The church has been given a unique opportunity to raise leaders in different spheres of society. But many times we are not aware of some leadership misconceptions that we may have. What are these and how can we address them?
0:53 – Review Leading in Anxious Times
- One of the things that is foundational in our leadership is “God is working through me and in me.” The best way God can move through me is to let God do something in me, because when He does, it’s gonna come out in my family, my work, and in all my endeavors.
- The emphasis on hearing from God for yourself and staying by those convictions, while staying connected to people.
- The ability to recognize anxiety in yourself and others in order to respond better to the situation.
4:06 – We’re starting a new mini series
- This series will also lay a little bit more foundation on leadership.
- These segments are important because they give us a foundation to build on.
- Also these segments give us a framework to hang things and new concepts on.
- If Leading in Anxious Times is foundational, this next series will be about the biblical perspective of leadership.
- Our goal with this is to better integrate our leadership with our faith.
5:00 – The unique gifting of the Church in raising leaders
- “The Church is uniquely set apart to develop and deploy leaders for the glory of God and the advancement of the Gospel. The Church is designed by God to create leaders for all spheres of life.”
- Christians, by virtue of being sons and daughters of God and being redeemed image bearers of God, and as followers of Jesus Christ, have a unique gifting to lead and to be of service to the world around us, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
- That happens when our leadership is integrated with our faith. If it’s not, we experience a disconnect.
6:04 – Here’s what a disconnect of faith and leadership looks like:
- We act one way in leadership because we think it works, but we have to switch playbooks as Christians because the rules are different there.
- We are good at “playing by the rules,” but produce no fruit, no value, or no positive effect in others’ lives or even in our own lives.
- We are hypocritical and faking our faith.
- We don’t want that. We want integration.
8:01 – Four Common Mistakes among Christian leaders
8:46 – Christian Fatalism
- Yes, the Bible tells us that God is sovereign but the Bible never uses that to encourage us into passivity or irresponsibility or into laziness.
12:35 – Hyper “Spirituality”
- Everything is about prayer only. This also has become an excuse for laziness.
- We are not against spirituality but this mindset is not spiritual enough that it is no longer Christian spirituality but “mysticism.”
- Everything is spiritual, but it should not be in a weird way. But everything that is done for God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, now has spiritual nature.
16:40 – Religious Niceness
- Niceness is not a Christian virtue.
- In general, people think Christianity is about being nice.
- The problem with niceness is that we assume that it’s enough.
- We are called to be peacemakers not harmony chasers.
- Chasing harmony leads to pleasing people. And we become more concerned with what other people will say than what God says.
- It’s important to correct people, in order to achieve peace.
- Jesus brought peace, upsetting harmony in the process because he revealed the hearts of the people.
- Religious niceness is not Christian leadership.
21:28 – Shallow Application
- Biblical methods with unbiblical aims.
- Shallow application: surface-level, but not transformative.
- There are many maxims, proverbs, principles in the Bible that are helpful but it goes so much deeper than that.
- The Bible is not a leadership technique book. If that’s all that you are using it for, you are missing out on so much.
- “Leadership is not the focus of the Bible”
- One of the most important things that a Christian leader can do is to realize that “This is good. I love leading for God but it’s not the most important thing.”
- What we want to see for the next few episodes is for our leadership to fall into its proper place—an integration of our faith and our leadership. Most of all, that we’re growing in our faith, even as we grow in our leadership.
Application Questions:
- Among the common leadership misconceptions mentioned in this episode, what is something that you used to buy into?
- What needs to change about your perspective on leadership? Is there anyone you can discuss this with?
The ENC Leadership Podcast is hosted by Joseph Bonifacio.
