Getting a Handle on Spiritual Leadership

What are church leaders supposed to do?

If we want to do a good job as spiritual leaders, it's important to know what we're actually supposed to do! As obvious as that sounds, many people who are being promoted by God to accept a role of kingdom leadership in the lives of fellow believers neglect to think through what, exactly, that means. Because we are sincere in our desire to do what God wants us to do for the sake of others, we bravely launch into spiritual leadership, but most of us have a nagging suspicion that we do not know what we're doing.

We start off the job feeling inadequate to the task, and it doesn't take many days before we realize the unspoken doubt we had about ourselves is true. Subsequently, our thoughts run down a predictable path: Somebody made a mistake in asking me to be a leader … should I wait until I'm found out as a fraud, or should I quit before I do real damage in someone's life?

Add to this feeling of inadequacy the fear of failure—that we'll be blamed for our mistakes—and most sensible people want to avoid becoming spiritual leaders at all. Those who already have that designation search for reasons why their life is too [fill in the blank] to continue; or, they focus on the getting things done (running meetings, organizing events, helping people with problems, receiving more training, etc.).

All the while, they try to be as inconspicuous as possible, hoping that if they do not disturb anything or draw any attention to themselves, nobody will challenge their (non-existent) leadership credentials. To read more, click here.