Biblical Leadership: Series End, Reflections

This past week, we finished up our summer sermon series on biblical leadership.  We finally landed the plane on a definition of biblical leadership: Biblical leadership, the calling of all Jesus-followers, is humble and communal, carried forth by servants and stewards.

We then took time to think about the four main parts of that definition and how we can connect them both to the Bible and to our lives: humble, communal, servants, stewards.  Everyone got a four-part grid and was encouraged to fill in their own ideas.  I mentioned that I'd be sharing my ideas about each component of biblical leadership, and that's what I've posted below.

Humble: based on Jason’s sermon last week, Barnabus rose to the top of my list of humble leaders.  And remember – one of our big themes this summer is that the gospel is first and foremost humility.  Because Jesus has done everything for us, we can take no credit and comfortably enjoy a humble position before the Lord and others.  Personally, Jim Singleton is one of the most humble leaders I’ve ever known.

Communal: At Wednesday Bible study, someone mentioned that Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 is a huge example of communal (community-focused) leadership.  I couldn’t agree more.  At the personal level, a family here at FPC continues to lead our community in feeding hungry kids through the KidsAid backpack program.  That’s a community-focused initiative which always needs supplies and volunteers.  Contact Debe Colby (outreach@firstpresgj.org) if you want to help.

Stewards: A friend of mine told me this week that Joseph is a great example of biblical stewardship.  When God warned Joseph in a dream about the coming famine in Egypt, he stockpiled food not just for himself but for the whole nation.  Back to the personal – the gospel is joyful generosity, and this approach to giving has been modeled to me throughout my life by my parents.  They give and give with joy and marvel at what God does through their giving.

Servants: One of the biblical leaders we discussed in this part of the sermon series was John the Baptist.  Do you remember what the angel told John’s dad his mission would be?  Make ready a people prepared for the Lord.  No glorious parades for John or accolades or bestselling books on leadership.  He was a servant of the Messiah, and his leadership set the standard for all the New Testament leaders who followed.  I thought of Mike Stahl from Hilltop, one of the community leaders we honored this summer, and the great question he asks his staff: “What’s one thing I can do for you today to make your job better tomorrow?”  A servant leader asks that question and follows through with the answer, and I’m so glad Mike shared that insight with us.

I hope these insights are helpful, and I hope that the journey of leadership continues for all of us.

Solo Dei gloria,

Travis