Healthy Leaders | Issue 14
Humiliation, resilience, bearing with each other in love, doing life with your leaders, and mustard seed faith.
Welcome to Issue 14 of Healthy Leaders.
In this issue ‒ humiliation, resilience, bearing with each other in love, mustard seed faith, and doing life with your emerging leaders. Let’s dive in.
Please Bear with Me
Jacob Crouch discusses what the Bible means when it says to bear with one another as members of the body of Christ.
“In the local church, there are a variety of types of people, all with different hang-ups, histories, personalities, likes and dislikes, habits and hobbies. And we are to function as a gathered group, in close fellowship and mutual gospel work to the glory of God. With a community like this, there will most definitely be times of discomfort. You will misunderstand others, and they will misunderstand you. Sometimes your mouth will work faster than your brain, and you will speak a harsh word. Personalities will sometimes grate against your nerves. Sometimes, a brother or sister will genuinely sin against you.
What should we do? Withdraw? Find another group? Live separated, angry, proud, harsh, impatient lives toward our brothers and sisters? No way! Consider our calling! Consider what we all have in common through Christ: One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father (Eph 4:4-6). We are not given the option to reject and dismiss our brothers and sisters. We are to forgive and forbear.”
The Valley of Humiliation Is Green
Daniel Harris digs into John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, specifically why Bunyan describes the Valley of Humiliation as the “best and most fruitful piece of ground.”
“Humiliation carries with it such a negative connotation, so much so we describe our greatest embarrassments as "humiliating". It hits us hard, as it hit Christian hard in part I. No one wants to be brought low, no one desires to be emptied of themselves and broken down. It is painful to our natural inclinations to walk down into the valley. But the great twist of it all is here there are pearls to be found. If you could find it in yourself to look around, you would see it is actually lush and green.”
It All Holds True
Glenna Marshall discusses what true resilience looks like, in light of her son’s recovery from spinal fusion surgery. Hint: it’s not based on mountaintop experiences, but on unremarkable, daily obedience.
“…While my son has shown himself to have a layer of resilience I didn’t know he possessed, I also know that this tenacious faith in the Lord to sustain him in physical suffering didn’t just materialize out of nowhere. No, it was planted, watered, grown. The Spirit has been at work in him. Just like He is in me or you or anyone who is walking with Christ. Age is just a number. It isn’t an accurate reflection of how deep or how personal someone’s relationship with Jesus might be. What I’m saying is that I was surprised to see the Lord take years and years of unremarkable discipleship and teaching and church-going and praying—and He showed us that it all proves true. God really does sustain. Jesus really is with us. Faith really does grow with time. Scripture really is true. The Spirit really does sanctify. Your heart really is safe in the Father’s hand. His Word really doesn’t return void. Your kids really are listening when you’re sure they’re not. God really does answer prayers.”
People Learn by Doing, and Your Emerging Leaders Are No Exception
You might be wondering what all this talk about humility, sacrifice, and bearing with one another in love has to do with building leaders. Well, the answer is: EVERYTHING. In this next one, Malcolm Webber unpacks a primary leader development principle from the life of Christ: doing life with your leaders, which requires all of the above to be effective.
“Jesus built His emerging leaders “on the job” where they dealt with real problems, explored real opportunities and faced real consequences. Jesus spent some time instructing His disciples, but then He always sent them out to do ministry.
Jesus also taught His disciples as He took them with Him. Sometimes He would be with them; other times, He would send them out by themselves. When He said, “Look on the fields; the harvest truly is great,” He was in the midst of visible need. The harvest field was not something found on a map on the wall, but was rather portrayed in the needs of the sick and sinful multitudes that were surrounding them on every side. Jesus taught His disciples and then sent them out to preach and to heal the sick. When they failed, as in the case of the man with the epileptic son (Matt. 17:14-21) or Peter (John 21:15-19), He gave them further instruction. He taught them as they ministered.
From Jesus’ ministry we see that learning must be integrated with doing. If it is all learning, it soon becomes boring and irrelevant. But when learning is integrated with doing, the doing gives application, context, relevance, reality, meaning, motivation and purpose to the learning. The people actually do learn!”
So what are you waiting for? Your emerging leaders need you!
Don’t You Care That We’re Dying?
It takes a lot of faith to set yourself to the daily work of leadership, let alone to face the trials and temptations we encounter when following Christ. If you’re feeling like that kind of faith is out of reach for you, don’t despair! Closing us out with a word of comfort, here’s Ian Olson at Mockingbird on how Jesus approaches those of us with faith as small as a mustard seed (i.e. all of us):
Jesus doesn’t ask, “Where is your faith?” to cut you down to size for the pitifully little faith by which you cling to him. For even the greatest, godliest saint has the faith of a mustard seed. We are each of us only smoldering wicks. The impossible magnificence of the gospel is that it discloses God not as an omnipotent despot but as one who will not extinguish such a wick. Jesus shares the risk with his disciples and does not content himself to let the boat sink and walk away on the water unscathed.
His question to them (and to us) isn’t anger, vitriol, or spite for being frightened or confused or unsure of what they ought to do next. He’s asking, “Is that what you think of me? You think at heart, beneath the showy displays of power, that I’m actually indifferent? After everything we’ve shared, you think I’m going to one day drop all the pretenses and let out the truth that actually you don’t mean anything to me? Don’t you know who I am? I’m not like the people who have let you down that way in the past. Put your faith in me, not in your fears.”
Don’t Forget!
Our free global training on Transformational Theology is coming up December 7! Put it on your calendar, and register here.
That’s all for this one, friends. If you found something encouraging in this letter, share it with a friend. If you’ve found something encouraging outside of this letter, send it our way. We love to share what our leaders love.
Until next time, we’re with you!
— Chris
For all of us at LeaderSource