However hard to say it, I admit, “I don’t know how to lead.” After 27 years of pastoral, conference, departmental, and now administrative experience, I still don’t know how to lead. At first, I fought against this stark realization, then I surrendered to it; now I accept it willingly, and finally, I am learning to rejoice in it.
Of course, I know and understand the principles of leadership. I have studied books and taken numerous courses on the subject. I can espouse principles of management by objectives, team development, and strategy implementation. I can discern potential crises. I can even manage making the tough decisions when I need to do so.
But does that describe leadership in God’s cause?
My heart and my motives are right, for I want to serve faithfully, and with God’s help, lead the cause of God to the next level. But the real issue? How can I be the kind of spiritual leader the Lord wants me to be?
In secular society, good leaders try and fail, then learn from their mistakes and try again. Great leaders persist until they accomplish great things, but still they are learning and failing—for the benchmark for their performance seems always above what they accomplish. I have come to the conclusion that spiritual Christian leadership is markedly different. We serve an omnipotent God who welcomes weakness and failure and, in fact, cannot really use us to our full potential until we acknowledge those weaknesses and failures ourselves.
Five stages
Below are five stages of growth that I believe are essential for anyone who wants to be an effective spiritual leader.
The first stage is the leadership launch stage. Here, a person of God, a warrior in the great cause, tries to do their utmost—and then fails. They will remain strong, the focus clear. They have the vision and a reasonably clear understanding of how to get there. When leaders experience success, that very success goes to their heads—a danger worse than failure itself. In most situations, there will be small steps of success and giant steps of failure as well.
The second stage is that of potential discouragement, of self examination. We know our own heart as no one else does, and we see the mixed intent of the human soul. At best, the purity of every act becomes laced with the poison of self-aggrandizement.
In humanity, the line of demarcation between good intent and selfpraise is not a line that divides; rather, it is a line that splits every soul. The question comes to the heart of every leader. If God knows my limitations and my weaknesses, why would He call me to leadership, then set me up to fail? In spiritual leadership, this stage of introspection really acknowledges our own human frailty.
The third stage is the dawn of understanding. Here a great lesson can be learned, for leaders finally let go of self and allow God to teach them the true meaning of submission. This develops into the most challenging and yet, possibly, the most valuable lesson. The science of surrender, stated clearly in John 12:24, reads, “ ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain’ ” (NKJV). We so often apply this to the conversion experience, but the lesson really includes the secret of the power of a leader. In Psalm 73:17, David says, “I entered the sanctuary of God; / then I understood.” Can’t you picture the king, kneeling before the throne of God, acknowledging his own wicked heart, then rising to his feet in new strength and determination, to lead a nation by submission to His God and King?
The fourth is the stage of anticipation. Now you see the all-powerful hand of Divine Omnipotence at work. Your eyes of discernment are constantly open, looking for the hand of the Creator of the universe at labor. “Above the distractions of the earth He sits enthroned; all things are open to His divine survey; and from His great and calm eternity He orders that which His providence sees best.”* New questions are now the leader’s constant companions. “What are You doing here, Lord?” The answer of total submission stays ever present in the thoughts. “How can I be involved in this, Lord?” “What would You have me do or say to bring honor to Your cause here?”
The fifth is the stage of joy. “Oh, God! I saw You at work there! Lord, this is amazing! You and I together!” The heart carries in its bosom an ongoing tune of heaven, perhaps like the songs the angels sing as they minister. Every new experience contains a new verse, unique and powerful. The Sovereign God of heaven and earth is at work, conducting a symphony of praise as He re-creates beings into His image, with praise wrung from the heart, “Oh Father, we left a blessing there didn’t we? Oh God, I saw that! You are truly amazing!”
Conclusion
In the end, great spiritual leaders don’t just happen. They are not created instantly. Over the years, I learned that leadership, good leadership, spiritual leadership, comes through a process, one that can seem slow, which at times feels painful and humiliating, but one that, in the end, leads to the sense of satisfaction of knowing that we are being used by our Lord.
I still don’t know how to lead. But by knowing that I don’t know, I am learning the lessons that are, through God’s grace, teaching me how to lead.
* Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing (Nampa, ID: Pacific
Press Pub. Assn., 1937), 417.