Christian Leadership: Choosing Leaders Who Point to God - Philippians 2:19-22

Commentary

Revd. Mark Fletcher: In the church, we ordain leaders. We examine people’s faith and character to know if they will be trustworthy. And we seek prayerfully those who God is calling into leadership. We’re seeking caring, humble people who we can trust. And we do that specifically because if we don’t, leadership will be enacted by self-interested, ego-led people. Because if we don’t appoint good people, then the vacuum will be filled by the loudest voice and the strongest personality who will seek to dominate others. Do you see this concept of good leadership, of Christian leadership, is actually something I think we need to have a really clear picture of, all of us. And I think that if we are wise, we need to sort of enact this for ourselves. There is that tendency in all of us to think, oh, I can do this by myself. I can work it all out by myself. I don’t need anybody else. But the wise will seek out people who are trustworthy and allow yourself to be accountable. Don’t just seek people who agree with you. That’s not what leadership looks like. The wise know that they can’t do it all by themselves, that they need those who will gently guide and correct them. Take this idea of godly leadership seriously. So, in a world that is torn between individualism and autocracy, the Bible offers us a wonderfully clear vision of Christ-like leadership, of the servant leader, the gentle shepherd, whose role is not to point to themselves, but to lead us to God. You were not made to do this all by yourself. And the wisdom of God is that we find our place and we find our flourishing in a community of faith where we allow ourselves to be accountable to one another and to a diverse and gifted leader who can equip and encourage us to build us up so that we might attain to the fullness of Christ. We can’t do this by ourselves. We were never meant to. Seek out those that you can trust, to whom you can be accountable, who will challenge and encourage and teach you to help you to be all that Christ is making you to be until you attain all the fullness of Christ as was intended for you from the very beginning.