Thursday, January 22, 2009

Spiritual Leadership

Churches all across America are struggling because of what I see as a lack of spiritual leadership. What is spiritual leadership? Or maybe a better question is, "what do spiritual leaders do?" The best definition of spiritual leadership I have found is in the book Spiritual Leadership by Henry and Richard Blackaby. They define spiritual leadership as, "moving people on to God's agenda." Sounds simple enough doesn't it?

Spiritual leaders are called by God to move people from where they are to where God wants them to be. The only way for that to happen is for the spiritual leader to follow God's agenda in his or her own life. The only way for a spiritual leader to follow God's agenda is to depend upon the Holy Spirit to lead them.

We need to have a revival of the Spirit in the pastorate today. We have too many men and women that are depending on seminary training and well written work plans to determine the direction of their ministry. Seminary education is great and having a work plan is good, but if we leave the Holy spirit out of the equation, what good is it really?

It is time for those of us in leadership positions to remember who we are and who God is. We are servants and He is the Master. It is time we acted like it! Let us ALL get off of our high horses and become the humble leaders God has called us to be. Let the Spirit lead and don't be afraid to follow! True spiritual leaders are those men and women who will humbly submit to God's agenda and move those people with whom they come into contact where God wants them to be!

No comments: