A Manual of Twelve Lessons for Emerging Church Leaders

SESSION 2 – AREAS OF PRACTICAL SUITABILITY AND GIFTS

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” NIV® 2 Tim. 2:15

INTRODUCTION

We need to understand what sort of things can cause us to fail, so that we can truly learn from our failures. We may ask ourselves, “Why is it that I am not being successful when I am as good as anyone else as a person and as a Christian?”

We need to approach this whole matter of being unsuccessful to some extent impersonally. I have dealt elsewhere with God’s will and our calling to church leadership. (See Lesson 1, ‘The servant Leader’, p.3; also Lesson 6, Ancillary Paper 2, ‘The Will of God’. This is available for free download - see Contents page for details.)

There are of course ‘spiritual’ and ‘moral’ issues involved.

However it is not just a matter of how spiritual or loving or humble we are.

There is a lot more involved than just about our holiness and our Christian character. This is why we have had a lesson on, ‘Understanding People’ and in that lesson a bit of personality testing and understanding.

We need to better understand ourselves, our personality, also our gifts and abilities. These gifts and abilities are God given along with our unique personality, parentage, upbringing and education or the lack of it.

So let us look at some of these matters concerning our practical suitability to be in leadership.

1. The wrong job, for that person

This is where the job of leadership has been thrust upon the person concerned. They are not a leader, do not feel or believe the call to leadership and are reluctant to do it.

Therefore they are unable to lead properly because they do not know how to do it.

They have had no training and do not feel sufficiently adequate for the task.

They are struggling to fulfil a job God has not meant for them to have.

It is the call of God to leadership that is the most important point.

Has God called you or not? That is the crucial question.

It is not so much a question of ‘Am I a suitable person?’ But, ‘Am I called?’ Only when you have answered this question can you continue in leadership ministry. I have come across at least three cases where the man concerned says that he is called by God to that particular church ministry. But he continues quite unsuccessfully, struggles to achieve, and is obviously unsuitable by temperament, education or background and is blind to his unsuitability. These people refused to be counselled or advised and doggedly continue to lead a small flock. There is no great expectation of blessing, only a determined ‘faithfulness’ to the perceived ‘call of God’, no matter what anyone else says. In the end such a people are a master to themselves alone. I do not believe this can possibly be right. I see the main problems are: a lack of self understanding; a refusal to test guidance in the body of Christ, for the fear of a negative assessment; and a deep seated stubborn pride overlaid with false spirituality.