The Importance of Christian Leadership
Author: Rev. Dr. Corey D. Brown
July 23, 2019
An understanding
of the word “Christian” is necessary to understand Christian leadership. A Christian is a person who has, by faith,
accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. He has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and has received a spiritual
gift. He is a citizen of the Kingdom of
God and is a part of the Body of Christ (the church).
The Christian
leader or spiritual leader will be controlled by Christ, and every act of
leadership will be influenced by this relationship. The Christian leader will accept the Bible as
God’s infallible Word and as the supreme authority in his life. He will search the scriptures to find
principles, promises, and precepts to govern his life and his leadership
role. When he is exposed to teachings
about leadership from other sources, he will examine them in the light of the
Bible, and reject any teaching that is in opposition to the Bible. The successful Christian leader will recognize
that he is not a self-made man, but will acknowledge that he is successful
because he has emptied himself of self and has been filled and empowered by
God. The successful Christian leader
will be one who has voluntarily surrendered himself to God, and through faith
has been mastered or controlled by the Holy Spirit. Other factors are important, but this is
indispensable.
To a large extent
today Christians are learning leadership from secular authorities and
sources. This poses a real danger, as
Rush has pointed out (Management: A
Biblical Approach, p. 10): “Unfortunately, the secular management philosophy is often both
humanistic and materialistic. Authority
and power are seen as a means of manipulating, using, and controlling
people.” He shows how the leadership
style dictated by Jesus for His followers was of servant-ship (Matthew
20:20–28). The need for this was
illustrated by the example of King Rehoboam in 1 Kings 12 when he refused to be
a servant king and lost his people. The
Christian leader should serve those under him, meet their needs, and then help
them to reach their maximum effectiveness. The leader is to be totally at the service of those under him, like a
slave to a master. The higher up in an
organization a Christian leader goes, the more people he has to serve. This is very unlike the world concept of
leadership.
Every basic and
honorable principle in leadership and management has its root and foundation in
the Word of God. What should be
happening is that management experts should be coming to pastors and saying,
“Teach me about leadership.” Most
believe that the church world is learning leadership from the secular world and
then checking what they have learned against the Bible to be sure that it does
not violate scripture. Most Christian
leaders in this process have experienced a moment of enlightenment while
studying a secular authority on leadership when they have realized that this
principle is a Biblical principle. It is
not wrong to study secular sources on leadership, because all truth is God’s
truth, but the “truth” that is inspired is found in the Bible. Some outstanding books have been written on
Christian leadership and these can be valuable to the person who wants to learn
to be a Christian leader.
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