, and THEN you will be great, and so will the people under you!
I may say this a lot … but you should really think it over.
External Links
All 12 topic briefs and full main teachings on these topics can be found HERE at the Foundations of the Kingdom website.
Link to main teaching on Key 5: True Leaders are Servants COMING SOON