The Root of Leadership
January 1, 2003
Recently, my wife, Gail, and I had a chance to visit Yosemite National Park in California. We brought home pictures of us standing at the foot of some of those 3,000-year-old trees that rise a zillion feet into the air. Think of it: 3,000 years to grow a tree. And think again: given modern machinery, the same tree can be (perish the thought!) cut down in just a few minutes. Those trees prompted a thought about pastoral leadership and the issue of Trust— the kind of trust pastoral leaders desperately need from their people but sometimes do not possess. No biblical leader that I can think of struggled with trust issues more than Moses. Leading a generation of people out of 400 years of slavery must have been like herding cats. Every time the man turned around, someone was questioning his judgment, his veracity, his sense of direction. You could argue that they finally broke him with their patterns of suspicion and defiance. The apostle Paul cashed in on trust when he asked people to give him money to aid in the relief of suffering Christians in Jerusalem. He must have leaned on the trust factor when he convinced Timothy's family to release him to mentorship. Trust was in play when Paul gave strict orders to the Corinthians to discipline a known sinner. And—trust again—when he convinced them to take the man, now repentant, back. Trust won the day with Philemon, who was asked to receive a runaway slave back into his home—no longer as a slave but as a brother. No doubt about it: Paul's word in most places was like gold. Trust backed that currency. I learned quickly in my youngest pastoral years that people would follow only so far if I traded exclusively on my natural gifts: words that came easily, personal charm, new ideas and dreams. ...
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