LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE

The kingdom of God is rich, powerful, and aggressive.  We are born anew. We are new everyday. 

Now a trap that I can easily fall into is that when a new idea comes along and I favor it, I can justify my possibly unwarranted whim on the basis of I like the new and shiny.  Yet, how do we as leaders sort through the maze that stands before us. 

Shall we put out fires or catch fire?

From a leadership perspective, therefore, let's ponder this concept a bit.

At both my age and tenure, I could be suspect as to whether I can adapt well to innovation.  This is important because we live in what I am going to label as Innovation Generation.  (Ah, someone started Postmodern and another GenX, etc.  How about GenI?)

Leadership perspective will always be challenged to stay true to the Word of God which means we must be flexible in Spirit (Jn. 3:8) in order to follow Jesus well.  He was not only true to the Word, he was the Word....and he drove the religious leaders and their perspective to the pinnacle of eventual murder.

Few farmers today spend their time discussing, planning, and pulling stumps in order to farm the land.  Yet, in my day on the farm as a kid there was still a lot of stump pulling going on back in the Missouri hills.  Few farmers today have such concern.  Theirs are new with concern over land banks, computerized machinery, and soil nutrient additives that my grandpa gave little thought.

I wonder how much unnecessary or irrelevant time I spend in the church discussing the pulling of legalistic stumps when the land has been cleared.  Does my preaching reflect the work of Jesus in this age or that of 28 years ago when it was a different church culture?

It would seem that leadership perspective will be currently effective when the simple standard of following the Word is....well....followed.  I know this sounds simple.  It should be.  Yet, as we mature in the Spirit, that stable Word will inherently lead us into new and challenging zones.  It surely must for none of us have arrived; few of us including myself have even left the station.

Time will always find conservative and liberal warfare.  This is good for us if it drives us to gain momentum in looking to the cross; fixing our eyes on Jesus.  If, however, such challenges only thrust us into more bias and mood and touchiness then the same old lifestyle of church frustration will continue. 

When all is said and done regarding many of our doctrinal and methodical stumps in the church past, all congregations with all of our shepherds and all of our preachers still have extreme need to grow up.  Churches remain loaded with the selfish who will not serve another, the older who will not subject themselves to being trained to reach out, and the younger who lack the patience and understanding to endure things we don't like.

Leadership perspective has never been about anything as much as it is to know Jesus the Lamb.  The good news is we have work to do.  The good news is we are invited to do it.  The good news is that regardless of how frustrating we are to each other or even to self, there is ample (even eternal) reason to hope.

Leadership perspective: it will require a lot of personal attention.  So may we give personal attention to the uncomfortable things about Jesus that truly matter rather than the lazy things that charge our usual business meetings.