We Led the Way

In modern Christianity there is a fundamental misunderstanding surrounding the topic of leadership and authority, especially in the family, but in the larger Church of God as well. Men do not understand their role, and women don’t understand the men’s role either, let alone their own role. For example, how many times have you heard your pastor or another person speak about “servant leaders?” 

There are few things that have done as much damage to true leadership in the Church and family as that phrase and the ideas that go along with it. A leader certainly serves and is a servant, but that is not all he does, and that is only a small aspect of his role. That small aspect is where all the attention ends up being placed in the modern Church, unfortunately; as a result, we have very few true leaders because leadership is not being taught. The leadership that results from a lack of knowledge is weak and ineffective, which leads to a breakdown of the family and the Church.

The world faces many problems, but they can all be traced back to one single problem. The problem is leadership, or the lack thereof. From the very beginning, mankind has suffered from poor leadership and men running away from their role to lead their communities and families. We want things to change and we want to see a difference in the world around us, but we are not willing to face the number two problem in our world. Look at every family and congregation that thrives, and you will see one thing in common—the men step up and lead. The opposite is true in every family and congregation that suffers and is sick—the men fail to lead, and instead, it is the women who decide to step up. This distorts the natural order that God created, and as sure as ignoring the laws of physics leads to disaster, so does ignoring the rest of the natural laws that God has set in place. 

As men of God, we've got a high calling, and we were given a gift in that God clearly laid out the natural laws He set in place. He did not leave it to us to have to discover them through trial, error, and destruction, He stated them plainly. Even so, we think that we know better, and we ignore them because, unlike the laws of physics, the consequences of ignoring the natural order of things are not always immediate. Sometimes, as in our world today, the consequences can take a few generations to return home. The degeneracy that we see today did not suddenly appear with these two generations. No, it started back in the 60s with a shift from God and lax parenting standards. The new parents who used psychology and became friends with their kids suddenly found that there was a pretty good reason corporal punishment had been the order of the day for generations. 

The biggest tragedy was the flight of the fathers from the home. Where there is no father, there is no one to show the next generation of men how to walk and be a man, and they do not learn leadership. Even in the generations before, way back in the 40s, the absence of the fathers and the fathers stolen by war created the first chink in the armor of leadership. Which really started with the moral decline and women’s suffrage movement in the 20s and 30s. Whew! Passivity is nothing unique to that generation, don’t get me wrong. 

There has always been a temptation for men to be soft and passive, and every civilization collapses when these shortcomings become mainstream. It all started in the beginning with a man named Adam. We find the greatest problems men and women face, the greatest internal battles, neatly introduced to us in the story of Adam and Eve. Then we see it again, and again, and again, and again through the rest of the Bible because even though Adam and Eve were the first ones to sin, everyone after them sinned in the same way. Different circumstances, but the same sort of sin.

Why? Well, as we see in the story of Adam and Eve, Satan is there with his little whispers, trying to drag us off the path, especially the Daughters of Eve. It’s really not that hard for him to get to us as we start out at first, either. A little whisper to inflame our lusts, and next thing you know, we’ve taken care of the rest. 

James 1:14-15 NKJV But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 

15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.   

We have to learn not to give in, ignore the little whispers, fight back, and rule over our lusts. The original ones are the hardest to face, however. Such is the sin of passive leadership. There is an interesting note that I'd like to bring out, and it's something for you to consider as you study this topic. Why were the details that Adam sinned and Eve was decieved included in the story of Adam and Eve? Couldn’t God have left it at, “they sinned and were kicked out?” Why did He tell us all those other things, unless they were important, something for us to learn from, something for us to draw warnings from in the great battle that we face today?

Though I have met those who say that the events in Genesis were no commentary on the nature of men and women, the rest of Scripture would seem to disagree. It’s repeatedly mentioned in the New Testament writings as a lesson for us to learn from and even as a signification of the nature of men and women. It comes back to failed masculine leadership. Adam stood there while his wife was deceived and ate the fruit and he did nothing, said nothing, even though he was supposed to be leading her and protecting her! The gift God had given him was his to watch over and look out for, but he did nothing. In fact, though she was deceived when she ate, when she offered the fruit to Adam to eat, he was not deceived (1 Timothy 2:14). 

Part of his sin, as we find out when God is rendering judgment, is that he listened to the voice of his wife. He gave up his job as leader and allowed Eve to make the decision, and then he followed her, even though he knew it was wrong—passive leadership exemplified. It's not wrong to listen to your wife, but you are the leader and you must choose what is right.

It does us no good to live as though we were already in the kingdom of God where there is neither male nor female because we are not there yet. Regardless of how certain we are that the kingdom of God will be a certain way in regard to gender, the plain and simple truth is that where we are living now, there is gender, and it was given to teach us about the nature of God in a way that would be impossible otherwise. 

To ignore gender and turn all roles into neuter roles and us into neuter beings, where God has clearly created the gender roles to teach us about His own nature, is of the greatest sort of heresy. To reverse the leadership roles leads to transgenderism because it is saying that the roles do not matter, the way God has created men and women does not matter, and they can be readily swapped out with each other. Men can become women and women can become men.

Passive leadership is no new fad, rather, from the very beginning, men have faced the problem of not stepping up to their role and authority in the family. Even in the larger congregational setting (the story of Deborah and Barak comes to mind) men have failed to step up. What are we doing? Why is it so hard for us to step up and take on the fight? 

The easiest answer of all is that we have a traitor within. A man of flesh inside us that betrays our desires to follow God, an inner coward that whispers lies about safety, security, popularity, and taking it easy. Our inner traitor is always seeking an opportunity to open the gates to the enemy. Fueled by whispers from Satan, our inner traitor is a formidable foe indeed. We must face down this foe on a daily basis, and when we make a practice of that, we are men indeed. We have a great war to fight and our war is on three levels; we must fight physically, mentally, and spiritually. The hardest battle is on the spiritual front, but to ignore the other battles is to ensure disaster. This is no easy feat and it's no wonder so many men run from this responsibility and seek the temporary and easy way out. 

I've always loved military history, strategy, and tactics, and the number one important thing to win a fight is for you to know yourself and your enemy. Our enemy is a part of ourselves in this case, a traitor in our midst. The best way to defeat our traitor is to leave him no room to live. We give our utmost devotion to God, and God alone. When we do this, our inner traitor and our ego are subdued. It's not easy to do just this one thing, but this is hardly the only thing we have to do. Far more than this goes into being a great leader, and there are many more aspects of leadership that we need to learn as men. There is one book on leadership that every man should read, and my personal opinion is that it lays out every aspect of leadership that we need to learn. When I read through this book every principle that he laid out came straight from the Bible, which was pretty cool because as far as I know, the author is not a Christian.  

I am not going to pretend to be an expert in leadership in writing this article, because I'm not. I haven't led men on the battlefield and I haven't started my own successful company with hundreds of employees, but I've read the Bible so what I am going to do is tie this book together with the Bible and introduce you to some fascinating principles of leadership. As men, even if we are not experts in leadership, we owe it to our Church, our families, and our God to become experts. The name of the book, if you'd like to read it for yourself, is Extreme Ownership.

The concept of extreme ownership is that, as leaders, we are responsible for everything that happens under our command, and whatever happens, it's our fault. If our wife gets the wrong kind of flour, it's our fault because we should have made it clear exactly why it was important to get the other kind, and if we did make it clear in our own minds, then we didn't communicate it effectively enough to get it across. Leaders must own everything in their world because there is no one else to blame. Leadership is a tremendous burden to bear since we are directly responsible for everything and everyone under our command. While we might be able to play the blame game with other humans, we can't do that with God. No matter who we blame, He will still hold us responsible. 

Genesis 3:12 (AFV) And the man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate."

In the Garden of Eden when God asked whose fault it was, Adam tried to shift the blame. God listened to Adam's excuse, but when the time came, Adam was the one who was held fully responsible for the fall of humanity. Why?

He was the leader! Everything that happened under him was his responsibility and rested upon his shoulders. 

James 3:1 (AFV) My brethren, do not many of you become teachers, knowing that we will receive more severe judgment;

Hebrews 13:17 (AFV) Follow your leaders, and be submissive, because they are looking out for your spiritual well-being, as those who must be ready to give an account to God in order that they may do this with joy, and not with groaning because that would be unprofitable for you.

It should be obvious that there is more responsibility for those who lead and that God will require an account from them. The task of leadership, true leadership, is not a position of power or honor to be desired. It's a position of self-sacrifice, service, and making the hard choices that no one else wants to make because it's the choice that has to be made to accomplish the mission, and you will bear the responsibility for that choice whether the mission goes well or whether it goes poorly. 

A hard position is made a hundred times harder if those being led are constantly fighting the leader for control or trying to lead everything themselves. A leader can only accomplish as much as his followers will follow, but it's his job to inspire and motivate them to follow. Having poor followers is not an excuse for poor leadership. 

You want to keep things as simple as possible when you are leading, and whatever systems you set up within your family or Church need to be simple enough that the weakest link can easily understand and follow them. The biggest reason for your followers failing to follow your instructions is because they don’t understand them, so if you are going to make sure they can understand them, keeping them simple will go a long way toward making that understanding happen. 

There are 12 fundamental rules to be a good leader, and you will notice that each one could have been taken straight from the Bible. I’ll go through these with the scripture that goes along with them (there are many more than the one scripture I share), and then I’d like to cover a few things that I’ve noticed are lacking the most in Christian leadership. 

1) Be humble. As we all know, when you are put into a leadership position it is easy to become conceited and think that you are something special. You aren’t because authority does not equal value. Those who follow you are just as valuable as you are and there is no leadership without a good team. That being said, there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. Philippians 2:3 NKJV [Let] nothing [be done] through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

2) Don’t act like you know everything because you don’t. 1 Corinthians 8:2 NKJV And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.

3) Listen to what those you are leading have to say, and ask advice from those who have been where you are. Proverbs 15:22 NKJV Without counsel, plans go awry, But in the multitude of counselors they are established.

4) Treat people with respect. Everyone on the team plays an important role and has the same value in God’s eyes. You are not more valuable than those you lead. Romans 12:10 NKJV [Be] kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;

5) As we mentioned earlier, take ownership of mistakes and failures, even if it seems like it is not your fault. If it happens under your leadership, it’s your fault. Hebrews 13:17 NKJV Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

6) Pass credit for success up and down the chain of command. This goes back to showing honor to others and esteeming them to be better than ourselves.

7) Work hard. As the leader, you should be working harder than anyone else on the team. No job is beneath you, and taking on the dirty jobs will build respect in those you lead. No one wants to follow someone who thinks they are too good to do a certain job, which takes us back to rule number 1, be humble. Colossians 3:23 NKJV And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,

8) Have integrity. If you are not walking the walk, it doesn’t matter how well you talk the talk. Proverbs 11:3 NKJV The integrity of the upright will guide them, But the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them.

9) Be balanced. In our Christian walk, this means that we hold tightly to what God has taught without going to the right or the left. We don’t allow ourselves to get slack in following and teaching His word, but we don’t go overboard as the Pharisees did either. 1 Timothy 5:8 NKJV But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

10) Be decisive. Waffling on a decision will lead to destruction and failure. When you make a decision, go for it. As the leader, you are supposed to be a steady source of confidence and have the answer for what comes next. You get your team’s input and various other wise counselors, but when it comes down to it, even if you let your team make the plan (as you should as often as possible), the weight of the decision is on your shoulders. Proverbs 4:25-27 NKJV Let your eyes look straight ahead, And your eyelids look right before you. 26 Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established. 27 Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your foot from evil.

11) Build relationships. This is one of the most important rules of leadership. It builds the trust that is vital to function as a team, and essential if your team is going to follow you into hell. Building relationships with your team should be one of your primary goals as a leader. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 NKJV Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.

12) Get the job done. If you don’t accomplish the mission, you fail as a leader. As a husband and father, that mission is raising children in God’s way and making it into the kingdom with your wife while spreading the gospel along the way. The mission is whatever God sets before you and your family to accomplish, and if you fail, you fail as a leader. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 NKJV Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain [it]. 25 And everyone who competes [for the prize] is temperate in all things. Now they [do it] to obtain a perishable crown, but we [for] an imperishable [crown]. 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as [one who] beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring [it] into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Quite often, you will feel unfit to be a leader, and you will doubt if you are the right man for the job. This is normal, and it will keep you humble, but you can’t let it get to the point where it causes indecision. You are the leader whether you think you should be or not, and there are people counting on you to do just that. Don’t let them down by falling into a hole of self-doubt; rather, kneel before God and do the best job that you can do. 

You aren’t alone in life, and you are not the only one on the team. A team, whether a team of two or two hundred, is only as strong as the leader who leads them, and his leadership is only as strong as the input he allows from those he leads. A leader who does not seek the input of his team will eventually fail in the overall mission, but he has already failed in several important aspects. He has failed to be humble, to build relationships, to show respect, to admit that he doesn't know everything, and to build trust with his team; so the mission is as good as lost because of this one failing. The team is the most valuable source of information available to a leader, and failing to listen to your team will result in the overall failure of the mission.

One of the main goals as a leader is passing the qualities of leadership on to those you are leading and getting them to the point where they embrace a culture of extreme ownership. Another word for this is discipleship. In our families, since we are raising up the next generation, discipleship is one of the most important components to ensure that the next generation is made up of men and women who know how to lead and how to support those who are in the leadership role. 

Sadly, we lack this in the Church of God culture, or we lack a group of men who know how to lead. We do not teach this and we are not taught this, and we have a major problem in the Church because of this lack of knowledge about leadership. One way to correct this and begin discipling is to have your subordinates do the planning whenever possible. You can still tweak them, but it will be hugely beneficial for them, and they will be way more committed to the plan if it is their own plan rather than if you make all the plans. By doing this you will avoid the circumstance where you have to order your subordinates to follow your plan. As a leader part of your job is to inform your subordinates well enough that they believe in a plan. If your subordinates don't believe in a plan they will only carry it out grudgingly, but if you can inspire them to believe in it, they will carry it out as if it were their own plan.

I can count on one hand the number of men I've met in the Church who actually know how to lead, and that's pretty sad. It desperately needs to change if the Church of God is going to continue to teach the Truth of God. We will not survive without men learning and being taught how to lead. A good litmus test for leadership is to ask yourself if you would follow this man into combat, and if the answer is no, why would you ever follow them into spiritual combat? 

If you wouldn't follow yourself into combat, why would you expect anyone else to follow you?

Now, the leader doesn't need to know everything, and he certainly doesn't need to be an expert in every little detail and piece of equipment. The leader is often not the one who knows the most, because knowledge of any given subject is not what makes someone a good leader. A good leader relies on the expertise of those he leads and gets their input before making a plan. He needs to have a working knowledge of whatever the subject at hand is, but he does not need to be the expert. In order to be able to listen to your subordinates, a leader should not dig in on his own plans; he should not overcommit to his own ideas. There should be a graceful exit strategy and you as a leader should have an open mind. This is easier said than done, but you must listen and implement your subordinates' ideas whenever possible. 

I want to touch on one more thing before we finish up that I've noticed in Christian leadership. As I mentioned before, this is not an exhaustive article on leadership because that's already been written. If you want to learn about leadership, go read the books ‘Extreme Ownership’ and ‘The Dichotomy of Leadership.’ They are both by Jocko Wilink and they should be required reading for every man and woman. What I've noticed among those who lead and the layity alike, is a lack of emotional control. In today's world, men are taught to express their emotions and let it all out, but this is the exact opposite of what needs to happen. 

There is nothing wrong with shedding a few tears, but that is a far cry from letting your emotions out to play. As a leader you must have control of your emotions, especially anger. The leader who cannot control his emotions will not succeed in the long term and he will drive those he leads away from him. A lack of control over emotions is weakness, and allowing them to land on your subordinates is weak leadership. There is almost never a reason to yell at your peers or your subordinates, and if you do, you show that you do not have control over your emotions and that you are weak. Yelling out of anger or because you cannot control yourself is very poor leadership. 

If one of your subordinates violates one of your rules and you have already made it perfectly clear three or four other times what they are doing wrong and they still aren't getting it, then and only then, should you consider raising your voice. It will still make you look weak, but because you have never yelled at this subordinate before, it will make an impact on them like nothing else. Yelling should be a calculated move and never because you lost your cool and gave way to anger or frustration. Leadership should be as subtle as possible until it can't be, then lead with everything you have. Rage is the opposite of this, rather, think of Jesus in the temple when He drove out the tax collectors, or Nehemiah in the return from captivity when he corrected those who married outside of the faith. Jesus was as subtle a leader as you'd ever want to see until He needed to be direct, and then He led with direct purpose and whipped the feathers off those who needed it. 

As I hope you've seen, leadership is not just about being a servant. Being a servant is great, but to be a leader you have to actually be able to make decisive decisions, give instructions and lead! Being a servant is only one aspect of leadership, albeit an important aspect, but still just one aspect of leadership. If you focus only on serving then you aren't leading, and if you aren't leading then no one is, or worse, someone who is not supposed to be in that position will step up and try to take control. Leadership is about making decisions and you cannot separate that from leadership and still be a leader. 

The Bible contains a lot of information on character traits that make good leaders, so I would like to finish with two of these sections. I plan more articles on leadership, and I would highly encourage you to read the books I have already mentioned. As men, we cannot afford to not learn these vital skills of leadership. We are in a war, and as men, we must lead. We cannot sit on the sidelines waiting for someone else to do our job for us, and even more, we cannot sit on the sideline and allow women to commit the same error as in the Garden of Eden when we failed to lead at that time as well. We cannot let women do our job for us, and we will be held accountable for not stepping up just as much as if we lead poorly. Remember Adam and do better!

Titus 1:5 (AFV) For this cause I left you in Crete, so that you might set in order the things that needed to be done, and might ordain elders in every city, as I commanded you:

Titus 1:6 (AFV) If any man be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of debauchery or rebellion.

Titus 1:7 (AFV) For it is obligatory that as God's steward an overseer be blameless, not selfwilled, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not a bully, not greedy for material gain;

Titus 1:8 (AFV) But hospitable, a lover of good, soundminded, just, holy, self-controlled,

Titus 1:9 (AFV) Holding steadfastly to the faithful word, according to the teachings of Jesus Christ, so that he may be able both to encourage with sound doctrine and to convict those who are gainsayers.

1 Timothy 3:1 (AFV) Faithful is the saying, "If any man aspires to be an overseer, he desires a good work."

1 Timothy 3:2 (AFV) Now then, it is obligatory that the overseer be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, serious-minded, respectable, hospitable, skillful in teaching;

1 Timothy 3:3 (AFV) Not given to much wine, not a bully, not greedy for selfish gain; but kind, not a quarreler, not a lover of money;

1 Timothy 3:4 (AFV) One who rules his own house well, having his children in subjection with all respect;

1 Timothy 3:5 (AFV) (For if a man does not know how to rule his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?)

1 Timothy 3:6 (AFV) Not a novice, lest he become conceited and fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

1 Timothy 3:7 (AFV) It is mandatory that he also have a good report from those who are outside the church, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.