Warren W. Wiersbe - On Being a Leader for God

2011 by Warren W. Wiersbe

Published by Baker Books

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakerbooks.com

E-book edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-3220-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, Todays New International VersionTM TNIV. Copyright 2001, 2005 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture marked KJV is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture marked NEB is taken from The New English Bible . Copyright 1961, 1970, 1989 by The Delegates of Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc. TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com .

Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Dedicated to the memory of

Bob Cook, Ted Engstrom,

Theodore Epp, Lee Roberson, and Richard Winchell,

godly men who by their example and encouragement

taught many of us the meaning of Christian leadership

Contents

Leaders hold their positions purely because they are able to appeal to the conscience and to the reason of those who support them; and bosses hold their positions because they appeal to fear of punishment and hope of reward. Leaders work in the open, and bosses in covert. Leaders lead, and bosses drive.

Theodore Roosevelt

Preface

E ach generation needs to discover and train new leaders, not only to meet current needs but also to prepare for future challenges and changes. Whether its in a manufacturing plant or a local church, life goes on, and that life will either have direction and succeed or wander aimlessly and fail. The philosophers and strategists tell us that the future isnt what it used to be. Seeing how rapidly things are changing in our world, I suspect they may be right. Change is the process by which the future invades our lives, wrote Alvin Toffler in the introduction to his bestselling book Future Shock, and his choice of the verb invade was a wise one.

This book is meant to be a companion volume to On Being a Servant of God , originally published in 1993 by Oliver-Nelson and reprinted in 1999 and 2007 by Baker Books. The response to the book has been positive, and Im grateful for the ministry it continues to have. I should point out that this present book is not a detailed manual about hands-on management. Rather, it seeks to present a practical theology of leadership based on the principles taught and illustrated in the Bible. It is encouraging to see that some recent secular manuals on leadership are echoing biblical principles, whether the authors recognize them or not. The experts are catching up with us!

Those who have read On Being a Servant of God will not find it duplicated in these chapters, although some basic concepts will be recognized. The two books go together.

Warren W. Wiersbe

I ts remarkable what weird ideas some people have about leadership.

This story may be apocryphal, but Ive met it often in my reading. During the French Revolution, a man was seen running after a crowd that was moving toward the barricades in Paris. A friend begged him to stop, because the mob he was following was no match for the troops at the barricades. But the man kept running and shouted back, I must follow themIm their leader!

A Russian Aeroflot jet crashed in Siberia in 1994, killing all seventy-five people aboard. When the authorities listened to the black box recording, they discovered that the pilots sixteen-year-old son and twelve-year-old daughter had been alternately at the controls of the plane! When the boy pushed a certain pedal, the plane went into a spin 1,300 feet above the ground. The crew pulled the plane out of the spin, but not soon enough to gain the altitude neededand the plane crashed. The pilots last recorded words were, Everythings fine... take it easy... take it easy I tell you!

When I pondered that newspaper report, I thought of the words of the prophet Isaiah describing the political situation in ancient Judah: Jerusalem staggers, Judah is falling.... Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.... Youths oppress my people.... My people, your guides lead you astray; they turn you from the path (Isa. 3:8, 9, 12). Effective leadership can benefit from experiments, but experiments must be balanced by experience. The young may be daring but the adults must be wise. Leaders must have the kind of maturity that comes from fighting battles and carrying burdens, maturity that is painfully developed in the school of life.

Two more stories.

During a presidential election year, a church officer said to me, We should pray that [naming a candidate] will be elected president. When I asked him why, he replied, Because hes born again and the Lord will show him how to lead the country. I asked him, Have you ever noticed the dumb things some church leaders do and then claim the Lord told them to do it? There was no reply. He had been a church officer too long to argue over the matter.

Vance Havner used to tell about the time General Stonewall Jackson needed to get his army across a river, so he ordered the engineers to build a bridge. He also told his wagon master to get the wagon train across the river as soon as possible once the bridge was completed. The wagon mastera former blacksmithgot a group of men together, and with rocks, logs, fence rails, and various other materials, they built a bridge and got all the wagons and artillery over the river safely. Early the next morning the wagon master reported this to General Jackson, and the amazed general asked, Where are the engineers? The wagon master said, Theyre over there in a tent, drawing pictures and planning a bridge. Vance Havners comment was, We need a few blacksmiths to get us over the river.

Im neither an engineer nor a general, but I find myself identifying with that wagon master, because during most of the sixty-plus years of my ministerial life, Ive been a bridge builder. Its been my calling to move people and equipment over the river into better situations for getting the job done. Most of my friends would consider me a preacher and writer rather than a leader, but I did try to do my best when I was given that calling, and at least I was willing to learn.

The Frenchman bravely following the mob wasnt a leader; he was a cheerleader, concerned primarily with pleasing his crowd and his own ego. The jet pilot was depending on technology to carry the flight safely through, but technology is only as good as the skills of the people who manage it. The church officer assumed that membership in the family of God was the only requirement for leadership, an assumption that automatically disqualifies thousands of very successful leaders who have never trusted Christ. As for the bridge builders, General Jackson assumed that the engineers training and experience guaranteed vocational efficiency. After all, engineers are supposed to solve problems, not create them. Given the materials and enough time, they could have built that bridge, but by the time they finished, it might have been too late to make good use of it. A diploma on the wall is a big help if it represents a balanced education, but it isnt a guarantee of achievement.