The Marks of a Spiritual Leader is another outstanding article by John Piper. There is much meat there, here are just some of the quotes that stood out to me:
“All true spiritual leadership has its roots in desperation….
Spiritual leaders have a holy discontentment with the status quo. Non-leaders have inertia that causes them to settle in and makes them very hard to move off of dead center. Leaders have a hankering to change, to move, to reach out, to grow, and to take a group or an institution to new dimensions of ministry. They have the spirit of Paul, who said in Phil. 3:13, “Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Leaders are always very goal-oriented people….
God’s history of redemption is not finished. The church is shot through with imperfections, lost sheep are still not in the fold, needs of every sort in the world are unmet, sin infects the saints. It is unthinkable that we should be content with things the way they are in a fallen world and an imperfect church. Therefore, God has been pleased to put a holy restlessness into some of his people, and those people will very likely be the leaders….
Spiritual leaders are optimistic not because man is good but because God is in control. The leader must not let his discontentment become disconsolation…….Without this confidence based upon the goodness of God manifested in Jesus Christ the leader’s perseverance would falter and the people would not be inspired. Without optimism restlessness becomes despair…..
* A good teacher asks himself the hardest questions, works through to answers, and then frames provocative questions for his learners to stimulate their thinking.
* A good teacher analyzes his subject matter into parts and sees relationships and discovers the unity of the whole.
* A good teacher knows the problems learners will have with his subject matter and encourages them and gets them over the humps of discouragement.
* A good teacher foresees objections and thinks them through so that he can
answer them intelligently.
* A good teacher can put himself in the place of a variety of learners and therefore explain hard things in terms that are clear from their standpoint.
* A good teacher is concrete, not abstract, specific, not general, precise, not vague, vulnerable, not evasive.
* A good teacher always asks, “So what?” and tries to see how discoveries shape our whole system of thought. He tries to relate discoveries to life and tries to avoid compartmentalizing.
* The goal of a good teacher is the transformation of all of life and thought into a Christ-honoring unity……..
Leaders can see the power of God overshadowing the problems of the future. This is a rare gift to see the sovereign power of God in the midst of seemingly overwhelming opposition. Most people are experts at seeing all the problems and reasons not to move forward in a venture. Many pastors are ruined by boards who think that they have done their duty when they throw up every obstacle and problem to an idea that he brings. That’s cheap. Hope and solutions are expensive. The spirit of venturesomeness is at a premium today. 0, how we need people who will devote just five minutes a week to dream of what might possibly be. The text says that old men will dream dreams. How sad it is, then, to see so many old people assuming that their age means that now they can coast and turn over the creativity to the young. It is tragic when age makes a man jaded instead of increasingly creative. Every new church, every agency, every new ministry, every institution, every endeavor, is the result of someone having a vision and laying hold on it like a snapping turtle…….
What does it profit a man if he gains a great following and lose his wife? What have we led people to if they see that it leads us to divorce? What we need today are leaders who are great lovers. Husbands who write poems for their wives and sing songs to their wives and buy flowers for their wives for no reason at all except that they love them. We need leaders who know that they should take a day alone with their wives every now and then; leaders who do not fall into the habit of deriding and putting their wives down, especially with careless little asides in public; leaders who speak well of their wives in public and complement them spontaneously when they are alone; leaders who touch her tenderly at other times besides when they are in bed…..alk with her and study her desires. Look her in the eye when you talk to her. Put down the paper and turn off the television. Open the door for her. Help her with the dishes. Throw her a party. LOVE HER! LOVE HER! If you don’t, all your success as a leader will very likely explode in failure at home……
All genuine leadership begins in a sense of desperation; knowledge that we are helpless sinners in need of a great savior. That moves us to listen to God in his Word and cry out to him for help and for insight in prayer. That leads us to trust in God and to hope in his great and precious promises. This frees us for a life of love and service which, in the end, causes people to see and give glory to our Father in heaven.
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