Leadership. There is probably a leadership conference every weekend and enough books about leadership to build a life-sized paper mache replica of New York City. Ever since there have been two people on this earth, there has been leadership. But don’t worry, I am not about to begin long academic discourse on the question of “what is leadership?” But, with any pervasive topic such as this, we need a clear picture of what it truly means to lead.

Descend
Whenever I’m in need of an example, I tend to look at Jesus. He seems like He always knows what He is doing. I’ve noticed this startling trend in Jesus’ life. He really likes to make himself lower. It was kind of His thing. First, He went from chilling in the warm loving presence of His Father to becoming a human. Why would anyone want to do that!? That’s like if I went from human to one of those nasty centipede things that scurry out of your sink drain. That just sounds miserable. But not only did He go from God to human, he went from human to a meager human. He didn’t land into a nice palace that imitated His life in heaven. He wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t born into the lap of luxury. He didn’t even wait till the iPhone 5 came out. NOPE. He become a little baby who poops his pants, then an awkward teenager with acne, then a boring carpenter for over a decade, only to come around and lead a posse of losers. BUT, not only did He descend to a meager human, but He descended to the servant of this less than prestigious group of men. BUTTTTTT, not only did He become a servant of meager humans, He became a servant willing to die the most gruesome and humiliating form of death known at the time. Talk about riches to rags, people. And yet this is the image of our all powerful leader?

If Jesus, the leader of everything in, above, below, near and far from Earth, chose this method of operation, what does that means for us? Well, Jesus made it simple for us: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” So if we want to lead like the greatest leader, then we will have to descend as Jesus descended. Once again, Jesus did what Jesus does best: take this world’s standards and flip them upside down. This suggests that higher levels of leadership require higher amounts of service and sacrifice. As the leader of the leaders of the leaders at CSF, Brian Marshall, says: “The more we climb the ladder of leadership, the more rights we have to give up along the way.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds painful.

Sometimes I like to get my name out there. Sometimes I like to advance myself as far as I can. Sometimes I want to be the best that I can be. It’s kind of nice when people know your name and have generally good feelings when they think about you. But when I try to advance myself, I am acting like the enemy. Satan is all about clawing his way up and grabbing every sort of power he can. If I truly want to lead, then all my efforts to advance myself must cease. God must become greater; I must become less. We trick ourselves when we think that the leaders above us have it easier or more luxurious.

Lead with love
Jesus took a group of men and He led out of love. He genuinely cared about the state of his disciple’s hearts, not their results. He forgave them for their idiocy. He took time—a LOT of time—to explain what He was talking about and doing. He was firm against injustice and graceful with transgressions. By all accounts and measures, Jesus loved first and led second. If we want to lead people, we have to love the people we are leading. As a leader, we should desire our followers to become even greater leaders then we are. As a follower, we should make our leader’s job as easy as possible. As a disciple, we should make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

When Jesus wanted to teach truth, he used love as a foundation for the truth to land. In essence, truth cannot travel faster than love. Maybe that’s why we get so upset with the guys yelling in the student center courtyard with that sign that lists every sort of generalization from hipster to Hitler on it. They have the weirdest love language I’ve ever seen. When you try to force truth on an unloved heart, it simply will not land. Just as a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down, a full measure of love makes the truth get found.

Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy
So what does a leader’s life look like? When I purvey some of my favorite leaders, I’ve noticed that they always have someone they learn from, someone they learn with, and someone they help learn.

In our life, we need someone like Paul: someone wiser that will spend significant amounts of energy interjecting wisdom into our life. Typically, our Paul has been through a lot more life than we have. Our Paul can be a local pastor willing to meet with us, an older friend, or even a parent. Regardless, all of us need someone in our life who is intentionally pouring knowledge and grace into our life with wisdom and experience that we have not found yet. In order to lead others, we need someone to lead us; first Jesus, then people who are more like Jesus than we are. Jesus is the shepherd, and we are all following Him. However, some are closer to Him in the herd and some are farther back. It does us well to follow those who are closer to Him. If we do, we’ll always be heading in the right direction and we can always avoid the bumps in the road ahead that the other sheep are walking around.

 In our life, we need someone like Barnabas: someone like the “son of encouragement”, to do life with us and encourage us through challenges. Typically, our Barnabas is our best friend. My ‘Barnabas’ and I are on the same level spiritually and emotionally. We talk often about life and share deep moments with each other. Your Barnabas is the person that helps you process in conversation. You serve each other equally and you encourage each other greatly. They are the Jonathan to your David, the Keenen to your Kel, the JD to your Turk, the <enter pop culture reference of best friends here>. We all need Barnabases (Barnabi?) in our life.

We need someone like Timothy: someone we are investing our life into and growing to be greater than us. This is the essence of our ministry. If we don’t have people that we are investing our life, our wisdom, our time, our friendship, and our money into, then we won’t grow and we won’t extend hope in a lost world. Teaching others about Jesus automatically brings you to a new level with Jesus. They say impersonation is the sincerest form of flattery, so showing Jesus to those who don’t know him as well can be our sincerest form of worship. God fills us up so that we may be poured out. The Holy Spirit is not a lake, it’s a river. God’s love flows through us, from our Timothy all the way up to our Paul.

To Lead is to Follow

“Spiritual Leadership is not the ability to know everything that the future holds. It is the willingness to move forward when all we know is God.”

Jesus gave us the model of leadership, and more importantly, the model of love. Leading is not about imposing our will on those dumb enough to follow us. Rather, leadership is about giving up our rights and serving others in an attempt to bring them to the same level as us and beyond. Leaders aren’t those who know the most, but rather, those who know God the most. How do we advance ourselves higher in the kingdom of God? We become last in this world. If the first shall be last, the greatest leaders in this world will be the greatest lovers, for the very essence of love is self-sacrifice.

I’m sorry Ricky Bobby, but in the Kingdom of God, if you’re first, you’re last.