Near and Far Faith

I think any good leader has the ability to see the leadership vacuum before others - it's a place where there's an overwhelming need for direction. Leaders see the urgency in failure with plugging the vacuum with talented leadership. Ok, sometimes it's not talented, it's just leadership.

That leads to this problem: without the right leadership, the vacuum will suck the wrong leader down. For many of us, that means patience, and patience means watching failure happen. That means working behind the scenes to properly equip the right leader, and being out of the spotlight. For many leaders to exemplify self-control is most tested in an environment of failure. We are fixers, to one extent or another. There are a 2 main issues that jumping into the vacuum will cause.

1. Our Pride - Left unchecked, we fix things for the glory of others attention. It's a fine line between leadership and arrogance and before you know you've fixed everything. It's leaking and sticky because of your sloppiness and it won't last long but "TAADAAAA! I... me... big man... have fixed all of your problems! Bow at my experienced and strong feet!" It snow balls from there. We've all met the control-freak pastor who has to have everything perfect - it's so everything that points to him is awesome. Careful. That guy ends up lonely and leading no one, but constantly trying to prove himself to others.

2. No one else grows - The bigger problem, in my opinion, is that when we as leaders jump into the vacuum, we take experience away from any number of individuals or groups that could have learned the skills and, most of the time, been better at it than us. In the church, we are constantly in a struggle for volunteer assistance. Not just us, but I'd imagine that there aren't many churches out there who would say "Stop trying to volunteer! We have too many of you!" The reason is related to, in some way, leaders jumping into the vacuum. If you're in ministry, you've heard that old stat that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. That's because we often don't have the patience to train others. Training means developing a program to train others that works. It means being willing to let people go elsewhere (or even encouraging them to) when they discover that their gifts don't suit that ministry. That training program is a killer. Here's the one tip I have learned - start with the result and work backwards.

The bottom line is that many of us leaders need to watch the plane go down in flames instead of trying to fly the entire thing ourselves. If your ministry or job is based on you and not the vision, you're too important.