Leader Is Not A Title

So much is said about leadership these days. Leadership is influence. Leaders have passion. You lead by example. For the most part, I agree with all of these points. People talk about the great responsibility that comes with leadership. I agree with that as well. So it confused me that when I recently stepped down from leadership for a season, I found that my walk with the Lord became more difficult.

My Church

Leading As A Son

I am humbled that for the past 3 years, I have been a part of one of the most amazing churches I’ve ever experienced. When the church was planted 7 years ago, the vision was that small groups would be the focus of the church. God gave the leaders a vision for relational and intimate community. Small groups are nothing new, but the vision was to implement small groups on Sunday mornings, thus ensuring all who were a part of the church would be in these intimate settings. It grew from 1 or 2 “Home Fellowships” as we call them, to 11 today. It is a powerful way to walk out your relationship with the Lord in an intentional community.

Because of the format, each home fellowship has a number of leaders involved. We have a leader which facilitates the group, an assistant leader, a worship leader, an administrator and a children’s church coordinator. Multiply that by 11 groups and you have a large number of leaders involved in just the home fellowship setting on Sunday mornings.  We have a time of worship, body ministry, teaching, communion and fellowship as we eat a meal together.

To prevent burnout, our home fellowships rotate on 5 month intervals. We have a transition month where we meet at our ministry center, then begin a new semester. This gives an opportunity for those that host in their homes to have a break. Leaders can have a short break for the month or opt to take a break for the next semester. All this ensures that there is ample opportunity for others to get involved in leadership and to prevent burnout from any one person.  After leading for the past 2 years, I have decided to take a break.

“Getting Fed”

Before becoming involved in leadership, my experience at church was largely determined by the pastor. If he was an exhorter, I would always walk away encouraged. If he was a teacher, I would walk away with more knowledge. If he was neither or didn’t do either well enough, I would complain that I wasn’t getting fed.

As a leader, I had to learn to feed myself. I love to read and I love to learn so by nature, I love to teach. God has put this passion in my heart and He has given me many opportunities to exercise my gift. As a teacher, I learned to always prepared. When preparing to teach a lesson for a home fellowship meeting, I would spend hours reading a passage of scripture. I’d explore the historical context and examine the original Hebrew or Greek words in the text to pull out as much insight as possible.

As a home fellowship leader I was also aware of the spiritual climate of the meeting. I always came into the meeting “prayed up” and ready to hear from the Holy Spirit. During ministry time, I had to be ready to pray over someone with a need or hear from the Lord to see what He wanted to do that particular day. In short, I was always ready because I spent the time preparing for the meeting.

Stepping Down

This may be the first time I’ve ever stepped down from a leadership position where I wasn’t burned out. After leading for 2 years, I felt like the Lord was giving me the green light to take a break and to take more time to focus on some of the dreams in my heart (like writing).

I just finished leading a great group. I’d been growing in leaps and bounds and my walk was stronger than ever. However a few weeks after I stepped down, I got extremely dry. I found that I wasn’t in the Word at all and my prayer life was marginal at best. I found my words and conversations were more unfiltered than usual. What just happened??

Just as I was hitting a really low point, I took off on a 2-week tour to Israel with my church. During the trip, God met me in such a way that my whole perspective changed. He opened my eyes to how much I strive and how much I try to do things in my own strength. I learned a lot of lessons while out there but mostly, how to just be a son (Eph. 1:5).

Leading As A Son

As I reflect on what the Lord is teaching me, I realize more and more that “Leader” is not a title. A leader is who you are. I don’t have to wear the title “Home Fellowship Leader” to be a leader in my community. I don’t have to have the title “Pastor” in my signature to be able to love and care for the people in my community.

The Lord is teaching me that He wants me to be in His word and pray, not for others but for Him. He just wants to spend time with me. Not so I can make myself look exceptionally intelligent. Not to wow people with how well I know the Word or how eloquently I can pray. He wants to spend time with me because I am His son. And because I am a son, the overflow of my relationship with Him will naturally lead to me pouring that into the lives of others.

I don’t pretend to have it mastered, but I’m so thankful for the revelation of His love in this season of my life.  I now realize that I am a leader because that is my identity as a son. I can lead because He leads me. I can influence because I will point people to Him and not myself. I have passion because His love burns in my heart. I lead by example because I want to look like Christ and not because that is the expectation of others.  Walking in that truth brings freedom to so many areas of my life.

To all the leaders with position, I pray that God reveals to you that you are a leader because your position is determined first in Christ (Eph 2:6).