Stewardship Challenge Week 11: Personal Development & Leadership Part 4

​Stewardship Challenge-2016

Leadership-Part 4

“Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God” Joshua 14:9

• J.W. McLean and William Weitzel in their book, Leadership: Magic, Myth or Method, define leadership as:
  • person
  • Involved in a process
  • Of influencing and developing a group of people
  • In order to accomplish a purpose
  • By means of supernatural power.
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Fourth, there are always purposes for leadership. The purposes can be stated or implied. When I lead my children to faith or in spiritual growth, the purposes unfold according to the needs and seasons of their lives. When I lead a ministry team, then I must also clearly state the purposes from the outset. Understanding and unpackaging the purposes of a group require astute insight that stems from research, mission definition, goals, plans, implementation, monitoring, and evaluating our effectiveness. In addition to group purposes, we also forge out individual purposes that are defined by relationship and need.

We’ve learned that, as godly leaders, our purpose in life needs to be directed toward God and his kingdom. Does that mean we sit idly by and wait for Christ’s return? No. The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:9 that we need to please God both in this life and the next: “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.”
Leadership must include Passion! Enthusiasm! Leaders must have a clearly defined purpose that transcends merely getting a job done.

What is your purpose for being? If you have not developed a purpose statement for your life, ask God to guide you in the process of creating one that fits with your passion and gifts. A biblical purpose is an unchanging reason for being. Your purpose statement must include something of the transcendent. Don’t settle for a purpose that only includes excellence in the temporal arena. This is something that will animate you whether you’re young or old, single or married, have children or not. This is not something that ends in retirement or changes according to circumstances or season of life. Then you can be sure you’re embracing the things that are worth embracing.

Passion and clear purpose served Caleb well for his many years. And these two qualities are still an essential part of great leadership. For Caleb, that purpose and its consequent passion were transcendent. They were greater than any product of promotion or profit. He found a life-consuming passion: “I followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.” No higher purpose and no greater passion exist. This purpose gives maximum meaning to whatever a leader does.