Bill Hull - The Christian Leader: Rehabilitating Our Addiction to Secular Leadership

Other Books by Bill Hull

Jesus Christ, Disciplemaker

The Disciple Making Pastor

The Disciple Making Church

Straight Talk on Spiritual Power

Christlike

The Complete Book of Discipleship

Choose the Life

Anxious for Nothing

Right Thinking

Building High Commitment in a Low Commitment World

Seven Steps to Transform Your Church

The Experience the Life Series (with Paul Mascarella)

Believe as Jesus Believed

Live as Jesus Lived

Love as Jesus Loved

Minister as Jesus Ministered

Lead as Jesus Led

Conversion and Discipleship (2016)

Evangelism and Discipleship

(with Bobby Harrington, 2014)

The False Promise of Discipleship

(with Brandon Cook, 2016)

ZONDERVAN

The Christian Leader

Copyright 2016 by Robert W. Hull

ePub Edition April 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-52534-9

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hull, Bill, 1946

The Christian leader : rehabilitating our addiction to secular leadership / Bill Hull.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-310-52533-2 (softcover)

1. Leadership Religious aspects Christianity. I. Title.

BV4597.53.L43H84 2016

253 dc23 2015035321

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Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Copyright 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Cover design: LUCAS Art and Design

Interior design: Kait Lamphere

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 /DHV/ 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Coach Gene Ring, my first leader

Contents

Rehabilitation for Christian leaders begins with a commitment to do more than acknowledge Jesus uniqueness; it is when they rearrange their lives around his practices.

Jesus was happy when his followers experienced joy and meaning.

Jesus was most effective when he was himself in the ordinary circumstances of life.

Jesus was effective in this world because he was guided by the reality of another world.

Jesus was able to serve because he had a clear understanding of whom he was dependent on and gladly acknowledged it.

Jesus withheld nothing; he taught us that we must lay aside privilege and that we have great capacity to change.

Jesus taught us how to suffer under pressure, thrive in it, and teach others in the middle of it.

Jesus was satisfied with the knowledge that he had faithfully completed his Fathers work and that he had not squandered anything his Father entrusted to him.

Jesus modeled for us that leadership is as much following, listening, and submitting as it is leading others. It will involve pain and pleasure, and it will continue until we are finished with Gods work.

MY LIFE CHANGED forever on November 22, 1999 when an 18-wheeler rear-ended me at sixty-five miles per hour on a high-rise bridge in New Orleans, Louisiana. My Ford Mustang plowed into the guard rail, dislodging my seat from the hinges as my seatbelt locked. My body torqued, injuring two discs in my back and two in my neck.

After getting X-rays, the doctor said to me, Mr. Gallaty, its a miracle that youre not hurt worse than you are. He then sent me home with four prescriptions: Oxycontin, Valium, Soma, and Percocet. I was twenty-two years old, and I had never taken drugs before. But because of the pain from the accident, I started taking them every four to six hours. In three months, I was addicted to pharmaceutical drugs.

I soon realized that my thirty-day supply was only going to last two weeks and I was desperate for another avenue to stay high. Two friends approached me with a way to fuel my drug addiction, and building on my background in the business world I started an illegal-drug import business. I was trafficking in the city GHB, Special-K, heroin, cocaine, marijuana and by the worlds standards, life was good... at least for a season.

That next year, a close friend unexpectedly died of a heroin overdose, which kicked off a troubling series of events. Over the next three years, from 2000 to 2003, I lost eight friends to drug- and alcohol-related deaths. Six others went to jail. Through all of this, my addiction was slowly destroying my life. I was spending around $180 a day to fuel my desire for heroin and cocaine.

After two unsuccessful stints in rehab, I recalled the words a college friend had shared with me one night seven years earlier. He had spoken to me about Christ and the hope of the gospel, and as I looked at the mess of my life, I knew I had a problem. I cried out for help. I wasnt in a church or a revival service. I was just sitting in my room, but I called out for Jesus to rescue me. The date was November 12, 2002.

Like anyone who has been saved from heinous and deep-rooted patterns of sin, the transformation in my life was remarkable. My life has not been the same since that moment. I immediately realized that the reason why I had failed twice at rehab was because Id been trying to get freedom from my addictions apart from the liberating power of Jesus. I now knew that Jesus was the only one who could remove the chains of sin that had kept me shackled and bound for so many years.

Today, over a decade later, Im a Christian leader a pastor. Ive come to understand that the first step of any rehabilitation is an awareness of the problem. Not all Christian leaders will walk the road of addiction that I followed, but we all have blind spots in our lives and ministries. And they are called blind spots for a reason if we could see them, wed fix them! Like a cancer growing undetected in our bodies, every leader has specific pitfalls that will eventually sabotage them if they arent addressed.

I never wanted to be an addict. Ive never met a pastor or leader who wanted to be a narcissist or a dictator or who wanted to hurt people. Countless men and women start off well on the leadership journey, but they end badly. They are sabotaged by their blind spots, unaware of their weaknesses. If we want to be a Christian leader, we need to know Christ and be known by Christ.