SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

“THINK OF ME AS A FELLOW-PATIENT IN THE SAME HOSPITAL WHO, HAVING BEEN ADMITTED A LITTLE EARLIER, COULD GIVE SOME ADVICE.” C.S. LEWIS

I adopted a new way of considering what it means to be a pastor; this is not a new perspective, I believe as much as it is the correct perspective. My vision of who pastors are to be is less authoritarian; more visionary, less elevated; more comrade, less religious relic; more human and subject to life as all others.

A pastor is perhaps walking with you on an unknown trail, but not necessarily pointing out the directions as much as he is helping you to find them along with himself, He may know where he wants to go, but he is convinced that God will speak through anyone present to help get everyone there together. He places more confidence in God; less in himself. He listens to the voice of God through others, as much as he listens for the voice of God within Himself.

His title means little; it is his heart that sets him apart. C.S. Lewis describes a spiritual leader well when he says, “THINK OF ME AS A FELLOW-PATIENT IN THE SAME HOSPITAL WHO, HAVING BEEN ADMITTED A LITTLE EARLIER, COULD GIVE SOME ADVICE.”

How liberating such an attitude brings! It is not MY church or MY people; it is NOT MY responsibility to make people attend, grow or remain. God calls a group of people together to be his church and we leaders merely assist in finding a time and place to grow together; what happens beyond that, is up to God and to those who are called to come together.

Where is this Church? A part of it is in O.S.U. East Hospital this morning, another part is working at the laundry on Route 3, another part is attending to children at a day care in Sunbury, and another part of it is in Whitehall, Reynoldsburg and on Cleveland Avenue. The Church is not a place or a location, the Church is the people of God and the Church is wherever God’s people are gathered. We meet, where we can.

God help humility replace arrogance, love replace ambition, earnest submission replace manipulation, vision replace schemes, faith replace self-preservation, The Holy Spirit Ministry replace man-directed programs. Amen!