Strong Leaders Arise to the Top

A thought that I have been recently pondering is this: when it comes to leadership, time is either an amazing ally or an incredible enemy. I say this because time has the ability to reveal people for who they really are as leaders. Some people can for a short period of time portray themselves as a strong leader, yet as time passes it becomes harder and harder to maintain that image. When situation continually arise that are outside of their scope of leadership, followers overlook at first, but eventually start taking notice. Time does exactly the opposite for a true leader of what it does for the weak leader. As situations occur around true leaders, they perform and people notice. If the individual is a very strong leader, people slowly begin to realign themselves behind the leader. It is natural that individuals only align themselves behind stronger leaders than themselves. Only for particular purposes do strong leaders align themselves behind weaker leaders, yet for the most part, people with strong leadership abilities emerge as the top leader. This is why positional leadership can only give you a head start; it cannot sustain leadership.

Others

So I was sitting outside Friday enjoying the beautiful weather that complements the beautiful campus we have here at Regent. Part of me just wanted to simply sit here and soak it in. Do nothing but relax and let the warm rays of the sun just fall on my face. Another part of me was and still is bursting at the seems, feeling like I have so much being poured into me that I am about to burst. Part of that is because of the school work I currently have. Specifically I am working on a project that I really am looking forward to seeing the completed presentation. It is and will require a great amount of work, yet I am still excited about it. On a deeper level through, I feel that God is pouring something into me that I must begin to act upon. It all flows around one word that He put into my spirit in the fall of last year: people.

I feel that if somehow people can now see me as a people person, I still have so much to learn. When it comes to being an effective people person I still feel so inadequate at times. I know that there is so much that I can do to build up those around me. There are so many more ways that I can be investing into the lives of others so they can better become all that God has called them to be. I know that if I can spend my life investing into other people that I will have lived a life worth living. We take time to invest into education, working related trainings, and financial ventures, yet when was the last time we took time to intentionally invest into the lives of those around us? Almost a constant question in my mind is now, “How can I better invest my live into others?” I believe God is showing how to do that better.


“A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.” - Jackie Robinson

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” - Albert Schweitzer



P.S. Tonight Wave is have the senior pastor of Hillsong London speak at 5 and 7 pm. He was AMAZING this morning!! Come tonight!!

The Call of Gold...or God?

In my life group last night, one of the guys read a quote from a book about the life of C.T. Studd. As it turned at, Studd was a missionary who served Christ for about ten years in China (1885-1894), 6 years in India (1900-1906), and then over twenty years in Africa (1910-1931)! You can read more about his life by clicking on this link. But I just wanted to share what my friend read to us:

“Five hundred millions of heathen have not yet been evangelized, so it is computed! Yet our great Missionary Societies have reached high water-mark, and if they have not already begun to retrench, are seriously thinking of doing so. Meanwhile, the heart of Asia, the heart of Africa, and well nigh the whole continent of south America, are untouched with the Gospel of Christ.”

“Last June at the mouth of the Congo there awaited a thousand prospectors, traders, merchants and gold seekers, waiting to rush into these regions as soon as the government opened the door to them, for rumor declared that there is an abundance of gold. If such men hear so loudly the call of gold and obey it, can it be that the ears of Christ’s soldiers are deaf to the call of God, and the cries of the dying souls of men? Are gamblers for gold so many, and gamblers for God so few?” (p. 139-140)

Oh MAN!! Doesn’t that just resonate deep within you! He went on to say more that was good, but this line stood out to me.

“Believing that further delay would be sinful, some of God’s insignificants and nobodies in particular, but trusting in our Omnipotent God, have decided on certain simple lines, according to the Book of God, to make a definite attempt to render the evangelization of the world an accomplished fact.” (p. 140)

An accomplished fact! When was the last time you and I thought of evangelism as something that could be definitively accomplished worldwide?! I pray we all view the calling God has put on each of us the way Studd viewed his as a missionary!


References

Grubb, N. (1935). C.T. Studd: Cricketer and pioneer. Atlantic City, N.J: The World-Wide Revival Prayer Movement.