The Qualities of an Effective Christian Leader - John Stevens

you well when we think about this issue of leadership it's all too easy for us to turn to secular resources about leadership to as it were borrow models of leadership from the world and bring them into the church or Christian organizations but the Bible is in fact filled with examples of leadership is that passage reminds us Christian leadership is to be utterly different to the leadership that we find in the world the leadership that we find in the world is a ruling over other people and often an abusing and oppressing other people whereas Jesus set for as a pattern of a different kind of leadership that was serving other people so we need to be careful to leak to take on board secular models of leadership that doesn't mean that there aren't things we can learn from the world a common grace and wisdom mean that sort of non Christian leaders can often teachers March but we need to start with the Bible when we think about Christian leadership and in many ways the Bible is a book filled with teaching about leadership the theme of leadership runs all the way through the Bible the a Bible describes certain key categories of leaders amongst God's people via prophets the priests the kings of the Old Testament leadership roles that were being exercised in the New Testament we find the leaders of the the New Testament church the Apostles the evangelists are particularly via pastors their word is Shepherd originally the overseers the elders those who are in authority and leadership over local congregations we find leadership in the context of the family husbands are to be leaders of their wives and children fathers are leaders in their families we find leadership modeled are actually in a variety of different jobs in the Bible dominant in the Old Testament imagery of shepherds leading their flocks soldiers are fighting in the army stewards managing property on behalf of their masters farmers running and organizing their business so the Bible is filled with examples of leadership and teaching about leadership sometimes those examples are positive sometimes those examples are negative and where to learn from the ways that people lead badly but the Bible is a great resource about leadership and that shouldn't surprises because the New Testament tells us that Scripture is god-breathed and is an adequate to equip errs for every good work that God might have forints so our first resource for leadership ought to be the Bible and of course supremely the teaching and the example of the Lord Jesus who is the one and only perfect leader there has ever been so secular leadership can teach us something but we need the Bible to teach us how we should lead so as we begin to dig down into the Bible what are the foundations for specifically Christian leadership what is essential if you are to be a Christian leader and I think these aspects are the ones that those in leadership very easily and quickly forget when you find yourself in leadership you can suddenly spend all of your time thinking about management skills people skills are fundraising and lose sight of the foundational spiritual qualities on which leadership must be based I think many leaders are fall into difficulties and fall into sin because they forget these foundations it's almost as though they've moved on from basics of the Christian life and they've lost sight of the foundations so let me suggest a number of things that are absolutely crucial for Christian leadership firstly Christian leaders must have devotional vitality what I mean by that is is in order to be a Christian leader you must first of all be somebody who is led by Christ a Christian leader is somebody who is led by Christ and I think this is a big mistake many Christian leaders think miss make they they sort of reach a point at which they think they are now leaders they no longer need to be led but actually we need to be led by Christ Christ is Lord Christ is the head of the church Christ is the one who is ultimately in charge of your local church he's the one who is ultimately in charge of your Christian organization he is the one to whom you are ultimately answerable we need to be led by Christ if we are to be Christian leaders so to pick up a few verses from the New Testament John chapter 10 reminds us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd he is to be our Shepherd we're to hear his voice and obey him John chapter 15 Jesus is the vine and we are the branches we can only bear fruit if we remain in him and are connected to him and are in a sense fed by him Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 and 17 reminds us that Jesus is the one who is supreme in everything he created everything he is heir of everything he is the one in whom fullness is found and we find our fullness in him so if we don't have a devotional vitality if we're not sheep following our Shepherd if we're not branches in the vine if we're not finding our fullness in Christ we will be ineffective as Christian leaders so we need to be those who have a deep love for Christ a deep love for his word for the Bible where he speaks and makes himself known to it we ought to have a deep love for his people and our ultimate goal ought to be seeking his glory one of the fundamental problems in leadership is when we fall into seeking our own glory or the glory of our organization or our church rather than that of Christ and that's because we've lost our devotional focus so whatever else you hear this afternoon if you're a Christian leader I want to say to you the most important thing is your devotional life with Christ there are so many Christian leaders not having a daily quiet time of reading the Bible and praying not going regularly to church and hearing God's Word taught you will not be an effective Christian leader or a leader who lasts if your leadership doesn't flow out of your relationship with Christ so a devotional vitality secondly and obviously flowing from that and our leadership needs to have and be founded on christ-like character we can have all the management skills in the world the tools of communication the ability to fundraise but all of it means nothing and will be dangerous if we're not first and foremost those who develop a christ-like character our leadership needs to flow out of our character as a Francis Schaeffer very famously said it's not enough just to do the Lord's work we need to do the Lord's work in the Lord's way and I think a great danger for many Christian leaders is they think the work is so important that they're prepared to compromise character to get it done they're prepared to treat people badly and not to exercise christ-like service and love because they think their job and their ministry is so important but christ-like character is the foundation of ally again the very work of the spirit inners Galatians chapter 5 is to produce up fruit character qualities of patience kindness goodness gentleness I don't you have noticed but those are largely relational qualities about the way we treat other people why is it so many Christian leaders get a reputation for treating their staff badly well it's because they've not developed the fruits of the spirit we need christ-like character when we look in the Bible at the character qualities that are required for church leaders for a pastor teacher elders in 1 Timothy or in our Titus the emphasis is on character qualities the same is true with the selection of the the earliest as it were deacons in Acts chapter 6 they were to be men filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom all through the Bible is this sort of theme that says that character is absolutely crucial to a leadership think for example of a great leader like Moses numbers chapter 12 and verse three highlights Moses humility you might on first reading of the book of Exodus and then some of the Pentateuch not recognize that as being the most important quality about Moses but numbers twelve three that was held up as being the absolute crucial quality for his leadership now it doesn't mean that he was a pushover or a doormat but it does mean he submitted himself under the rule of God and he didn't think too much of himself and of course closely allied with this development of Christian character his dependence on God in prayer we see that of course in the Lord Jesus himself who in his ministry and throughout his life was dependent on God in prayer so when he had preached he prayed he may press central he was praying in the wilderness when he was tempted he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane before he went to the cross he prayed before he chose his apostles Jesus work and leadership was from a foundation of Prayer which reflects a dependence on God actually that's an issue of character it's an issue of character recognizing that we can't do it and we're not capable and so therefore we need the help of God so Christian character is essential for ministry and then thirdly sacrificial service of others sacrificial service of others this is at the very heart of what Christian leadership means Christian leadership is all about giving yourself in the service of others it's not about self-promotion it's not about enjoying power over other people those are the great temptations for leaders one of the things that is in a way enjoyable in the world about leadership is the ability to exercise power over others that's why some people want to become leaders they want to be able to be in charge and enjoy the status and the power well the Bible tells us that's not what Christian leadership is about Christian leadership is about self giving servants and supremely that is modeled by the example of the Lord Jesus so John chapter 13 where Jesus is with his disciples in the upper room he takes the towel and he washes their feet he does the job that the lowest servant would do that nobody else had been prepared to do and he says I'm setting you an example that you should copy mark chapter 10 speaks of how he's the one who's come to give his life as a ransom for many and of course supremely in Philippians chapter 2 Paul says the paradigm example is the way that Jesus was obedient to death on a cross he had equal glory with God but he laid that aside in order to go to the cross so that a sins could be forgiven and that's to be the model of our leadership a giving of self in service of others so Christian leadership needs to be founded on a christ-like at servants it's about serving him and serving others so I think those are absolutely foundational for Christian leadership if we don't have devotional vitality if we don't have Christian character and if we don't have a servant heart to our leadership we really won't be Christian leaders at all we'll be secular leaders working in a Christian context and in that sense we will be incredibly dangerous I think that means that Christian leaders need to work first and foremost on their spiritual life that is the absolute basis for effective Christian leadership I personally when I was first converted as a as a student from day one of being a Christian it was kind of drummed into me read your Bible and pray every day and go to church and that has been the absolute foundation of my ministry for better part of 25 years and things like that you just have to prioritize in the sheer busyness of all the demands that come on you as a leader one of the challenges in leadership is there's always more that you could do and you feel that you're under pressure from what people want from you maybe from what your congregation wants from you maybe from what your board wants from you from what your other employees want from you and it's easy to sacrifice that time for personal devotion and at church but those are absolutely crucial are to sort of effective Christian leadership one might add to that and I haven't put that on the sheet that it's equally important if you're married and you have a family prioritizing your family in your commitment to them ahead of your ministry and job is equally important it ought to be God first family second ministry third and yet so often leaders get that the wrong way round so family where we have family responsibilities is equally people actually God doesn't call us to set up a tension between family and ministry if he's given as a family but actually he wants us to fulfill our responsibilities to our family and again that requires discipline and making time thirdly what are the competencies for Christian leadership we've talked about those as it were spiritual qualities we also if were to be effective Christian need leaders need certain competences for the tasks that we have and here at different roles of Christian leadership different ministries that we might have actually required different competences so the skills the competencies the gifts depend upon what the ministry is if you're running for example a Christian television network then you're going to require different skills than if you're running a local church or if you're running a youth ministry or if you're running an outreach work to people who have been trafficked that the particular competencies you might need depend on the ministry that you have but what is crucial for leaders is that they have the right competencies for the ministry they're undertaking so for whatever the role is that they have they have to have the right competencies for that role and real problems arise when people are in leadership but they don't have the competences for the that they've been asked to do now sometimes leaders don't have all the competencies and they can overcome that by employing other staff or others to work with them but basically you need to have the competences for the role that you're doing now this is partly a matter of spiritual gifts God gives gifts to people to do the work of ministry there's a wide range of different gifts that are given so leaders need to have the appropriate gifts for the role that they're going to undertake so work for example in Exodus 31 God commands his people to build the tabernacle but he gets workers like embezzle L to be able to do the work of building the tabernacle and producing all of their furniture and they're the curtains he gives them skills in metal work in tapestry to be able to do the job that needs to be done they're gifted for that role in a 1 Timothy chapter 3 again speaking about church leaders alongside all of the character qualities Paul says that an elder must be able to teach must be gifted to teach she must be capable of explaining and applying the doctrines of the faith because that's crucial to the role so you wouldn't want me to be building the tabernacle because I can't do anything I can't put up a shelf let alone kind of design something sophisticated it's not my gift but equally you wouldn't want somebody who's got loads of practical gifts but no doctrinal gift to be an elder of a local church you need to have the right competences for the role and one of the key tasks of the church is to discern what people's gifts are what are the key aspects of Christian leadership is to discern your own gifts and the gifts of others people put themselves forward for leadership and they take on leadership when they just haven't got the gifts to do it it's possible that you're here today struggling in leadership and the real problem is you haven't got the gifts for the ministry you're trying to do you actually ought to be in a different ministry anyway our leadership will not be effective if we haven't got the gifts that are essential for the ministry that we're undertaking so I'm gifting for the role also there's a need to have I think other skills in leadership in particular which are to do with having authority and responsibility for others so there are certain specific skills gifts that are needed for the ministry but there are also general skills that are involved in exercising authority over others organising other people and the Bible speaks about that is effectively the ability to manage language drawn from stewardship stewards in the Bible were people who managed property on behalf of others so they perhaps looked after employees they organize the work they took care of the finances in order to be a leader you have to be an effective manager who is able to do that work so when it comes to church leaders again in 1 Timothy chapter 3 it speaks of how church leaders need to have been able to manage their family as well now in the ancient world that doesn't just mean having obedient children in the ancient world the family was like a small business the job of the father that the household might have sources of income it might own land there might be slaves or servants there might be an extended family to take care of the elder of the church is meant to have been able to manage that wider family well to provide for their needs to organize them it's going to involve time management people management managing resources and those skills are going to be needed in leading the church my experience many church leaders fail because they're good at preaching and teaching and they care for people but they can't organize and manage and the result is the church suffers and for leadership this ability to be able to manage and organize is inherent in virtually all leadership positions and the greater the responsibility you have the more people involved in the ministry the higher the level of competence needs to be so the ability to be able to manage is crucial alongside that I think for Christian leaders something that we again often neglect is Christian leaders of every kind require theological discernment they require a level of theological discernment clearly those who are church leaders require a very high level of theological discernment but anybody involved in any kind of Christian leadership will require the ability to tell the difference between false teaching and true teaching between other gospel and false Gospels otherwise the ministry will be compromised and the witness to the Lord Jesus will be undermined many Christian ministries have that ceased to be Christian because leaders weren't on guard theologically so one of the tasks of Christian leaders is to exercise theological discernment so 1 Corinthians chapter 15 Christian leaders need to know the things of first importance Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures he rose again he's going to coming luring to adjudge Christian leaders need to have confidence in the authority and the truth of God's Word if they don't fully understand it themselves they need to have access to others who will be able to advise them they need to know the difference between the true gospel and false Gospels Paul says in Galatians not the true gospel the gospel the Apostles preached then it's a false gospel and those who preach a false gospel are to be accursed because they will destroy the church 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 to 4 5 speaks of how we're ministering in the last days that's the whole period from the Ascension of Jesus till the return of Jesus and during that period Paul says it will be difficult people will not love God they will love money pleasure and themselves and Christian leaders need to be on guard and we need to listen to the Scriptures and we need to preach the word otherwise people will be led astray by false teaching that looks persuasive that sounds convincing but ultimately takes them away from Christ so every Christian leader needs theological discernment for their leadership and then lastly in this area I think we need wisdom wisdom is an important and unappreciated skill and the Bible doesn't tell you in detail everything that you should do you can't wake up in the morning and open to a verse of the Bible that will tell you how to deal with a difficult staff issue you've got or exactly who you to ask for money to help support the ministry you may face challenges in the day and um the Bible doesn't give you a kind of a playbook as it were to tell you exactly what to do instead you have to exercise wisdom wisdom is the skill under God of judging and discerning what is the best thing to do in the situation you face and we need to cultivate wisdom it's noticeable that King Solomon in our one kings when God offered him anything he wanted chose wisdom because he knew wisdom would be what would enable him to lead God's people well James urges is in his letter if we lack wisdom we should ask God for wisdom I think many Christian leaders are fail to seek develop and ask God for wisdom to enable them to make the best decisions in their situations that they face so there are a variety of competences that Christian leaders need they need the gifting for the role they need the ability to be able to manage theological discernment wisdom and also lost the emotional intelligence that simply means the ability to relate well to other people it's secular language but it simply describes the biblical skill of relating well to other people understanding them and how best to communicate with them to and motivate them again we see this being used and developed in the other New Testament I think one of the UM absolute models of a lack of this emotional intelligence is rheya Bohm in the Old Testament who takes on from Salomon you might remember the story it's 1 Kings 12 not 2 Kings 12 as it is on the sheet but you'll remember that basically he decides he's going to sort of increase the burden on the people and make them work harder he won't listen to the older advisors who say no no be more gentle instead he listens to the young men who said who say no no be stricter and harsher and the result is the people rebel against him that's a classic example of a lack of emotional intelligence in the situation Paul in his letters often demonstrates real skill in the way he speaks to people and engages with them so in Galatians he knows that the Galatians are in danger of turning from the gospel so he's very firm with them I can't believe you're deserting Jesus and thinking about being circumcised how could you be so stupid when he writes to the Thessalonians he's writing to encourage them when they're under pressure of persecution so he's much more gentle encouraging them telling them sort of how he is encouraged with the report that's been received about how they're standing herb can you see he works differently with the Corinthians he has a difficult relationship and that they've obviously missed' misunderstood some of his intentions he hasn't come when they thought he should he's written letters that have been in their eyes slightly harsh and in 2 Corinthians Paul is at pains to express his love to them to win them over very often leaders we have to relate to people in the right way to understand what is the best way of relating to them at a particular moment that's a skill that good leaders will have they won't do everything the same way in every situation they'll carefully think how are people feeling how can I most help them how can I help them to come with me how can I win them over so those are a variety of skills for Christian leaders so what will unchristian leadership involve what elements are crucial then to being a leaders we begin to put these different pieces together what will our leadership involve well when we look at the example of leaders in the Bible the key characteristic of leaders is leaders are people who want to take people somewhere they have a clear idea of what needs to be done a clear sense of direction and they take other people with them to fulfill that mission so think for example of Jesus in a mark chapter 1 Jesus is preaching the gospel he's been preaching and healing in Capernaum and he surprises his disciples by saying I'm gonna leave Capernaum and we're gonna go round all the other towns and villages why because he says he wants to preach the gospel everywhere so he knows what he's doing he knows where he's going and he takes his disciples with him similarly in Matthew chapter 16 Jesus sets out resolutely for Jerusalem the moment has been reached in his ministry where he is going to go to Jerusalem where he knows he'll be betrayed he knows he'll go to the cross and so he sets out and again he takes his disciples with him rebuking Peter when Peter tries to stop him heading to Jerusalem I think for example over Paul Paul through the book of Acts and the New Testament he has a plan for taking the gospel to places where it hasn't been heard before we read in Romans chapter 15 Paul speaks of how he wants to go to Spain because that's the place where there is sort of the church hasn't yet sort of come where the gospel hasn't been heard and so he's writing to the church in Rome to get them to give him money to support his mission plan maybe to give him people Paul has got a task that he wants to under and he's going to lead others to join with him or to Corinthians 8:9 where Paul is planning a collection from the Gentile churches for the poor believers in Jerusalem Judea so he's writing to the churches to motivate them to give so that a big gift will be able to be sent all of those illustrate what leadership is about so leadership will involve setting a vision under God yes but a vision of what we're trying to accomplish leadership will involve a strategic plan how are we going to accomplish yet there are some leaders who have a massive vision but they have no idea how to get there leadership involves both having a vision of what it is you're trying to accomplish for the Lord but also knowing what the steps are that are needed to get there leadership will involve organization it will involve bringing people together to accomplish that task so that they understand what it is you're doing and what they can contribute leadership will involve making sure that the right resources are available for the tasks to be undertaken how many people will it need how much money will it need leadership will involve motivating people to keep going - I want to pursue that task but especially when it gets hard or there are challenges to press on it will involve managing people making sure that the right people are doing the right jobs it will involve sometimes significant change and it can be hard to lead churches and organizations through periods of change where perhaps things need to be done differently or different people need to be given responsibilities those are the very things that Christians need to do in leadership but they need to do it in a christ-like way and they need to do it out of a desire to serve others and bring glory to God so if we're to be effective Christian leaders we therefore need to grow in our leadership everybody can become a better leader no matter how good or inadequate a leader you feel today you can become a better leader we can all grow in our leadership skills and I think that if we want to be effective Christian leaders we need to keep working on developing our leadership and there a number of ways of doing that that I found helpful and that might be helpful for you first and foremost just belonging to a local church and serving in the life of a local church it's a key way we learn to lead is in the life of the family of God if you're not playing a part in the life of a local church get involved and make church a priority but we then benefit from being mentored by more experienced leaders try to find somebody who's a better leader than you are and ask them to teach you how to be a better leader no matter what level you're at there'll be people who are better leaders than you leaders you admire um see if you can find someone who you can learn from you will share their experience with you and there are lots of resources available there are all sorts of books on leadership there are blogs there are lectures seminars online we have more material available to us than any other generation actually one of the challenges is not to look at too much of it and to instead carefully choose what's most helpful or what's a reasonably lutely don't want you to go from this and suddenly spend the next month looking at nothing but leadership stuff it's best to gradually grow in our leadership skills and select small number of things that are really helpful um training there may be training opportunities conferences programs that you can join there are a number available through the European leadership forum that would help you maybe you might benefit from an internship perhaps um it might be a good thing if you're a Christian leader or a church either for you to go and spend a little bit of time working with a different organization see how they do things we often recommend our pastors of sort of medium sized churches to go and spend some time alongside the leader of a larger church just in turn in a bigger church for a period of time and that helps them just think about leadership differently or if you're leading a Christian organization why not intern with a bigger organization or an organization you think is doing well ask if you can come and spend a couple of weeks just in the organization and then of course you learn from your experience everything in life is an opportunity to learn you learn from your successes and you learn from your failures we need to spend time on self-evaluation what did we do well what should we have done differently what can we learn from the particular experience of a task or a project but either went well or went badly do you take the time to reflect and learn from your own experience so we can grow to become more effective Christian leaders and so I want to urge each one of you or all of us to think about how can we develop as leaders and become better leaders it won't just happen unless we take intentional steps to think about our own leadership development and to do that we need to be honest with ourselves the problem with many leaders is they reach a point at which they're no longer honest with themselves and they don't want anybody else to be honest with them because they're slightly insecure but good questions to ask yourself for Aviv's where am i weak in my leadership where am i conscious that I'm not as good as I should be that then helps me to work on those areas where do I need to grow in character incompetence how can I get help that's what I need where can I go for help to be able to become more effective and the reason this is important is that God has given each of us gifts and opportunities for ministry we are all servants as it were you remember the parable of their talents we've all been entrusted with our masters property or we have an obligation to be as effective as possible in his work we're to be those who take ten talents and double it five talents and double it we're not to be those who shove it in the ground and dig it up and just give back what we've received we need to actively seek to develop our leadership so we can be as effective as possible so that in the end I will hear those glorious words well done good and faithful servant from the Lord Jesus

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Length: 41min 55sec (2515 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 05 2018