Leading When You Don't Feel Like You're A Leader

Recently our church, Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, had its leadership conference with great speakers like Mark Driscoll and Bishop T.D. Jakes. This got me thinking since I mentioned in previous posts that I felt led by Jesus recently to "preach the gospel" and was further led to understand that at this time that meant via this blog. As I told Jesus at the time, I'm no preacher, I've never been to seminary, my Bible knowledge is rudimentary at best, and I've only been back in church for about 2 years after a 20 or 30 year lapse. What in the world do I possibly have to teach or share with anybody? But Jesus just said do it anyway and don't be afraid because I'll help you. So watching and listening to the aforementioned speakers, who do have all of the credentials I don't have, really helped to comfort me when they reminded that EVERYONE has a sphere of influence. Whether it be family members, co-workers, staff, friends or a church congregation, we all have people in our lives for which we have the potential to be influential. Since my own kids don't listen to me, I'm not entirely sure who those people are in my life, but I'm sure there are some somewhere.

The point is that it is not all about how great your knowledge base is or how extensive your memory of Bible verses is, but more about the example you provide in your day-to-day life. I believe that simply being closely connected to God and having a very personal relationship with Him on a daily basis will by its very nature make you a person to whom others are drawn. This is because God's pure and perfect love will shine through you so brilliantly and so strongly that it will envelop everyone you come into contact with. They will want what you have and begin to follow you just to be close to the essence you project. ALL OF THIS WITHOUT HAVING SAID A SINGLE WORD!!!!!!! When Jesus first begain gathering disciples, the Bible says that all He had to do with most of them was walk up to them and say "Follow me" and they went because they were drawn to Him in a way that I'm sure they could not understand. This shows me that all of us can be leaders for Christ simply by leading with the power of our example and our convictions.

Recently, in thinking about my "sphere of influence", I started thinking about all of the people I have come to know and who know me in the amateur poker league I belong to. The league has free tournaments where people come together and play poker, usually in local sports bars. Like any bar, one is likely to find individuals who are heavily drinking, smoking, cursing, acting out sexually, etc.. What better place could there be for a ministry?!!! So, I've begun to just try to be an example of loving one's neighbors, being kind and courteous, not using foul language, being a gracious loser and winner and offering when possible to serve others. I hand out invitations to my church to the people playing at my table, but I don't "preach" in the conventional sense and I don't think I have to. I think many times all we have to do are those things listed above and Jesus will handle the rest. They may not choose to go to me to talk about their problems and about wanting to come to Jesus. That's ok. I play poker with them every week so I may be too close for them to do that, but possibly my behavior and my invitation to church and the magnetic attraction of God shining through me is enough to push them in the right direction. Of course, if they ask me directly for help I will definitely tell them about Jesus.

So don't worry about the question of "how in the world can I preach the gospel". Start with "preaching" through your example and let God talk in His way. I think God's way of communicating is much more efficient and much more clear than any fumbling preaching I could try to do out of my mouth using conventional human methods. Remember, many people followed Jesus because of his example and his Presence as much as they did because of His words. A good leader does not lead by force, fear or threats. Jesus didn't have to threaten people with hellfire and damnation; they simply followed Him because of what they saw in Him. He couldn't hide his glory and didn't try to, neither did he flaunt it. Even a recent Ft. Worth Star-Telegram article talking about networking said that the best way to network is to simply serve others. Find out what others want/need and help get it for them. Jesus was our best example of the perfect servant. By serving others, he glorified His Father and by serving others and loving others so we too bring honor to our God and to ourselves. Serving others engenders trust and trust is necessary to lead people. This is how those of us who don't feel like we're a leader lead.