What Kind of Leaders are We to Be?

Leadership in society today is severely lacking both in the secular world and in the church. Strong, capable, and godly leaders are difficult to secure, and yet lining bookshelves in almost every bookstore are quick-fix answers to developing strong and successful leadership techniques and leadership skill-honing exercises are being piped in through internet webinars at a frightening rate. Still, the vacuum for leadership grows.

There is no place where this leadership vacuum is more prevalent than in the church. Too often, at the risk of appearing too “unspiritual” or “too rigid,” Christian leaders hide in the safety of claiming to act only when prompted by some mysterious spiritual feeling. Or, in reaction to this subjective and shallow approach, many are trying to adapt all the principles of the secular world into their leadership practices and people are being treated as numbers, commodities, or expendable resources. Both extremes have led to the spiritual impotency being experienced by many churches.

Israel bartered their spiritual birthright for the benefit of contemporary secular thinking when they demanded that they be like other nations and be given a King. God granted them a perfect specimen of a worldly leader: handsome, physically impressive, yet incredibly arrogant and insecure. His leadership was a miserable failure.

Then God chose David, a man after His own heart, a leader who led with the “integrity of his heart” and guided with the “skill of his hands” (Psalm 78:72). David was a godly leader, with great skill and a passion for excellence, but above all, his heart was after God! This is the kind of leader we must become. “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chronicles 16:9). Let us be certain our hearts are completely His and then call upon Him for strength, guidance, wisdom, and the carrying out of excellence in our leadership.