Week #1 Thursday Report

Thursday 1/15
Kinds of Leadership

What is leadership? The first things that come to my mind when asked that question are; creating a vision and then casting that vision onto others around you to help you carry out that vision. Leadership involves making the impossible seem possible. Leadership evolves out of a need that is not being met, or it comes from oppression, but it can also come from the fear that things will not run as smoothly as we would like for them to if we do not step in and lead.
Leadership in the Bible was an interesting thing. What makes it most interesting to me is that it was never done perfectly (except with Jesus) and there was no set “rules” that made those particular leaders exactly that. The following are my thoughts on different kinds of leadership based on different people throughout Biblical History.
-Adam – Adam was a pioneer leader. Being the first man, he was heading out into uncharted territory as an explorer. He was put in charge by God to name the animals, be fruitful and don’t eat from that tree. The interesting thing about Adam’s leadership is that it came completely from God. But Adam was a leader who screwed up, big time. The worst leadership mistake of all time came from Adam even though God told him distinctly what to do.
Jesus – The perfect example of a leader. Lead by serving. Jesus was such a good leader for this reason; he was God. No one else could do it better because they lacked that quality which made it difficult to lead perfectly.
The interesting thing about leading in the Bible is that there were a lot of good leaders in there, but they all screwed it up somehow. I don’t know if it is necessary to go into any more detail than the first leader and the perfect leader. All the leaders in the Bible are given visions from God and then they did their best as humanly possible to complete those visions. They all screwed up somewhere along the road.
If you want to know how to lead a people to one goal, don’t look at Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David, Barnabas, or Paul. Look at Jesus.
In all of these people I see the same characteristics; they all loved the Lord and tried their hardest to live it out. Another characteristic of the Biblical leader was diversity. They all did it a little different. But why did they do it differently? I believe they all did it differently because they were all different people leading as best they could in the only way they knew how.
If you want to learn a lesson from the life of the Biblical Forefathers then all you need to know is this; keep focused on the Lord and when you screw it up, don’t stop.
When you apply that idea to the way Jesus led (with humility and leading by serving) then you have a pretty solid leadership style.