Spiritual Leadership Today

Mel Lawrenz

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780310534242
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

"If you are in a position of positive influence, if you exercise leadership in any way, your faith in God gives you a power—a hidden power—that will allow you to make an enduring difference in the lives of other people and organizations. But how does that power work?"

So says Mel Lawrenz in this fresh look at leadership which offers practical and biblical guidance to believers who want to have a deep influence and who want to know: What is the proper use of authority and power? Where do good ideas come from? How can we deal with failure? What does God expect of us?

Drawing from more than thirty years of experience in pastoral ministry, Lawrenz writes for Christians in any position of influence. This book provides a new baseline for 21st century Christian leadership, addressing issues such as:

• building integrity

• seizing opportunities

• exploring new horizons

• speaking into crises

• receiving power

• accepting authority

• promoting truth

• managing expectations

• dealing with criticism

Using real-life examples, key Scripture passages, and history, Lawrenz shows that when believers align their responsibility to lead with the teaching of Jesus and the work of God's Spirit, their spiritual influence will have integrity and enduring effectiveness.

"Lawrenz gives us hope that the leadership pendulum which has swung from 'over- spiritualized' to 'de-spiritualized' in recent generations may have finally come to rest where it always belonged—upon Jesus Christ." - Skye Jethani, Senior Editor, Leadership Journal, from the foreword

"It is exciting to think about believers at every level of society rising to a new call to exercise powerful spiritual influence. In his newest book Mel Lawrenz has given us all a new baseline for leadership that is personal, wise, and spiritual. It spans the generations and reaches across cultures. Just think what will happen if believers in positions of influence tie into the wisdom and the power that comes from God in order to bring restoration in our broken world!" - Mark Batterson, Lead Pastor, National Community Church in Washington, D.C.

Part 1


GETTING GROUNDED

Chapter 1

WHY IS SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP IMPORTANT?

There is a view of leadership today that is disappointingly simplistic: merely getting people to do things. Many are successful in their efforts. They can get people to give money, attend large meetings, vote a certain way, develop a group identity, even to sacrifice. These are good things, but are not the apex of what Christian leaders are called to do.

A higher view of leadership includes higher purposes. This leadership aims at great aspirations, brilliant ideas, and high ideals. It aims at the betterment of people—their character and dignity, not just their pocketbooks and status. It is committed to transformation. This is spiritual leadership—spiritual because it is empowered by the Spirit of God and its ends are spiritual vitality and growth. And the amazing thing is that God uses us even in our brokenness and sinfulness to lead people toward this transformation.

Is there any doubt we need wider and deeper spiritual leadership in our world today?

If You Influence Others, You Are a Leader

You may be perusing the opening chapters of this book wondering whether you have a hand in spiritual leadership today, or even whether you are a leader at all. Let’s establish this from the outset: if you exercise influence in any way in the lives of other people, whether they are members of your family, participants in your church or organization, workers under your management, students under your teaching, or anyone whom you can influence toward higher purposes—yes, you are a leader.

That is one of the great new developments in spiritual leadership today. People in an ever-wider body are realizing that influence is at the heart of leadership and that spiritual leadership is possible for anyone in any station in life who is able to influence others in the direction of God’s character and will.

You do not need a business card and a title to be a leader. You do not need an office. You do not need to be ordained. Far too often Christians have made the mistake of thinking that only pastors or other ordained people are able to exercise spiritual leadership. This is understandable at one level because chaos ensues if everyone thinks he or she should have the authority to direct whole groups of people. But on the other hand, it has been a tragic mistake for the majority of the people to be passive and let a few people take responsibility for all influence and leadership. Our great obligation, according to the teaching of Jesus in the parable of the talents, is to employ all of God’s gifts in all of God’s people in the service of God’s great work to promote restoration to broken people.

In this book we avoid the term spiritual leader and instead stick with spiritual leadership. As soon as we talk about the spiritual leaders in our world today, we tend to focus on gurus and clerics, everyone from Billy Graham to the Dali Lama to the beloved missionary your church supports, instead of focusing on the multitudes of ordinary men and women who should be exercising spiritual leadership exactly where they are. This is what is needed today. In its strongest forms, leadership is action and movement and response, not fixed roles and statuses. Leadership is when people are moved toward a good end, not when one person grabs a place of privilege.

There are many people called leaders today, but there is a desperate need for leadership that has spiritual substance. The only enduring influence is God, so we must guide people to the place where God does his transforming work. This form of leadership understands God as the influence and we as his instruments. We stand in a kind of nexus where God’s power meets human need. The greatest Christian leaders have all lived out of this conviction: that they were not the real influencers, but that they were being used by God, who brings enduring, transforming influence upon people’s lives. God is the leader, we are subleaders, and the dividing line between us is not just one step of rank. On one side of the line is Creator; on the other, created. Our best days are when we realize that we get to have a small part in the healing of the world that the Creator has determined he will do. Amazing.

God is the true influence, and we must keep that in the forefront of our thinking at all times because as much as we talk about God, we keep defaulting to ourselves. We love real-world pragmatism—the grease under our fingernails, the blisters on our hands, the sweat on our foreheads. God’s Word points us in the direction of spiritual influence and leadership, but we can’t wait to build the next machine. If we’re wise, we’ll realize the necessity for and the limits of pragmatism, because we know what it’s like to drive the machine, we’ve been in the ditch, we’ve fixed the engine many times over—but we are refreshed when someone reminds us of the real destination over the horizon, and that the purpose of driving is greater than drivenness.

Spiritual Leadership Is About People

Many forms of leadership focus on specific outcomes: increasing the bottom line of your company, getting more members, promoting a specific cause. But in spiritual leadership, people themselves are the matter at hand. People are not a means to an end; they are the end. That’s what makes spiritual leadership both challenging and deeply rewarding.

People are complicated, and so the call to influence people for the good is complicated. We have to decide when to tell people what to do and when to teach them principles so they can figure out what to do. We have to figure out the goal or destiny of what we are aiming at. In an organization, the goal may be short-term and measurable. In spiritual leadership, the goal is helping people to be restored to that dignity called the image of God—far more difficult to measure, but also far more important than anything else. Spiritual leadership is thus an extension of discipleship. Influencing people toward the restoration of the image of God leads to groups that have more spiritual character and organizations that have something like souls, not just objectives.

Spiritual Leadership Is About Life

Spiritual influence is challenging because it is about life itself. All of life. People need help with their relationships, families, sins, addictions, jobs, money, health, dreams, disappointments, and so it goes. They need to have discipline when things are going well in life, and they need survival techniques when they are in the middle of storms. People want to know in whom they can believe, what they can expect in the future, and whether anyone cares for them—the three big questions of faith, hope, and love. We have the remarkable opportunity to help people flourish, to live that good life that God has defined as good. To help people find wholeness, or shalom. Grateful people will look back across the years and say to those who led them to live under God’s transforming influence, “Thank you. You made a huge difference in my life. What you said was a turning point for me; what you did brought God’s power to bear on my life.”

Because spiritual leadership is about life itself, whatever messages we bring to people, we have to live that way ourselves. Like it or not, we are models, even though our lives are far from perfect. People watch how a leader deals with criticism, works through crises, handles personal shortcomings, rises to an opportunity, or descends to help someone hidden.

Gone are the days when people are looking for leaders who seem perfect. Many more people assume that an influencer who is “the real deal” has been through failure as well as success. People want to see perseverance in the face of pain and loss. They want to know how to get out of a bind, deal with discouragement, and conquer one’s inner demons.

Spiritual Leadership Is About Values

All people spend their time and energies on the things they value the most. The question is, What are those values, and how do values actually work out in a practical way in people’s lives? The same thing applies to organizations, which are just collections of people and reflect their own values systems.

Spiritual influence and leadership are about helping people shape their basic values according to what God values. This is not terribly complicated. We need to value the people we live with and work with. We value people because of the Genesis principle: men and women are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27) and therefore have a dignity that must be respected and reinforced. Belief in the restoration of dignity shapes everything in your influence and leadership. We also should value the created world because God fashioned the universe as a way of displaying his glory and power.

Spiritual Leadership Is About Character

The philosopher Plato told a fable about a shepherd named Gyges, who one day found a magical golden ring. As he was sitting with friends, he twisted the ring on his finger and became invisible. Twisting it again, he reappeared. It soon occurred to Gyges that he could use the power of the ring to his advantage—going anywhere he wanted to and doing anything without anyone knowing. He moved into the royal court, seduced the queen, murdered the king, and took over the throne. The point of the fable is that we would discover what our true character is if we were invisible, able to act without detection. We find out what kind of people we are by looking at how we behave when no one else can see us.

Spiritual influence is about character—the kind of people we are, the shape of our inner and outer lives. Our word character comes from a Greek word which goes back to the word for a stamp that leaves an imprint, like the dies used to make coins. Character is the very shape of one’s inner life (thoughts, motives, values, desires), which is revealed in the shape of one’s outer life (actions, behaviors, speech, relationships). And because of the power and inevitability of influence, the shape of one’s character will be stamped on the character of other people, for good or for ill. Influence is unavoidable. Everyone leaves a mark. The question is, What kind of mark will it be?

Spiritual Leadership Today

In this book we will unpack some of the universal laws of spiritual leadership, looking at the principles and the practices, and seeing where the divine-human nexus makes the decisive difference. We’ll look at key biblical texts, as well as stories from history and from today.

Part 1 is called “Getting Grounded.” If we desire to have enduring influence and exercise good spiritual leadership, we ourselves need to be grounded in God. That may seem obvious, but let’s not pass it over because it is obvious. So in part 1 we look at engaging with God as a way of life, about the meaning of discipleship and following, and about building integrity. Good leadership is built on these foundations.

Part 2, “Taking Initiative” opens up some of the dynamics of spiritual leadership. Our influence comes from discovering, communicating, and reinforcing really great ideas and ideals. These are the seeds that sprout and grow and multiply. We also look here at exploration and opportunity, which are ways in which we break out of the status quo. And we look at how we react to and speak into crises. Those are the moments when we exercise the greatest spiritual leadership.

In part 3, “Going Deep,” we look at the special treasures of spiritual leadership like discernment and wisdom. People are influenced all the time by leaders who tell them where to go and what to do, but the deepest form of leadership is when we impart wisdom so that people can figure out for themselves what to do. This really is what most people want. The know they can follow leaders who hold their hands and lead them by their noses, but most people really want to be mature and self-directed. And that, after all, is the only way spiritual influence will be passed on to succeeding generations. In part 3 we also look at three dynamics at the core of influence: power, authority, and truth. Untold wreckage has happened by leaders who abuse power, usurp authority, and twist truth. The distinctive of spiritual leadership with integrity is that it puts people under God’s power, and God’s authority, and God’s truth. It is a tricky business to lead people to the place where they are truly under God’s influence—and for us to live there ourselves.

Finally, in part 4, “Facing Challenges,” we look at ways we can understand and deal with the expectations people put on us and even those we place on ourselves. We look at how we can persevere and plod ahead when things are truly difficult. We consider the wounding of “friendly fire,” dealing with criticism, and building past our failures. And we end by looking at ambition—the kind that can undermine and disqualify leaders, and the way ambition can be sanctified so that we are driven in ways that honor God.

Working with Others

In all this we need to work with each other. We need to work hard to discover our complementary abilities and roles. If you work through the principles of this book with your peers, you will benefit from the insights of others—a skill and commitment the best leaders always cultivate.

You may be a leader-in-training. If so, then this is the time to build on the right foundation. Or you may be a veteran leader and, like so many of us, need the renewal that comes from realigning yourself with the Good Shepherd.

Your work may be in a church, and you sense a need to strengthen or restore the integrity of your spiritual leadership. Or you may work in a business, and you are wondering how you can make spiritual principles and power the distinctive quality of your efforts. If you are an educator or the leader of a nonprofit organization, you will want to ponder how spiritual influence is your opportunity to infuse knowledge in or to restore dignity to the people you are trying to help. If you are an artist, this is an opportunity to connect expression and influence. If you work in government, this may be your opportunity to decide what you believe about social purpose and power.

Wherever you can exert spiritual influence, you will live with a sense of wonder that God allows you—even you—to be part of this.

God has great things he wants to do in this world, and he wants to use ordinary people like us in his work of restoration. The question is, Are we ready to follow him, and only then, to lead?

The Most Influential Person in a Century

For years Time magazine has come up with a list of the most influential people of the year. At the end of the twentieth century, Time raised the question of who was the most influential person not just of the previous year but of the prior century. When the editorial decision was made, the opinion landed on the German-born Jewish physicist with the signature tousled hair, a man easily recognizable any place in the world, Albert Einstein. He was not a leader of industry or the founder of a movement. He ran no organization. So why did the ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• To the Reader
• How to Use This Book
• Part 1: Getting Grounded
• Part 2: Taking Initiative
• Part 3: Going Deep
• Part 4: Facing Challenges
• Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here?