This is a follow up to a post I wrote about church, that can be found here: http://lonny90.blogspot.com/2021/05/what-bible-really-says-about-leadership.html To date, that has been the most popular post on this blog, and has generated some interesting discussions with friends. I am thankful for those discussions, because, although I express myself a lot, I am still learning like everyone else.
One of the biggest pinch points in the previous blog was about leadership, if hierarchy is bad, what is leadership without it? Where can you see it? What does it look like? This entry seeks to reframe that question. What if the change does not need to be happening only with the leadership itself, but also in the way people following these leaders behave? My point is this, are laity, or more specifically, Christians who are not leaders, supposed to be servants or disciples in terms of their relationship to these leaders?
Servants: In scripture it usually means, a slave, or a child who works for you, or someone who serves as a minister, like a waiter or waitress to a king. In today's western world, thankfully, slavery no longer happens, and so the closest analogy I can think of is the employee employer relationship. For me, this is interesting, because, believe it or not, as of now, I don't make money writing. So, my dad is also my boss, or employer, at work, I have an awareness that he owns my time. At work, it is the same relationship that employees should have with employers in every good work environment, I am selling my time to him, and so while I am at my place of work, I carry out his wishes, and operate more or less as representative pursuing the best interests of his company. On the day I no longer want to do this, I quit, that is almost all the say I deserve to have in this matter. This is servanthood.
Disciples: A disciple is a learner, or a pupil. Someone who learns from his master. When my dad and I are not working, weather in a slow time at work or outside of a business context, our relationship changes, we are father and son, I am an adult, so I am not compelled to blindly obey him, but I do or I should learn from his wisdom. He is now one of several older men who I call on for advice in various situations. On the day that I no longer want to learn from an older man, I don't have to, they don't have that control over me, there is not a matter of me having to cut ties with their operation, my time or anything about me is not owned by them. It is my loss, if I leave their counsel.
I submit to you, based on the examples of Christ, and the first apostles in history, that in the spiritual realm, we should be disciples to our leaders and not servants or slaves, if I am wrong, I value your input in this, if we agree, keep reading.
So, we have a hill to climb, we will call this hill the Christian journey on earth, and our finish line is that precise point when the Lord calls us from this earth and into the next phase of our eternal existence. You are climbing this hill, and you see beside you, in front of you, and behind you, others climbing this hill. This is your church family. If you don't like the people you find yourself climbing with, you can move to a different part of the hill and climb with a different family. Be careful though, in doing this, you may go backwards, always talk to the Lord about where he would have you going forward. Move to a different group, if it helps you go forward. With no defined finish point that you can see, why go forward? Because the Lord is in you, and drawing you, and so He is carrying you forward, closer and closer to the heavenly realms in all things, and as you go higher, and higher, you leave behind the earthly things that have wrapped themselves around you. If the Lord is really speaking to you, and your are really speaking to him, perhaps you find yourself pulling alongside your leader. This is where the shoe pinches.
If you are climbing this hill with the mentality of a servant, you walk in the footsteps of your leader, and you repeat the things he says. You advance when he advances, you detour when he detours. If you are climbing with the mentality of a disciple, you learn from all the things passed down to you from leaders above you, and you learn from the Lord in you and above you. You climb faster and faster, not because of you, but because of the Lord. When the things you have learned and the things your leader has taught, combine in you to bring you beside your leader on the hill, you will learn if your leader thinks of you as a servant or as a disciple. If he sees you as a servant, he will label you as a rebel, or in redneck parlance, "he's gittin to big for his britches." If this happens, and you are truly alongside in the climb, the only thing I can think of is to treat him with utmost kindness and very graciously, without a single unkind word, thought, or deed, distance yourself and walk alongside someone else. If you find your leader speaking harshly to you, could it be you are still following him and are throwing knives in his back? If so, you have some repenting to do... If your leader does see you as a disciple, when you come alongside, he will give you a baton, it may come in the form of a blessing, a commissioning, or simply a general sense of permission to carry on, even if it means going above him. Always respect those who have gone before, even when you find yourself working beside them in some areas, realize, that they may still be ahead in other areas. Because this climb happens in your soul, and it is extremely rare that your Godly virtues all climb at the same rate.
In conclusion, I believe, it is not leadership that is the entire problem in the church of today, but, the non-leaders. You are disciples, disciples serve, because their master Jesus Christ served. Servant is not your identity, by servant, I mean slave. God bless you, as you allow Him to move your soul from a position of oppressed slavery, to a position of obedient discipleship. We are ultimately all disciples under Jesus Christ, even the leaders are.
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