When I was in the marching band in high school, I attended a leadership workshop lead by Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser[1]. The main objective was to teach a bunch of high school kids how to lead within a group of our peers. I always came away from those workshops ready to be a better leader, and eager to put into practice the concepts he shared with us.
“That’s nice, Kara. But what does that have to do with the gospel of Luke or the price of tea in China?”
Well, my beloved reader, one of the leadership concepts he shared popped into my head while working on the previous post. Jesus is the ultimate leader in our discipleship manual, right?
So to understand the caliber of leadership we as Christians have in Jesus, I thought it would be nice to see His style matched against other styles of leadership explored at these workshops.
The exercise went something like this: the “Leader” and the “Follower” are to stand facing each other, and the Leader sticks a hand in the air and waves it around, trying to get the Follower to…well follow. The results were often catastrophic and hysterical. Good for a laugh.
After everyone got their giggles out, better ways of leadership were explored. What does it take to lead? How do you decide what pace to take task x, y, z at? How do you communicate effectively as you lead? The following is an example of better leadership.
Bringing it back into the world of the gospel of Luke, throughout the pages Luke portrays Jesus as leading in a way that's similar to this exercise. He shows and explains. He answers questions. Then He lets the apostles and disciples have a go, but leading and providing for them by keeping His hand constantly upon them. And when they are ready and the time is right, Jesus steps away and lets the apostles do some leading, lets the disciples try their hand at flying solo.
This is no different than how He leads us today. This is what it generally looks like in my life:
In Jesus we have a leader who (1) shows us what we’re supposed to do and how we’re supposed to do it, (2) goes with us as we give it a try, constantly guiding and correcting and encouraging us along the way as we try to figure it out, and (3) steps back and allows us to fly solo. Sometimes He has to step back in and bring us back on track. Sometimes He doesn’t. But He’s never far away, and all the while, no matter how dumb we might look trying to imitate what He did with stunning grace, He stands there loving us unconditionally.
The thing that makes Jesus’ way the best way to lead is that the whole time He is more concerned with who we are, rather than the task we’re trying to accomplish. This was true of His disciples, and it’s just as true today. His primary focus is on us as people, our character, our hearts. Not what we’re doing. Not how well we can flap our arms to look just like the way He did it. At the end of the day, Jesus’ focus is on how we’re doing as people, not on our to-do lists.
And that, to me, is mighty comforting.
[1] He was/is a great big deal in the music education community, as well as a talented public motivational speaker. Attended a workshop led by him from 2003 – 2006.
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