The leadership conundrum

I walked into a Christian bookstore recently and was browsing for something to read. As I looked around I noticed that a large number of books were addressing the topic of leadership. It’s one of the most talked about, written about and taught about topics in our world today. Whether it’s in the church or outside everyone is looking for and celebrating good leaders. In my mind’s eye I tried to wander through the halls of my mental library of books I have read and found that I too had read quite a large number of books on the issue of leadership. There are so many authors and pastors with new insights or new ways of sharing old insights. Everyone is into the “leadership development” movement. With all this teaching and development I sadly noticed another truth as well. With so many leaders being trained up we were severely lacking shepherds.

So what’s the difference between them? Isn’t a shepherd a leader? You’re right in saying that but in the post-modern world we live in we have a very different view of leaders and sometimes (in fact often times) our leaders end up not being very shepherd-like. Here are a few things I found as differences between the two, these are just based on my own observations.

1. Leaders love activity, energy and change. Shepherds have time to sit by still waters with their sheep.

In today’s world a pastor is a busy person. In fact the bigger his church numbers the more successful we think he is. The bigger the church numbers though, the more full his calendar. If he’s a good speaker he will soon be a sought after speaker and there will be more entries to pencil into his calendar. In some cases the pastor’s secretary is one of the busiest people in church considering all the meetings and appointments he has to keep track of.

In Psalm 23 you find a picture of shepherd who is calm. He doesn’t seem rushed and he seems to find time to lead his sheep besides still waters where he restores those that need restoring while the others graze nearby. He seems to have time to care, to really care. Do we have time in our leading to slow down our pace to the pace of the slowest sheep in our care? After all Christ does that, why cant we?

2. Leaders lead from the front so we can all see where they are going and follow. Shepherds lead from closer to the back so that no sheep gets left behind.

Its true isn’t? The best leaders of today call us to keep our eyes on them. God has given them a vision and they know exactly where they are going and they call us to follow them as they take the lead.

If you were to watch a shepherd do his duty you would find that often times they are closer to the back. Their success is not defined by reaching a destination, rather their success is defined by making sure that everyone reaches the destination. To ensure this they make sure they are not up front running the lead. No, they bring up the rear guard making sure everyone’s moving and no one gets left behind.

Aren’t you grateful that Jesus is like that? Imagine if He kept forging onwards towards the ultimate goal of heaven but you slowed down along the way and just could not keep up. He is not like that, He is there behind us, encouraging us to keep on.

3. Leaders count the cost an expect attrition rates in their followers. Shepherds secure the ninety nine and go after the one.

This is a tough one so please don’t hear what I am not proposing. You cannot please everyone, you cannot win every heart. I know that. But to enter ministry or to serve as Christ calls us to means we cannot use the excuse “there will always be people who don’t like us and so leave” to continuously justify people dropping out of our congregations.

Jesus when talking about shepherding teaches exactly that. He says a good shepherd will go out looking for that one which wandered away and got lost. His heart will beat for it and he will search until it is found.

Do we run after those who have gotten confused or lost or distracted? Do we make every effort from our side to win them back just like Christ has made every effort to win us back to Him?

4. Leaders love hanging out with leaders. Shepherds love hanging out with sheep

Leaders love vision and leadership. They share a common lingo and passion with other leaders. They may not be passionate about the same things but they are passionate and they bond over that. They enjoy it and being other leaders makes them feel even stronger.

Shepherds love their sheep. They love to be with them. They know their names. They know how fast or slow the graze. They know the ones that will bolt given a chance and the ones that prefer to lie down often and take it slow. The love their sheep and their sheep love them. They are not waiting for the opportunity to dump the sheep to go for a coffee with other shepherds. There in the little hills, besides streams and rocks and as spectators to incredible mother nature a shepherd know he is at his best not when he is with other shepherds but when he is with his sheep.

That’s Jesus. He loves to be with us, His sheep. Taking care of us and loving us and healing us and leading us gives Him great joy.

We have so many leaders – lead pastors, worship leaders, home group leaders, youth leaders, Sunday school leaders. Yet, one of the greatest flaws of the church in the post-modern era is that we are developing many leaders while God is looking for and the sheep are crying for shepherds.