Tag Archives: ordinary

The wrong people

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This God who pursues us is always calling the wrong people onto a bus that isn’t expected to arrive.

Roxburgh and Romanuk in The Missional Leader are obviously trying to stir up some controversy. You don’t mess with Jim Collins! But they’re writing to a church audience while Collins clearly wrote Good to Great for a business audience. Even his monograph painted social sectors with a broad brush. Where do parachurch mission agencies like Wycliffe fall in the continuum? I know lots of people have opinions on that, but I don’t want to give a rash answer. I think it’s worthwhile to embrace the tension and wrestle with it for a week or two in this blog. Give me your thoughts as we go along.

What happens when the wrong people are in leadership? The Bible is full of examples of unlikely leaders. You know the obvious ones, so let’s look at the book of Judges for some more obscure ones:

  • Sampson, a guy with huge strengths and huge weaknesses. Probably had addiction problems, some anger problems and a taste for prostitutes.
  • Gideon, the “mighty warrior” who did everything he could to lay low and dodge leadership.
  • Barak, a guy appointed for leadership but who was more comfortable being in the #2 chair.
  • I think my favorite is Jephthah, the son of a prostitute who was chased away by his half-brothers until they got in a bind and asked him to be their leader. He was rash, unorthodox and creative in his leadership, but he also made some stupid decisions.

All of them had major flaws, but God used each of them in their times.

Perhaps the classic example is the twelve-seat bus that Jesus put together to transform the world and launch the church. He filled seats with a few hotheads, a handful of uneducated fishermen, a couple of dire enemies (a zealot and a tax collector) and a traitor. Not the team any leader I know would assemble. Roxburgh and Romanuk again:

Look at the ordinary people Jesus begins with; this is consistent with how God has always chosen to act…. What is present here is literally that in God’s economy the Spirit is among the people of God…. God’s future is among the regular, ordinary people of God. It’s not primarily in great leaders or experts but among the people, all those people most leaders believe don’t get it.

Ouch. I’m guilty of thinking some of these people don’t get it. I have a bent to engage with leaders but write off those who aren’t interested or gifted or called to lead.

So, how should a Christian organization engage with these tensions? On the one hand, we are stewards of God’s resources, with a huge responsibility to manage our assets well. We want good management and good leadership. On the other hand, we have the verses that say God’s power is strongest when we are weak. We have the examples that God can use a man like Peter — a disciple who’s quick to speak and slow to listen, a devotee who steps out of a boat in the middle of a lake, a coward who denies a friend at his neediest moment. The wild card is what the Holy Spirit can do to fill someone and make him useful. Acts 4 describes the transformation Peter went through and names two factors: he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he’d been with Jesus. I can’t say I’ve ever looked for those two criteria on a resume, though I have looked at previous failures and testing and how a person has grown — perhaps evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work.

There’s my challenge for you: in your hiring and development work, how are you looking for evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work?

Romans 12 – ordinary people

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16 Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people.

This was one of the verses that made me think the entire chapter was written to leaders. The issue isn’t how much or whether you enjoy the company of ordinary people. It’s that you even think there are classes of people.

Now, let’s be careful here. We have to acknowledge that leaders are different. The sacrifices, stress, risks, crises, blame and weight of decisions are enough to make Dan Allender conclude that if you’re not called to lead, why on earth would you ever do it? Leaders are different. But as leaders, what is our attitude toward those differences?

Pride sneaks into a leader’s life in subtle ways. Leadership positions feed it because of the uniqueness of the profession. Isolation can feed it. Holding onto secrets can feed it. Safety concerns can feed it. Decision-making power can certainly feed it. Let me share a subtle example.

I recall a story I read in Freakonomics. Some researchers came up with a pretty simple way to measure employee honesty: they talked to a bagel company that provided bagels to the break rooms of businesses in a major U.S. city. This company used an honor system, a little jar beside the bagels to gather payment. Over time, the empirical data showed some trends. Which group of employees as a general rule cheated the most? Right. The entitled ones on the top floor!

It hurts to read that! So, let’s have some discussion. What has worked to help you overcome the pride that sneaks up behind isolation, secrecy and security? How do you continue to think of yourself as an “ordinary person”? What keeps you grounded?

Of course, Jesus would have a problem with the idea that leaders are ordinary. Remember that the night before he was arrested, he gave a powerful lesson to his disciples. John 13:3 recounts that because “Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God,” he got down on his knees and did the lowest possible job in that culture: he washed his disciples’ feet. Jesus stated counterculturally that leaders should be last. Not ordinary, but last. The pyramid is inverted, and leaders are at the bottom.

So, let’s not try to be lofty leaders, or even ordinary people. Let’s be men and women who exist to support and encourage and serve those whom God has entrusted to us.