INCREASING LEADERSHIP BY DECREASING CONTROL

So much of the Kingdom life is upside down and backwards.  To live, one must die.  To gain, one must lose.  To keep, one must give.  This surely remains a most baffling thread to the hoarding mind of always being in control.  It remains true that effective leadership will always (and only) be found in release; not in tight grip of inner security.

God is the Master Builder of Leadership.  His Son is the epitome of world-wide Impactor.  His trump card was to die for the enemies so that they should/could/would encounter triumphant experiences.  His leadership increases to this day simply because he dared risk losing it.  Brilliant.  Only by faith will one submit to its mystery.

For each of us in church leadership, we are most challenged to loosen our grip.  Our insecurities, even our selfishness, must not drive any of us to build impenetrable borders of impasse.  Openness to the Spirit will always find good leaders positioned high upon the ledge with the call to jump.  Decreasing control is the only effective way to slip into the Jesus-mode of driving a nation of believers into the wonder of it all. 

The church is remarkable.  It's potential is perpetually promising.  Leadership--true leadership--will leap into the waters of hope and joy without one whit of understanding as to how or when or where or why or who will be added or extracted to get His job done. 

One of the great needs in the church is to break the bonds of tradition.  Such has always been the case.  And why is that?  This format tends to rule because leadership (I was a part of it) becomes protective of what little it knows.  Jesus' call, however, is quite strange to the spirit of man for He lives a resurrected sort of life and He expects us to follow.  One of those traditions that balks the loudest is my/our insistent security in leading the best way that would subtly keep me/us in control.

One of my greatest challenges that pressed me day by day as a lead minister in a wonderful place was the biblical need to let go and let God.  I didn't like trying without proof that such would make a difference.  Hesitation, even debate, would arise from within because I lived in a mode of holy defense rather than of Spirit surrender. 

To decrease control by trusting that God awaits to take all of us into a new horizon of wonder and awe will, in effect, increase our leadership skills.  When a few in America dared cross the mighty Mississippi and head for the West they had no concept of Rocky Mountains, Arizona Desert, nor the eventual downtown Los Angeles.  So it is in the church.  Each day we stand at the Mississippi of spiritual potential with a call from the Spirit to cross it.

Increasing leadership by decreasing control is one mighty step for all of us. 
"Let go."  Discover.  This.  Has.  Always.  Been.  God's.  Theme.