I was always groomed to be a leader. My parents, and even my older siblings, set me up into positions where I could shine. The encouragement was subtle, but unmistakable. In fifth grade, lacking a formal student council and class officers, a few of my friends concocted an election to choose our class President. Out of some 100 total votes, I got all but about a dozen, that were scattered among three other candidates.
My Dad always stressed how his generation needed to prepare to get out of the way for future leaders. He would say this with a twinkle in his eye and a nod my way. Friends and family would tend to defer to my ideas for what we should do next. In a church planting scenario, I was the default visionary. As my prior post indicates, everybody encouraged me to become a minister. My teachers thought I should teach. People here and there knew I would get into politics one day, and probably do very well.
At a church camp in the early 1990s, the program almost fell apart over a personal rift between the Camp Master and most of the staff. The Camp Master threatened to walk away from the camp at mid-week. I was recruited to go talk to him. As he jabbed a finger in my chest and recounted all the ways he had been disrespected and mistreated, I stood my ground and got him to a prayer circle with the rest of the staff. I woke them all up at 2AM and the camp finished on a positive note.
In social situations that made others nervous and awkward, everybody could always count on me to provide cover until they got more comfortable.
With all this confidence that has been placed in me, I could never understand why it all would fall apart at the slightest, most ridiculous things. The net effect has been for me to freeze at critical points in my life. Made by God to be a risk-taker and innovator, I was repeatedly and predictably pounded down at junctures in my life that required steadiness and confidence. By the time I was 30, I was no longer the bold leader I had been before.
Take TVs.
I was a leader in a church planting project in the 1980s. We would meet at each other's homes.
One morning, I was slated to be the speaker (or "preacher"). A family with pre-school aged children showed up early, and the kids went right in and turned the TV on, to cartoons. Now, this was Sunday morning, and I was in an adjoining room praying and preparing. I asked an elder if he could have them turn the TV off. Before I could finish my sentence, this leader in the church said "Why do you have to be so . . . ", except, in my memory, I don't remember how he finished that sentence. But the emotions I felt by mid-sentence are as clear to me now, as then.
Moments later, I approached this same leader, and said "I have been asked to preach. Shouldn't there be some respect for my needs? Shouldn't I be allowed to prepare in whatever way suits me best? And can't I do this without being second-guessed?" Or - I said words to that effect.
This elder went away, and soon I heard him turning off the TV, and saying to the kids that we needed to have things quiet, since we were about to have church. Now, this should have been done in the first place - but by now the damage had been done. The fact that it is still clear in my memory should indicate that it was no small matter to me then, or now.
A similar thing, involving TVs, has happened this past week. I cannot go into details - but once again my desire, or vision, if you will, for establishing the right environment within a church or family setting has been called into question, and the main object is, once again, a television.
I wonder how many men and women have left the ministry, or the church entirely, because people do not know how to let leaders grow, develop, and finally, lead? You can't be all excited about someone's leadership potential, and then when the time comes for him or her to lead, make jokes or insult the person's intelligence.
Don't let a television get in the way of some leader's forward movement.
Some day I will write about some other scenarios in which prospective leaders (or better yet, servants) were insulted into staying away from church work altogether: The Church camp kitchen incident; a parent's crying fit when faced with an adult child wanting to go away to college; the newlywed that was so jealous of her husband's church friends, that she underminded their devotional and prayer times. And maybe someday, others will actually read these blogs and share their own stories.
Important? Well, that's how people made me feel. But they were the first to turn on me when I actually began to lead.
But to God, I stayed, always, important - but for entirely different reasons.
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