Learning to Lead (7/10/09 - 8/6/09)

Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised:

Our whole team is making excellent progress in our Quechua studies, though we still have a long way to go. We have only been attending classes for two weeks, but we can speak in increasingly complicated sentences and understand a little more each day. The One Who knows all languages deserves all the praise!

Prayer Necessities for the Skimmers:

I want to try to give a quick summary update on Quchumi. After discovering how the men there were taking advantage of our guys´ team, their team leader, Trent, along with Simón, a Quechua believer, went to speak with the men of the community. They carefully explained that the guys were there to work but, more importantly, they were there with something far more precious, the Word of God, and that the people of Quchumi were refusing to listen to it.

Initially, the men of Quchumi were repentant and asked for the guys to stay, saying that they wanted to listen to the stories. But Trent asked them to think about it without the guys there and gave them a calling card so that they could call to ask the guys to return if they really wanted that.

The men have not called to ask for our team to return, so Trent and the guys have made the decision to investigate other communities in our province and to begin working there. This has been highly disappointing, but God has been faithful to encourage the men´s team and our team as well through this very difficult time. I am convinced that He is not done with Quchumi, but we do not know if we will be involved in the harvest there.

1. Please pray for continued encouragement for the guys´ team and their leaders. Pray that God would grant them wisdom on the next community where He wants His Word to go.

2. Pray for wisdom for Leah and me as we plan the next step for our women´s team as well.

3. Pray for God to continue to work among the people of Quchumi, particularly the women. Because of distinct gender separations in Quechua communities, most of the women there didn´t get to hear the stories our guys´ team shared. As a direct result of the men´s rejection, these women have not had the opportunity to hear the Truth. Pray that God will take His powerful Word to those women.

Inquiring Minds Wanna Know (Bonus for the Readers):

I´ve been a leader for as long as I can remember.

I´ve held offices in various organizations. I´ve directed my high school band. I´ve led band groups in college.

Over the course of twenty years of employment, I´ve also done lots of things that made me a leader. I´ve been a manager and a teacher. I´ve supervised employees of all ages. I´ve taught all kinds of medical professionals. I´ve precepted students who wanted to learn what I had to teach and students who didn´t. I´ve made decisions that could improve or worsen a patient´s health.

And, for the last three years that I spent in the US, I had the privilege of being a Sunday School teacher. Each week, as I shared the lesson, ten to twenty women listened to what I taught and, hopefully, used it to apply God´s Word to their lives.

So I know how to be a leader... at least according to the model I´ve always seen. I just never realized how far that corporate American model of leadership is from the example Jesus gave us.

It´s funny to me now how ready I thought I was for this job. I do believe God used those past experiences to prepare me, but I learn every day how inadequate my methods are for His work.

A few years ago, the LORD taught me a very important lesson. He had laid a particular section of Scripture so heavily on my heart that I prayed over it for twelve hour straight, but I had no idea how to implement the things I was studying. I said, "LORD, this is all well and good, but I don´t know what You expect me to do about it."

What He told me was profound: "What I expect is for you to obey Me and to teach others to o the same."

Oh. That sort of made the task manageable. Obey God, and teach others to obey Him. Sure, it would be difficult but not impossible. God doesn´t call us to an impossible task.

That still sticks with me, even though it´s been three years since the LORD revealed it. And I thought I was doing a pretty good job at it while I was in the States. But then I moved to South America, and the LORD showed me just how far I had to go to become the kind of leader He wants me to be.

When I got to know the women (pictured above) who now comprise my team, I began to struggle with being their leader. I mean, REALLY struggling. Because I realized that I had always tried to lead in a different way than Jesus taught and, after 20-plus years of that, trying to conform to a Biblical model was just flat-out HARD.

But I continue to learn daily how He wants me to lead, and I pray that He uses my life and my feeble efforts to bring Himself increasing glory. Here are a few of the lessons I am learning:

1. My primary responsibility to those I lead is to serve them.

"Jesus called them together and said, ´You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.´" (Mk. 10:42-45)

I have always had authority by virtue of a title - manager, pharmacist, teacher. Even here, my title of "team leader" gives me authority, and the LORD showed me how I was lording that authority over my team, demanding their obedience with my words and not with my actions.

But Jesus´ approach was entirely different:

"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples´ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him... When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ´Do you understand what I have done for you?´ he asked them. ´You call me "Teacher" and "Lord," and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another´s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.´" (Jn. 13:3-5, 12-15)

The very God of all creation washed the dirty feet of twelve nobodies. Why? To set them an example. If I want my team members to obey what I ask of them, I must serve them. I must first be slave of all.

2. Being a leader does not mean being perfect.

I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but just hear me out. How many of you have put on an act when you went to a church service? Seriously, haven´t we all? I remember so many days when I drove home after being with the church, and I was just exhausted from my Miss Perfect Christian act. I mean, I was a Sunday School teacher. I HAD to be perfect, or I might lead someone in my class astray.

Then I moved here, and I lived with these women on my team... in the jungle... 24/7... for months. There was no hiding the fact that I wasn´t perfect.

But do you know what happened? I began to realize that being honest with them about my struggles gave me a level of accountability that forced me to submit to the LORD´s work in those sinful areas of my life. And that ultimately made me a better leader... and closer to that perfect believer I had always pretended to be.

"We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ." (Col. 1:28)

3. Every member of the body truly needs every other member.

"Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." (Rom. 12:4-5)

Just because I´ve been given a title of "team leader" does not mean I´m more important, and it doesn´t mean that I should never follow the example of the young women on my team. Just because I have the spiritual gift of teaching does not mean I have all the answers or that I can learn nothing from the others.

"But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be." (1 Cor. 12:18)

God has designed our team exactly as He wanted it, and each of us needs all the others in order to complete what God has called us to do. If I could just get over myself and realize how desperately I need the others, we´d all be a lot better off.

I hope these lessons I´m learning will be beneficial to you as well. Do you realize you´ve also been given the command to obey and to teach others to do the same? We call it the Great Commission.

"´Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surey I am with you always, to the very end of the age.´" (Matt. 28:19-20)