the-marks-of-a-spiritual-leader-en
THE MARKS OF A SPIRITUAL LEADER
JOHN PIPER
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INTRODUCTION I
define spiritual leadership as knowing where
God wants people to be and taking the initiative
to use God's methods to get them there in reliance
on God's power. The answer to where God wants
people to be is in a spiritual condition and lifestyle
that display his glory and honor his name.
Therefore, the goal of spiritual leadership is that
people come to know God and to glorify him in all
that they do. Spiritual leadership is aimed not so
much at directing people as it is at changing people.
If we would be the kind of leaders we ought to be,
we must make it our aim to develop persons rather
than dictate plans. You can get people to do what
you want, but if they don't change in their heart you
have not led them spiritually. You have not taken
them to where God wants them to be.
Everyone has the responsibility of leadership in
some relationships. But my concern in this booklet
is with the characteristics that a person must have in
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order to be a spiritual leader who excels both in the
quality of his direction and the numbers of people
who follow him.
Biblical spiritual leadership contains an inner
circle and an outer circle. The inner circle of spiritual
leadership is that sequence of events in the human
soul that must happen if anyone is to take the first
step in spiritual leadership. These are the absolute
bare essentials. They are things that all Christians
must attain in some degree, and when they are at-
tained with high fervor and deep conviction they
very often lead one into strong leadership. In the
outer circle are qualities that characterize both spiri-
tual and non-spiritual leaders.
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1. THAT OTHERS WILL GLORIFY GOD
The ultimate goal of all spiritual leadership is that
other people might come to glorify God, that is,
might so feel and think and act as to magnify the
true character of God. According to Matthew 5:14–
16, one of the crucial means by which a Christian
leader brings other people to glorify God is by being
a person who loves both friend and foe. "You are
the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be
hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under
a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in
the house. In the same way, let your light shine be-
fore others, so that they may see your good works and
give glory to your father who is in heaven." This text
shows that there is an attitude and lifestyle that is so
distinctive that when it appears in the arena of fallen
humanity, it gives valid evidence that there is a God,
and he is a gloriously trustworthy heavenly Father.
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When the reality of God's promises to take care
of us, and to work everything together for our good,
grips our hearts so that we do not fall prey to greed
or fear or vainglory, but rather manifest a content-
ment and a love and a freedom for other people,
then the world will have to admit that the one who
gives us hope and freedom must be real and glorious.
2. LOVE BOTH FRIEND AND FOE BY TRUSTING
IN GOD AND HOPING IN HIS PROMISES
But how shall we attain to a love that is strong
enough to bless and pray for its enemies? The answer
given in Scripture (and this is the third level in the
inner circle) is that trust in God and hope in his
promises leads to love.
Galatians 5:6 says, "For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for any-
thing, but only faith working through love." That is,
when we have strong faith in the goodness of God it
inevitably works itself out in love.
Colossians 1:4–5 says, "Since we heard of your
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faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for
all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in
heaven." In other words, when our hope is strong we
are freed from fears and cares that prevent the free
exercises of love.
Therefore, a spiritual leader must be a person
who has strong confidence in the sovereign goodness
of God to work everything together for his good.
Otherwise, he will inevitably fall into the trap of
manipulating circumstances and exploiting people
in order to secure for himself a happy future which
he is not certain God will provide.
3. MEDITATE ON AND PRAY OVER HIS WORD
But how shall we sinners come to have this
kind of confidence in God? Romans 10:17 says,
"So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through
the word of Christ." And Psalm 119:18 says, "Open
my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out
of your law." These two texts together show us that
faith in God is rooted in God's word. When we hear
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God's word, especially the preaching of the person
and work of Jesus, in whom all the promises of God
have their yes, we are moved to trust him.
But this does not happen automatically. We
must pray that our eyes be open to the true sig-
nificance of the word of God in Scripture. So, the
spiritual leader must be a person who meditates on
the Scriptures and prays for spiritual illumination.
Otherwise, his faith will grow weak and his love will
languish, and no one will be moved to glorify God
because of him.
4. ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR HELPLESSNESS
But finally, we must ask: how does a person come
to be willing to spend time with and be open to the
word of God? The answer seems to be that we must
acknowledge our helplessness. All true spiritual lead-
ership has its roots in desperation. Jesus commended
the man who said, "God, be merciful to me, a sin-
ner" (Luke 18:13). Jesus said of his own ministry,
"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but
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those who are sick. I have not come to call the righ-
teous but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31-32).
This means that the beginning of spiritual leadership
must be in the acknowledgement that we are the sick
who need a physician.
Once we are humbled to the point of despera-
tion, we will be open to reading the doctor's pre-
scription. And as we read the wonderful promises
that are there for those of us who trust the doctor,
our faith will grow strong and our hope will become
solid. And when our faith is strong and our hope is
solid all the barriers to love, like greed and fear, will
be swept away. When we become the kind of people
who can risk our lives, even for our enemies, and
who don't hold grudges and who devote our ener-
gies to do others good rather than seeking our own
aggrandizement, then people will see and give glory
to our father in heaven.
The implication of this inner circle of leadership
is that in order to lead you have to be out ahead
of your people in Bible study and prayer. I think
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there will be no successful spiritual leadership with-
out extended seasons of prayer and meditation on
the Scriptures. Spiritual leaders ought to rise early
in order to meet God before they meet anybody
else. They will probably want to keep a journal of
insights and ideas as they read the Bible and pray.
They will want to read books about the Bible and
about prayer. They will want to take a periodic half-
day or daylong retreat with a Bible and a notebook
and a hymnbook. If you want to be a great leader of
people, you have to get away from people at times
to be with God.
HUDSON TAYLOR'S EXAMPLE
Dr. Howard Taylor, in Hudson Taylor's Spiritual
Secret, describes an experience that he had traveling
with his father, Hudson Taylor, through China. He
writes,
It was not easy for Mr. Taylor, in his change-
ful life, to make time for prayer and Bible
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study, but he knew that it was vital. Well do
the writers remember traveling with him
month after month in northern China, by
cart and wheelbarrow, with the poorest of inns
at night. Often with only one large room for
coolies and travelers alike, they would screen
off a corner for their father and another for
themselves, with curtains of some sort; and
then, after sleep at last had brought a mea-
sure of quiet, they would hear a match struck
and seek the flicker of candlelight which
told that Mr. Taylor, however weary, was
pouring over the little Bible in two volumes al-
ways at hand. From two to four A.M. was the
time he usually gave to prayer; the time when
he could be most sure of being undisturbed to
wait upon God. That flicker of candlelight has
meant more to them than all they have read
or heard on secret prayer; it meant reality, not
preaching but practice.
The hardest part of the missionary
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career, Mr. Taylor found, is to maintain regu-
lar, prayerful Bible study. "Satan will always
find you something to do," he would say,
"when you ought to be occupied about that, if
it is only arranging a window blind."
GEORGE MUELLER'S EXAMPLE
George Mueller is noteworthy for his great faith in
the work of his orphanages. In his autobiography,
he has a section entitled, "How to be Constantly
Happy in the Lord." He complains how for years he
used to try to pray early in the morning and found
that his mind wandered again and again. Then he
made a discovery. He records it like this:
The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever
that the first great and primary business to
which I ought to attend every day was to have
my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to
be concerned about was not how much I might
serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord;
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but how I might get my soul into a happy state,
and how my inner man might be nourished. . .
Before this time my practice had been at least
for ten years previously as a habitual thing to
give myself to prayer after having dressed in
the morning. Now I saw that the most impor-
tant thing I had to do was to give myself to the
reading of the word of God and to meditation
on it, that thus my heart might be comforted,
encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and
that thus, while meditating, my heart might be
brought into experimental communion with
the Lord. I began, therefore, to meditate on
the New Testament from the beginning early
in the morning. The first thing I did, after hav-
ing asked in a few words the Lord's blessing
upon his precious word, was to begin to medi-
tate on the word of God, searching as it were
into every verse to get blessing out of it; not
for the sake of the public ministry of the word;
not for the sake of preaching on what I had
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meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining
food for my soul. The result I have found to
be almost invariably this, that after a very few
minutes my soul has been led to confession,
or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to
supplication; so that though I did not, as it
were, give myself to prayer but to meditation,
yet it turned almost immediately more or less
into prayer. When thus I have been for a while
making confession or intercession or supplica-
tion or have given thanks, I go on to the next
words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into
prayer for myself or others, as the word may
lead to it; but still continually keeping before
me that food for my soul as the object of my
meditation.
The result of this is that there is always
a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, sup-
plication, or intercession mingled with my
meditation and that my inner man almost
invariably is almost sensibly nourished and
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strengthened and that by breakfast time, with
rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not a
happy state of heart.
Now that God has taught me this point,
it is as plain to me as anything that the first
thing the child of God has to do morning by
morning is to obtain food for the inner man.
As the outward man is not fit for work for any
length of time, except we take food, and as this
is one of the first things we do in the morning,
so it should be with the inner man. We should
take food for that, as everyone must allow.
Now what is the food for the inner man? Not
prayer, but the word of God; and here again,
not the simple reading of the word of God,
so that it only passes through our minds, just
as water runs through a pipe, but considering
what we read, pondering over it, and applying
it to our hearts.
By the blessing of God I ascribe to this
mode the help and strength which I have had
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to pass in peace through deeper trials in vari-
ous ways than I have ever had before; and after
having now above forty years tried this way, I
can most fully, in the fear of God, commend
it. How different when the soul is refreshed
and made happy early in the morning, from
what it is when, without spiritual preparation,
the service, the trials, and the temptations of
the day come upon one!
It should be an encouragement to all of us to
persevere in meditation upon the Scriptures when
we read a letter which, in 1897, George Mueller sent
to the British and Foreign Bible Society in which
he had to excuse himself from attending a meet-
ing in Burmingham. He said, "Will you have the
kindness to read to the meeting that I have been for
sixty-eight years and three months, viz., since July,
1929, a lover of the word of God and that uninter-
ruptedly. During this time I have read considerably
more than one hundred times through the whole
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of the Old and New Testaments with prayer and
meditation." If we are going to be powerful spiritual
leaders we must move in the direction of Hudson
Taylor and George Mueller.
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Everyone in the church has one or more spiritual
gifts. Everyone should be involved in ministry. Ev-
eryone should be seeking to lead others to the point
where they bring glory to God by the way they think
and feel and act. But there are some people to whom
the risen and reigning Christ has given qualities of
personality that tend to make them more able lead-
ers than others. Not all of these qualities are dis-
tinctively Christian, but when the Holy Spirit fills a
person's life each of these qualities is harnessed and
transformed for God's purposes.
1. RESTLESS
Spiritual leaders have a holy discontentment with
the status quo. Non-leaders have inertia that causes
them to settle in and makes them very hard to
move off of dead center. Leaders have a hankering
to change, to move, to reach out, to grow, and to
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take a group or an institution to new dimensions of
ministry. They have the spirit of Paul, who said in
Philippians 3:13, "Brothers, I do not consider that
I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forget-
ting what lies behind and straining forward to what
lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of
the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Leaders are
always very goal-oriented people.
God's history of redemption is not finished.
The church is shot through with imperfections, lost
sheep are still not in the fold, needs of every sort
in the world are unmet, sin infects the saints. It is
unthinkable that we should be content with things
the way they are in a fallen world and an imperfect
church. Therefore, God has been pleased to put a
holy restlessness into some of his people, and those
people will very likely be the leaders.
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2. OPTIMISTIC
Spiritual leaders are optimistic not because man
is good but because God is in control. The leader
must not let his discontentment become disconsola-
tion. When he sees the imperfection of the church,
he must say with the writer of Hebrews, "Though
we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we
feel sure of better things—things that belong to
salvation" (Hebrews 6:9). The foundation of his
life is Romans 8:28, "And we know that for those
who love God all things work together for good,
for those who are called according to his
purpose." He reasons with Paul that, "He
who did not spare his own son, but gave him
up for us all, how will he not also with him
graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).
Without this confidence based upon the
goodness of God manifested in Jesus Christ,
the leader's perseverance would falter and
the people would not be inspired. Without
optimism, restlessness becomes despair.
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3. INTENSE
The great quality I want in my associates is one of
intensity. Romans 12:8 says that if your gift is lead-
ership do it "with zeal." Romans 12:11 says, "Do
not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit." When
the disciples remembered the way Jesus had behaved
in relation to the temple of God, they character-
ized it with words from the Old Testament like this,
"Zeal for your house will consume me" (John 2:17).
The leader follows the advice of Ecclesiastes 9:10,
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your
might."
When Jonathan Edwards was a young man, he
wrote a list of about 70 resolutions. The one that has
inspired me the most goes like this: "To live with
all my might while I live." Count Zinzendorf of the
Moravians said, "I have one passion. It is He and
He alone." Jesus warns us in Revelation 3:16 that
he does not have any taste for people who are luke-
warm: "So because you are lukewarm, and neither
hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth."
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Spiritual leaders must go out alone somewhere
and ponder what unutterable and stupendous things
they know about God. If their life is one extended
yawn, they are simply blind. Leaders must give evi-
dence that the things of the Spirit are intensely real.
They cannot do that unless they are intense them-
selves.
4. SELF-CONTROLLED
By self-controlled I do not mean prim and proper, but
rather master of our drives. If we are to lead others
toward God, we cannot be led ourselves toward the
world. According to Galatians 5:23, self-control is
a fruit of the Spirit. It is not mere willpower. It is
appropriating the power of God to get mastery over
our emotions and our appetites that could lead us
astray or cause us to occupy our time with fruitless
endeavors.
In 1 Corinthians 6:12 Paul says, "All things
are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved
by anything." The Christian leader must ruthlessly
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examine his life to see whether he is the least en-
slaved by television, Internet, social media, food,
alcohol, coffee, soda, sports, computer games, shop-
ping, romance novels, pornography, masturbation,
or people-pleasing.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:25, "Every athlete
exercises self-control in all things. They do it to re-
ceive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
So, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beat-
ing the air. But I discipline my body and keep it un-
der control, lest after preaching to others I myself
should be disqualified." And he says in Galatians
5:24, "Those who belong to Christ have crucified
the flesh with its passion and desires."
Spiritual leaders ruthlessly track down bad hab-
its and break them by the power of the Spirit. They
hear and follow Romans 8:13, "For if you live ac-
cording to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit
you put to death the deeds of the body you will live."
Spiritual leaders long to be free from everything that
hinders their fullest delight in God and service of others.
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5. THICK-SKINNED
At least this much is sure in leadership: If you begin
to lead others, you will be criticized. No one will be
a significant spiritual leader if his aim is to please
others and seek their approval. Paul said in Galatians
1:10, "For am I now seeking the approval of man,
or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were
still trying to please man, I would not be a servant
of Christ."
Spiritual leaders do not seek the praises of
men. They seek to please God. Dr. Carl Lun-
dquist, former President of Bethel College
and Seminary, said in his final report to the
Baptist General Conference that there was hardly
one of the twenty-eight years in which he
served that he was not actively opposed by
many people.
If criticism disables us, we will never make it as
spiritual leaders. I don't mean that we must be the
kind of people who don't feel hurt, but rather that
we must not be wiped out by the hurt. We must be
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able to say with Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:8, "We are
afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed,
but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not for-
saken; struck down, but not destroyed." We will feel
the criticism, but we will not be incapacitated by it.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16, "We do not lose
heart."
Leaders must be able to digest depression be-
cause they will eat plenty of it. There will be many
days when the temptation is very strong to quit be-
cause of unappreciative people. Criticism is one of
Satan's favorite weapons to try to get effective Chris-
tian leaders to throw in the towel.
I should, however, qualify this characteristic
of being thick-skinned. I do not want to give the
impression that spiritual leaders are closed off to le-
gitimate criticism. A good leader must not only be
thick-skinned but also open and humbly ready to
accept and apply just criticism. No leader is perfect,
and Jonathan Edwards said once that he made it
a spiritual discipline to look for the truth in every
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criticism that came his way before he discarded it.
That's good advice.
6. ENERGETIC
Lazy people cannot be leaders. Spiritual leaders
"redeem the time" (Ephesians 5:16). They work
while it is day, because they know that night comes
when no man can work (John 9:4). They do "not
grow weary of doing good," for they know that
in due season they shall reap if they do not lose
heart (Galatians 6:9). They are "steadfast, immov-
able, always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain"
(1 Corinthians 15:58).
But they do not take credit for this great energy
or boast in their efforts because they say with the
apostle Paul, "I worked harder than any of them,
though it was not I, but the grace of God that was
with me" (1 Corinthians 15:10). And: "For this I
toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully
works within me" (Colossians 1:29).
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The world is run by tired men, someone has
said. A leader must learn to live with pressure. None
of us accomplish very much without deadlines, and
deadlines always create a sense of pressure. A leader
does not see the pressure of work as a curse but as a
glory. He does not desire to fritter away his life in ex-
cess leisure. He loves to be productive. And he copes
with the pressure and prevents it from becoming
worrisome with promises like Matthew 11:27–28
and Philippians 4:7–8 and Isaiah 64:4.
7. A HARD THINKER
"Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature."
(1 Corinthians 14:20). It is not easy to be a lead-
er of people who can outthink you. A leader must
be one who, when he sees a set of circumstances,
thinks about it. He sits down with pad and pencil,
and he doodles and writes and creates. He tests all
things with his mind and holds fast to what is good
(1 Thessalonians 5:21).
He is critical in the best sense of the word—that
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is, not gullible or faddish or trendy. He weighs things
and considers pros and cons and always has a signifi-
cant rationale for the decisions that he makes. Care-
ful and rigorous thought is not contrary to a reliance
on prayer and divine revelation. The apostle Paul said
to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:7, "Think over
what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding
in everything." In other words, God's way of impart-
ing to us insight is not to short-circuit the intellec-
tual process.
8. ARTICULATE
It is hard to lead others if you cannot state your
thoughts clearly and forcefully. Leaders like
Paul aim to persuade men, not coerce them
(2 Corinthians 5:11). Leaders who are spiritual
do not muster a following with hot air or waves
or words but rather with crisp, solid, compel-
ling sentences. The apostle Paul aimed, like all
good leaders, at clarity in what he said. According
to Colossians 4:4, he asked the people to
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pray for him, "that I may make it clear, which is how
I ought to speak."
It is astonishing and lamentable how many peo-
ple today cannot speak in complete sentences. The
result is that a great fog surrounds their thought.
Neither they nor their listeners know exactly what
they are talking about. A haze settles over the discus-
sion, and you walk away wondering what it was all
about. If no one rises above the muddle-headedness
and verbal chaos of "You know . . . I mean . . . Just
really," there will not be any leadership.
9. ABLE TO TEACH
It is not surprising to me that some of the great leaders
at our church have been men who are also significant
teachers. According to 1 Timothy 3:2, anyone who
aspires to the office of overseer in the church should be
able to teach. What is a good teacher? I think a good
teacher has at least the following characteristics:
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• A good teacher asks himself the hardest ques-
tions, works through to answers, and then
frames provocative questions for his learners to
stimulate their thinking.
• A good teacher analyzes his subject matter into
parts and sees relationships and discovers the
unity of the whole.
• A good teacher knows the problems learners
will have with his subject matter and encour-
ages them and gets them over the humps of
discouragement.
• A good teacher foresees objections and thinks
them through so that he can answer them
intelligently.
• A good teacher can put himself in the place
of a variety of learners and therefore explain
hard things in terms that are clear from their
standpoint.
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• A good teacher is concrete, not abstract,
specific, not general, precise, not vague, vulner-
able, not evasive.
• A good teacher always asks, "So what?" and
tries to see how discoveries shape our whole
system of thought. He tries to relate discoveries
to life and tries to avoid compartmentalizing.
• The goal of a good teacher is the transforma-
tion of all of life and thought into a Christ-
honoring unity.
10. A GOOD JUDGE OF CHARACTER
Jesus knew the hearts of men (John 2:17), and
he urged us to be perceptive in assessing others
(Matthew 7:15ff). Leaders must know who is fit for
what kind of work. Good leaders have good noses.
They can sniff out barnacles in a hurry, that is, peo-
ple who are forever listening but never learning or
changing. They can detect potential when they see
it in a beginner. They can hear in a short time the
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echoes of pride and hypocrisy and worldliness. The
spiritual leader steers a careful course between the
dangers of rigid pigeonholing on the one hand and
indifference on the other hand.
11. TACTFUL
Paul said in Colossians 4:5–6, "Conduct yourselves
wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the
time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned
with salt, so that you may know how you ought to
answer each person." And the writer of Proverbs
said, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a
setting of silver" (Proverbs 25:11).
We must remember that leaders are aiming to
change hearts, not just to get jobs done. Therefore,
alienating people unnecessarily is self-defeating. Tact
is that quality of grace that wins the confidence of
people who are sure you won't do or say something
stupid. You can't inspire a following if people have
to hang their heads in embarrassment at the inap-
propriate and insensitive things you say or do. Tact
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is especially needed in a leader to help cope with em-
barrassing or tragic situations.
For example, very often when you are leading a
group someone will say something totally irrelevant,
which is recognized to be very foolish by everyone
in the group. A tactful leader must be able to divert
the attention of the group back to the main course
of the discussion without heaping scorn upon the
individual.
Another example, which I recall, comes from
my experience at Wheaton College. I was present
at the chapel service where V. Raymond Edman had
a heart attack in the pulpit and fell over and died.
Hudson Armerding, who followed him as president,
was sitting behind him when Dr. Edman paused in
his lecture, took one step to the side, and fell over. In
one of the most beautiful and sensitive demonstra-
tions of tact that I have ever seen, Dr. Armerding
quickly kneeled beside him as 2,000 students fell
silent. Then he stood, led us in a brief prayer com-
mitting Dr. Edman to the Lord, and dismissed the
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students quietly. Dr. Edman died as we walked out.
The tact of a leader must demonstrate it-
self in forthright confrontation. The person who
is unwilling to approach a person who needs
admonition or rebuke will not be a success-
ful spiritual leader. Combined with his judg-
ment of people's character, a leader's tact will
enable him to handle delicate negotiations and
opposing viewpoints. His choice of words will be
astute rather than clumsy. (There is a big difference
between saying, "Your foot is too big for this shoe"
and "This shoe is too small for your foot.")
12. THEOLOGICALLY ORIENTED
Colossians 3:17 says, "Do everything in the name
of the Lord Jesus," and 1 Corinthians 2:16 speaks
of the spiritual man as having "the mind of Christ."
A spiritual leader knows that all of life, down to
its smallest detail, has to do with God. If we are to
lead people to see and reflect God's glory, we must
think theologically about everything. We must
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work toward a synthesis of all things. We must
probe to see how things fit together. How do war
and sports and pornography and birthday celebra-
tions and literature and space travel and disease and
enterprise all hang together? How do they relate to
God and his purposes?
Leaders must have a theological standpoint that
helps give coherence to all things. This will give the
leader a stability that keeps him from being knocked
off his feet by sudden changes in circumstances or
new winds of doctrine. He knows enough about
God and his ways that things generally fit into a pat-
tern and make sense even when they are unpleasant.
So the leader does not throw up his hands but points
the way onward to God.
13. A DREAMER
According to Joel 2:28, in the last days (in
which we now live), "Your old men shall dream
dreams, and your young men shall see visions."
This is the positive counterpart to restless-
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ness. We must not only be discontent with the
present but also dreaming dreams of what could be
in the future. In 2 Kings 6:15–17, Elisha and his
servant were surrounded by Assyrians in the city of
Dothan. When the servant sees this and cries out
with dismay, Elisha prays and says, "O Lord, please
open his eyes that he may see." The Lord answered
Elisha's prayer and "opened the eyes of the young
man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full
of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."
Leaders can see the power of God overshadow-
ing the problems of the future. This is a rare gift—to
see the sovereign power of God in the midst of seem-
ingly overwhelming opposition. Most people are ex-
perts at seeing all the problems and reasons not to
move forward in a venture. Many pastors are ruined
by boards who think that they have done their duty
when they throw up every obstacle and problem to
an idea that he brings. That's cheap. Hope and solu-
tions are expensive.
The spirit of venturesomeness is at a premium
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today. O how we need people who will devote just
five minutes a week to dream of what might possibly
be. The text says that old men will dream dreams.
How sad it is, then, to see so many old people as-
suming that their age means that now they can coast
and turn over the creativity to the young. It is tragic
when age makes a man jaded instead of increasingly
creative. Every new church, every agency, every new
ministry, every institution, every endeavor, is the re-
sult of someone having a vision and laying hold on
it like a snapping turtle.
14. ORGANIZED AND EFFICIENT
A leader does not like clutter. He likes to know
where and when things are for quick access and
use. His favorite shape is the straight line, not the
circle. He groans in meetings that do not move from
premises to conclusions but rather go in irrelevant
circles. When something must be done he sees a
three-step plan for getting it done and lays it out. A
leader sees the links between a board decision and its
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implementation. He sees ways to use time to the full
and shapes his schedule to maximize his usefulness.
He saves himself large blocks of time for his major
productive activities. He uses little pieces of time
lest they go to waste. (For example, what do you do
while you are brushing your teeth? Could you set a
magazine on the towel rack and read an article?)
A leader takes time to plan his days and weeks
and months and years. Even though it is God who
ultimately directs the steps of the leader, he should
plan his path. A leader is not a jellyfish that gets
tossed around by the waves, nor is he an oyster that
is immovable. The leader is the dolphin of the sea
and can swim against the stream or with the stream
as he plans.
15. DECISIVE
In 1 Kings 18:21, Elijah cries out, "How long
will you go limping with two different opinions?
If the Lord is God follow him; but if Baal, then
follow him." A leader cannot be paralyzed by
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indecisiveness. He will take risks rather than do
nothing. He will soak himself in prayer and the gos-
pel and then rest himself in God's sovereignty as he
makes decisions, knowing that he will very likely
make some mistakes.
16. PERSEVERANT
Jesus said in Matthew 24:13, "the one who endures
to the end will be saved." Paul said in Galatians 6:9,
"Let us not grow weary in doing good." We live in
a day when immediate gratification is usually de-
manded. That means that very few people excel in
the virtue of perseverance. Very few people keep
on and keep on in the same ministry when there
is significant difficulty. Vision without perseverance,
however, results in fairy tales not fruitful ministry.
My dad once told me that the reason he thought
many pastors fail to see revival in their churches is
that they leave just before it is about to happen. The
long haul is hard, but it pays. The big tree is felled
by many, many little chops. The criticisms that come
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your way will be long forgotten if you keep on doing
the Lord's will.
17. A LOVER
Here I am speaking directly to men who are hus-
bands and leaders. Paul said in Ephesians 5:25,
"Husbands, love your wives!" Love her! Love her!
What does it profit a man if he gains a great follow-
ing and loses his wife? What have we led people to if
they see that it leads us to divorce? What we need to-
day are leaders who are great lovers. Husbands who
write poems for their wives and sing songs to their
wives and buy flowers for their wives for no reason
at all except that they love them.
We need leaders who know that they should
take a day alone with their wives every now and
then; leaders who do not fall into the habit of de-
riding and putting their wives down, especially with
careless little asides in public; leaders who speak well
of their wives in public and complement them spon-
taneously when they are alone; leaders who touch
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her tenderly at other times besides when they are in
bed.
One of the greatest temptations of a busy leader
is to begin to treat his wife as a kind of sex object. It
starts to manifest itself when the only time he ever
kisses her passionately or touches her tenderly is
when he's trying to allure her into bed. It is a tragic
thing when a wife becomes a mannequin for mas-
turbation. Learn what her delights are and bring her
to the fullest experience of sexual climax. Talk with
her and study her desires. Look her in the eye when
you talk to her. Put down the paper and turn off
the television. Open the door for her. Help her with
the dishes. Throw her a party. LOVE HER! LOVE
HER! If you don't, all your success as a leader will
very likely explode in failure at home.
18. RESTFUL
We began with the quality of restlessness, and
we end with the quality of restful. "Unless
the Lord builds the house, those who build it
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labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that
you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread
of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep"
(Psalm 127:1–2). The spiritual leader knows that ul-
timately the productivity of his labors rests in God
and that God can do more while he is asleep than
he could do while awake without God. He knows
that Jesus said to his busy disciples, "Come away by
yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while" (Mark
6:31).
He is not so addicted to work that he is un-
able to rest. He is a good steward of his life
and health. He maximizes the totality of his la-
bor by measuring the possible strains under
which he can work without diminishing his
efficiency of unduly shortening his life.
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CONCLUSION
No doubt, many other qualities could be mentioned
which, if a person has, would make him an even
more successful leader. These are simply the ones
that came to my mind as I was pondering this sub-
ject. One need not excel in every one of them. But
the more fully each one is developed in a person the
more powerful and fruitful he will be as a leader.
Let me emphasize again that it is the inner circle
that makes the leadership spiritual. All genuine lead-
ership begins in a sense of desperation; knowledge
that we are helpless sinners in need of a great Savior.
That moves us to listen to God in the Scriptures and
cry out to him for help and for insight in prayer.
That leads us to trust in God and to hope in his great
and precious promises. This frees us for a life of love
and service which, in the end, causes people to see
and give glory to our Father in heaven.
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