Spiritual Leadership – Unique

I know a couple – they used to be so productive for the kingdom – that is when they were really surrendered to God. They go to church off and on now. They even go to a small group now and then. But productive for the kingdom – doesn’t seem like it anymore. He had a reputation of being disciplined and sold out (weird but godly) and she was considered to be the quintessential model of a Christian woman. Now they make money, spend money, go places and really are making no visible impact for God. They once influenced hundreds of young people and invested in their futures but now – their investment is in their lives. What happened?

God got gypped!

It started like this, the man stopped studying his Bible, stopped praying and started getting critical of everyone else. It seemed that if he admitted that anyone else was right that he would then have to admit that he was wrong. His stability and discipline faltered. Failure in business compounded failing to live the Christian life. He backed out of leadership because he just couldn’t follow a new leader – it wasn’t close like the old. The wife, claiming submission to him, began to “submit” to his desire to find a better place to be – a place with more dedication where they could once again get involved. Now mind you, they were not changing churches or homes, they just didn’t “feel” like they fit in or were needed anymore. They just wanted to look around and see what was out there. “I woke up this morning and realized that I don’t even know if we are supposed to be here anymore,” he explained to me. What happened?

God got gypped!

The non-Christian leader will have to put many of the articles in this series into some context that works for them – but the wisdom contained herein is great. No! I am not bragging for, this is not my wisdom but wisdom proven over 4,000 years. It originates in the historical record of the Bible and repeats itself again and again in Christian Leadership.

Spiritual Leadership is unique and comes with its own unique war. There is no war like the war that has been going on between God and Satan for so long. There are no fools like the too many fools who have, are and will try to lead in the Church (this includes all para-church organizations) without a deep spiritual well. These leaders fall in battle and sometimes keep their Church positions because of other non-spiritual spiritual leaders. The cost to the Christian effort is even greater when they keep their jobs.

Satan does not want God to win. Satan is not stupid. Satan can read. Satan knows that he went up against the undefeatable foe – God. Satan however knows that his only avenue left is to prevent as many people as possible from following God. Don’t be fooled – no one really follows Satan because his leadership is not really leadership. He is only a punk rebel who will in the end be defeated equally along with all of those who don’t find their way back to God.

Many of the readers are now thinking “Do, do, do, do … do, do, do, do” (the Twilight Zone music). It seems unthinkable, even to those who believe in God, to think that there is really some war (spiritual and unseen) going on around them. Even the Christians who get it so often forget it. They begin to pray, seek help from God and understand that they have an enemy because God has an enemy; however, they quickly get distracted and forget the war. Some Christians become “satan seekers” and really give the rest of us a really bad reputation. These people blame Satan for their stupid decisions and look for Satan under every rock. They are as bad as those who have trouble believing there is a war because they now only focus on the war against Satan and become non-productive for God.

It doesn’t matter what everyone does – spiritual leadership comes with its own unique war and many common battles are fought in that war. Don’t get me wrong – Christian Leaders are individuals and will face their own personal custom battles. There are some battles though, that seem to be common to all spiritual leaders and it is in the winning or losing of these battles that Christian leaders endure or are immobilized.

If Christian Leaders could be aware of these battles, how many rising leaders would avoid the same. How strong would the Church be if the Church could win in these battles even if an individual leader chose to lose. There is a war on for the soul and success of the spiritual leader and we need to be aware of it.

So what happened with that younger couple who walked away from doing ministry to at best simply getting ministry done to them? How did leaders like them find themselves not in leadership and not productive for the kingdom? More on that tomorrow.