Reflections on Christian Leadership

In the Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen

"Nouwen was a Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books on the spiritual life. After nearly two decades of teaching at the Menninger Foundation Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, and at the University of Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, he went to share his life with mentally handicapped people at the L'Arche community of Daybreak in Toronto, Canada." - Wikipedia

I recently finished reading In the Name of Jesus. I believe I'll be reading the book again in the near future, because the wisdom I found there was encouraging, as well as thought provoking. I have a long way to go in order to be the kind of leader Henri talks about. But I think that is the whole point. Being a leader is a journey, not a destination. I wanted to share some of Henri's words with you.

"These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self - the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things - and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments. I am telling you all of this because I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self."

"... there is little praise and much criticism in the church today, and who can live for long in such a climate without slipping into some type of depression? The secular world around us is saying in a loud voice, "We can take care of ourselves. We do not need God, the church, or a priest. We are in control. And if we are not, then we have to work harder to get in control. The problem is not lack of faith, but lack of competence. If you are sick, you need a competent doctor; if you are poor, you need competent politicians; if there are technical problems, you need competent engineers; if there are wars, you need competent negotiators. God, the church, and the minister have been used for centuries to fill the gaps of incompetence, but today the gaps are being filled in other ways, and we no longer need spiritual answers to practical questions.""

"While efficiency and control are the great aspirations of our society, the loneliness, isolation, lack of friendship and intimacy, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression, and a deep sense of uselessness fill the hearts of millions of people in our success-oriented world."

"The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there."

"Knowing God's heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation, or despair begins to invade the human soul, this is not something that comes from God."

"Contemplative prayer keeps us home, rooted and safe, even when we are on the road, moving from place to place, and often surrounded by sounds of violence and war."

"The central question is, Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God's presence, to listen to God's voice, to look at God's beauty, to touch God's incarnate Word, and to taste fully God's infinite goodness?"

"Christian leaders cannot simply be persons who have well-informed opinions about the burning issues of our time."

"But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative."

"Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg."

"But most of us still feel that, ideally, we should have been able to do it all and do it successfully."

"...it is Jesus who heals, not I; Jesus who speaks words of truth, not I; Jesus who is Lord, not I."

"...so also must they be persons always willing to confess their own brokenness and ask for forgiveness from those to whom they minister."

"Christian leaders are called to live the Incarnation, that is, to live in the body, not only in their own bodies but also in the corporate body of the community, and to discover there the presence of the Holy Spirit."

"Leadership, for a large part, means to be led."

"What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life."

"...Jesus has a different vision of maturity: It is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go."

"The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross."

"If there is any hope for the church in the future, it will be hope for a poor church in which its leaders are willing to be led."

I am young and still have so much to learn, but what I do know is that being led where I would rather not go has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life. I have seen the beauty of Christ over and over again and it's usually in the hardest, darkest, deepest places.