THE MARKS OF A

SPIRITUAL LEADER

JOHN PIPER

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INTRODUCTION

I define spiritual leadership as knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative

to use God’s methods to get them there in reliance

on God’s power. The answer to where God wants

people to be is in a spiritual condition and lifestyle that display his glory and honor his name.

Therefore, the goal of spiritual leadership is that people come to know God and to glorify him in all

that they do. Spiritual leadership is aimed not so

much at directing people as it is at changing people.

If we would be the kind of leaders we ought to be,

we must make it our aim to develop persons rather

than dictate plans. You can get people to do what

you want, but if they don’t change in their heart you have not led them spiritually. You have not taken

them to where God wants them to be.

Everyone has the responsibility of leadership in

some relationships. But my concern in this booklet

is with the characteristics that a person must have in 3

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order to be a spiritual leader who excels both in the quality of his direction and the numbers of people

who follow him.

Biblical spiritual leadership contains an inner

circle and an outer circle. The inner circle of spiritual leadership is that sequence of events in the human

soul that must happen if anyone is to take the first step in spiritual leadership. These are the absolute bare essentials. They are things that all Christians must attain in some degree, and when they are attained with high fervor and deep conviction they

very often lead one into strong leadership. In the

outer circle are qualities that characterize both spiritual and non-spiritual leaders.

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1. THAT OTHERS WILL GLORIFY GOD

The ultimate goal of all spiritual leadership is that other people might come to glorify God, that is,

might so feel and think and act as to magnify the

true character of God. According to Matthew 5:14–

16, one of the crucial means by which a Christian

leader brings other people to glorify God is by being a person who loves both friend and foe. “You are

the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. ” This text shows that there is an attitude and lifestyle that is so distinctive that when it appears in the arena of fallen humanity, it gives valid evidence that there is a God, and he is a gloriously trustworthy heavenly Father.

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When the reality of God’s promises to take care

of us, and to work everything together for our good, grips our hearts so that we do not fall prey to greed or fear or vainglory, but rather manifest a contentment and a love and a freedom for other people,

then the world will have to admit that the one who

gives us hope and freedom must be real and glorious.

2. LOVE BOTH FRIEND AND FOE BY TRUSTING

IN GOD AND HOPING IN HIS PROMISES

But how shall we attain to a love that is strong

enough to bless and pray for its enemies? The answer given in Scripture (and this is the third level in the inner circle) is that trust in God and hope in his

promises leads to love.

Galatians 5:6 says, “For in Christ Jesus neither

circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for any-

thing, but only faith working through love.” That is, when we have strong faith in the goodness of God it inevitably works itself out in love.

Colossians 1:4–5 says, “Since we heard of your

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faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” In other words, when our hope is strong we are freed from fears and cares that prevent the free exercises of love.

Therefore, a spiritual leader must be a person

who has strong confidence in the sovereign goodness of God to work everything together for his good.

Otherwise, he will inevitably fall into the trap of manipulating circumstances and exploiting people

in order to secure for himself a happy future which he is not certain God will provide.

3. MEDITATE ON AND PRAY OVER HIS WORD

But how shall we sinners come to have this

kind of confidence in God? Romans 10:17 says,

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through

the word of Christ.” And Psalm 119:18 says, “Open

my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out

of your law.” These two texts together show us that faith in God is rooted in God’s word. When we hear

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God’s word, especially the preaching of the person

and work of Jesus, in whom all the promises of God

have their yes, we are moved to trust him.

But this does not happen automatically. We

must pray that our eyes be open to the true sig-

nificance of the word of God in Scripture. So, the

spiritual leader must be a person who meditates on

the Scriptures and prays for spiritual illumination.

Otherwise, his faith will grow weak and his love will languish, and no one will be moved to glorify God

because of him.

4. ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR HELPLESSNESS

But finally, we must ask: how does a person come

to be willing to spend time with and be open to the word of God? The answer seems to be that we must

acknowledge our helplessness. All true spiritual leadership has its roots in desperation. Jesus commended the man who said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Jesus said of his own ministry,

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but 8

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those who are sick. I have not come to call the righ-teous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32).

This means that the beginning of spiritual leadership must be in the acknowledgement that we are the sick who need a physician.

Once we are humbled to the point of despera-

tion, we will be open to reading the doctor’s pre-

scription. And as we read the wonderful promises

that are there for those of us who trust the doctor, our faith will grow strong and our hope will become solid. And when our faith is strong and our hope is solid all the barriers to love, like greed and fear, will be swept away. When we become the kind of people

who can risk our lives, even for our enemies, and

who don’t hold grudges and who devote our ener-

gies to do others good rather than seeking our own

aggrandizement, then people will see and give glory to our father in heaven.

The implication of this inner circle of leadership

is that in order to lead you have to be out ahead

of your people in Bible study and prayer. I think

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there will be no successful spiritual leadership without extended seasons of prayer and meditation on

the Scriptures. Spiritual leaders ought to rise early in order to meet God before they meet anybody

else. They will probably want to keep a journal of

insights and ideas as they read the Bible and pray.

They will want to read books about the Bible and

about prayer. They will want to take a periodic half-day or daylong retreat with a Bible and a notebook

and a hymnbook. If you want to be a great leader of people, you have to get away from people at times

to be with God.

HUDSON TAYLOR’S EXAMPLE

Dr. Howard Taylor, in Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, describes an experience that he had traveling with his father, Hudson Taylor, through China. He

writes,

It was not easy for Mr. Taylor, in his change-

ful life, to make time for prayer and Bible

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study, but he knew that it was vital. Well do

the writers remember traveling with him

month after month in northern China, by

cart and wheelbarrow, with the poorest of inns

at night. Often with only one large room for

coolies and travelers alike, they would screen

off a corner for their father and another for

themselves, with curtains of some sort; and

then, after sleep at last had brought a mea-

sure of quiet, they would hear a match struck

and seek the flicker of candlelight which

told that Mr. Taylor, however weary, was

pouring over the little Bible in two volumes al-

ways at hand. From two to four A.M. was the

time he usually gave to prayer; the time when

he could be most sure of being undisturbed to

wait upon God. That flicker of candlelight has

meant more to them than all they have read

or heard on secret prayer; it meant reality, not

preaching but practice.

The hardest part of the missionary

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career, Mr. Taylor found, is to maintain regu-

lar, prayerful Bible study. “Satan will always

find you something to do,” he would say,

“when you ought to be occupied about that, if

it is only arranging a window blind.”

GEORGE MUELLER’S EXAMPLE

George Mueller is noteworthy for his great faith in the work of his orphanages. In his autobiography,

he has a section entitled, “How to be Constantly

Happy in the Lord.” He complains how for years he

used to try to pray early in the morning and found

that his mind wandered again and again. Then he

made a discovery. He records it like this:

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever

that the first great and primary business to

which I ought to attend every day was to have

my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to

be concerned about was not how much I might

serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord;

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but how I might get my soul into a happy state,

and how my inner man might be nourished. . .

Before this time my practice had been at least

for ten years previously as a habitual thing to

give myself to prayer after having dressed in

the morning. Now I saw that the most impor-

tant thing I had to do was to give myself to the

reading of the word of God and to meditation

on it, that thus my heart might be comforted,

encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and

that thus, while meditating, my heart might be

brought into experimental communion with

the Lord. I began, therefore, to meditate on

the New Testament from the beginning early

in the morning. The first thing I did, after hav-

ing asked in a few words the Lord’s blessing

upon his precious word, was to begin to medi-

tate on the word of God, searching as it were

into every verse to get blessing out of it; not

for the sake of the public ministry of the word;

not for the sake of preaching on what I had

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meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining

food for my soul. The result I have found to

be almost invariably this, that after a very few

minutes my soul has been led to confession,

or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to

supplication; so that though I did not, as it

were, give myself to prayer but to meditation,

yet it turned almost immediately more or less

into prayer. When thus I have been for a while

making confession or intercession or supplica-

tion or have given thanks, I go on to the next

words or verse, turning all, as I go on, into

prayer for myself or others, as the word may

lead to it; but still continually keeping before

me that food for my soul as the object of my

meditation.

The result of this is that there is always

a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, sup-

plication, or intercession mingled with my

meditation and that my inner man almost

invariably is almost sensibly nourished and

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strengthened and that by breakfast time, with

rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not a

happy state of heart.

Now that God has taught me this point,

it is as plain to me as anything that the first

thing the child of God has to do morning by

morning is to obtain food for the inner man.

As the outward man is not fit for work for any

length of time, except we take food, and as this

is one of the first things we do in the morning,

so it should be with the inner man. We should

take food for that, as everyone must allow.

Now what is the food for the inner man? Not

prayer, but the word of God; and here again,

not the simple reading of the word of God,

so that it only passes through our minds, just

as water runs through a pipe, but considering

what we read, pondering over it, and applying

it to our hearts.

By the blessing of God I ascribe to this

mode the help and strength which I have had

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to pass in peace through deeper trials in vari-

ous ways than I have ever had before; and after

having now above forty years tried this way, I

can most fully, in the fear of God, commend

it. How different when the soul is refreshed

and made happy early in the morning, from

what it is when, without spiritual preparation,

the service, the trials, and the temptations of

the day come upon one!

It should be an encouragement to all of us to

persevere in meditation upon the Scriptures when

we read a letter which, in 1897, George Mueller sent to the British and Foreign Bible Society in which

he had to excuse himself from attending a meet-

ing in Burmingham. He said, “Will you have the

kindness to read to the meeting that I have been for sixty-eight years and three months, viz., since July, 1929, a lover of the word of God and that uninter-ruptedly. During this time I have read considerably more than one hundred times through the whole

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of the Old and New Testaments with prayer and

meditation.” If we are going to be powerful spiritual leaders we must move in the direction of Hudson

Taylor and George Mueller.

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Everyone in the church has one or more spiritual

gifts. Everyone should be involved in ministry. Ev-

eryone should be seeking to lead others to the point where they bring glory to God by the way they think and feel and act. But there are some people to whom the risen and reigning Christ has given qualities of personality that tend to make them more able leaders than others. Not all of these qualities are distinctively Christian, but when the Holy Spirit fills a person’s life each of these qualities is harnessed and transformed for God’s purposes.

1. RESTLESS

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

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take a group or an institution to new dimensions of ministry. They have the spirit of Paul, who said in Philippians 3:13, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forget-ting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for 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.

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2. OPTIMISTIC

Spiritual leaders are optimistic not because man

is good but because God is in control. The leader

must not let his discontentment become disconsola-

tion. When he sees the imperfection of the church,

he must say with the writer of Hebrews, “Though

we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to

salvation” (Hebrews 6:9). The foundation of his

life is Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those

who love God all things work together for good,

for those who are called according to his

purpose.” He reasons with Paul that, “He

who did not spare his own son, but gave him

up for us all, how will he not also with him

graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

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.

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3. INTENSE

The great quality I want in my associates is one of intensity. Romans 12:8 says that if your gift is leadership do it “with zeal.” Romans 12:11 says, “Do

not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit.” When the disciples remembered the way Jesus had behaved

in relation to the temple of God, they character-

ized it with words from the Old Testament like this,

“Zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17).

The leader follows the advice of Ecclesiastes 9:10,

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your

might.”

When Jonathan Edwards was a young man, he

wrote a list of about 70 resolutions. The one that has inspired me the most goes like this: “To live with

all my might while I live.” Count Zinzendorf of the Moravians said, “I have one passion. It is He and

He alone.” Jesus warns us in Revelation 3:16 that

he does not have any taste for people who are luke-

warm: “So because you are lukewarm, and neither

hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

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Spiritual leaders must go out alone somewhere

and ponder what unutterable and stupendous things

they know about God. If their life is one extended

yawn, they are simply blind. Leaders must give evi-

dence that the things of the Spirit are intensely real.

They cannot do that unless they are intense them-

selves.

4. SELF-CONTROLLED

By self-controlled I do not mean prim and proper, but rather master of our drives. If we are to lead others toward God, we cannot be led ourselves toward the

world. According to Galatians 5:23, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. It is not mere willpower. It is appropriating the power of God to get mastery over

our emotions and our appetites that could lead us

astray or cause us to occupy our time with fruitless endeavors.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12 Paul says, “All things

are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved

by anything.” The Christian leader must ruthlessly

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examine his life to see whether he is the least en-

slaved by television, Internet, social media, food, alcohol, coffee, soda, sports, computer games, shop-ping, romance novels, pornography, masturbation,

or people-pleasing.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:25, “Every athlete

exercises self-control in all things. They do it to re-ceive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

So, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” And he says in Galatians

5:24, “Those who belong to Christ have crucified

the flesh with its passion and desires.”

Spiritual leaders ruthlessly track down bad hab-

its and break them by the power of the Spirit. They hear and follow Romans 8:13, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.”

Spiritual leaders long to be free from everything that hinders their fullest delight in God and service of others.

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5. THICK-SKINNED

At least this much is sure in leadership: If you begin to lead others, you will be criticized. No one will be a significant spiritual leader if his aim is to please others and seek their approval. Paul said in Galatians 1:10, “For am I now seeking the approval of man,

or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were

still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Spiritual leaders do not seek the praises of

men. They seek to please God. Dr. Carl Lun-

dquist, former President of Bethel College

and Seminary, said in his final report to the

Baptist General Conference that there was hardly

one of the twenty-eight years in which he

served that he was not actively opposed by

many people.

If criticism disables us, we will never make it as

spiritual leaders. I don’t mean that we must be the kind of people who don’t feel hurt, but rather that we must not be wiped out by the hurt. We must be

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able to say with Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:8, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not for-saken; struck down, but not destroyed.” We will feel the criticism, but we will not be incapacitated by it.

As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “We do not lose heart.”

Leaders must be able to digest depression be-

cause they will eat plenty of it. There will be many days when the temptation is very strong to quit because of unappreciative people. Criticism is one of Satan’s favorite weapons to try to get effective Christian leaders to throw in the towel.

I should, however, qualify this characteristic

of being thick-skinned. I do not want to give the

impression that spiritual leaders are closed off to le-gitimate criticism. A good leader must not only be

thick-skinned but also open and humbly ready to

accept and apply just criticism. No leader is perfect, and Jonathan Edwards said once that he made it

a spiritual discipline to look for the truth in every 26

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criticism that came his way before he discarded it.

That’s good advice.

6. ENERGETIC

Lazy people cannot be leaders. Spiritual leaders

“redeem the time” (Ephesians 5:16). They work

while it is day, because they know that night comes when no man can work (John 9:4). They do “not

grow weary of doing good,” for they know that

in due season they shall reap if they do not lose

heart (Galatians 6:9). They are “steadfast, immov-

able, always abounding in the work of the Lord,

knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain”

(1 Corinthians 15:58).

But they do not take credit for this great energy

or boast in their efforts because they say with the apostle Paul, “I worked harder than any of them,

though it was not I, but the grace of God that was

with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). And: “For this I

toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29).

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The world is run by tired men, someone has

said. A leader must learn to live with pressure. None of us accomplish very much without deadlines, and

deadlines always create a sense of pressure. A leader does not see the pressure of work as a curse but as a glory. He does not desire to fritter away his life in ex-cess leisure. He loves to be productive. And he copes with the pressure and prevents it from becoming

worrisome with promises like Matthew 11:27–28

and Philippians 4:7–8 and Isaiah 64:4.

7. A HARD THINKER

“Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.”

(1 Corinthians 14:20). It is not easy to be a lead-

er of people who can outthink you. A leader must

be one who, when he sees a set of circumstances,

thinks about it. He sits down with pad and pencil,

and he doodles and writes and creates. He tests all things with his mind and holds fast to what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

He is critical in the best sense of the word—that

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is, not gullible or faddish or trendy. He weighs things and considers pros and cons and always has a significant rationale for the decisions that he makes. Careful and rigorous thought is not contrary to a reliance on prayer and divine revelation. The apostle Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:7, “Think over

what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” In other words, God’s way of impart-ing to us insight is not to short-circuit the intellec-tual process.

8. ARTICULATE

It is hard to lead others if you cannot state your

thoughts clearly and forcefully. Leaders like

Paul aim to persuade men, not coerce them

(2 Corinthians 5:11). Leaders who are spiritual

do not muster a following with hot air or waves

or words but rather with crisp, solid, compel-

ling sentences. The apostle Paul aimed, like all

good leaders, at clarity in what he said. According to Colossians 4:4, he asked the people to

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pray for him, “that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.”

It is astonishing and lamentable how many peo-

ple today cannot speak in complete sentences. The

result is that a great fog surrounds their thought.

Neither they nor their listeners know exactly what

they are talking about. A haze settles over the discussion, and you walk away wondering what it was all

about. If no one rises above the muddle-headedness

and verbal chaos of “You know . . . I mean . . . Just really,” there will not be any leadership.

9. ABLE TO TEACH

It is not surprising to me that some of the great leaders at our church have been men who are also significant teachers. According to 1 Timothy 3:2, anyone who

aspires to the office of overseer in the church should be able to teach. What is a good teacher? I think a good teacher has at least the following characteristics: 30

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• A good teacher asks himself the hardest ques-

tions, 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 encour-

ages 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.

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• A good teacher is concrete, not abstract,

specific, not general, precise, not vague, vulner-

able, 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 transforma-

tion of all of life and thought into a Christ-

honoring unity.

10. A GOOD JUDGE OF CHARACTER

Jesus knew the hearts of men (John 2:17), and

he urged us to be perceptive in assessing others

(Matthew 7:15ff). Leaders must know who is fit for

what kind of work. Good leaders have good noses.

They can sniff out barnacles in a hurry, that is, people who are forever listening but never learning or changing. They can detect potential when they see

it in a beginner. They can hear in a short time the 32

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echoes of pride and hypocrisy and worldliness. The

spiritual leader steers a careful course between the dangers of rigid pigeonholing on the one hand and

indifference on the other hand.

11. TACTFUL

Paul said in Colossians 4:5–6, “Conduct yourselves

wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned

with salt, so that you may know how you ought to

answer each person.” And the writer of Proverbs

said, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).

We must remember that leaders are aiming to

change hearts, not just to get jobs done. Therefore, alienating people unnecessarily is self-defeating. Tact is that quality of grace that wins the confidence of people who are sure you won’t do or say something

stupid. You can’t inspire a following if people have to hang their heads in embarrassment at the inap-propriate and insensitive things you say or do. Tact 33

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is especially needed in a leader to help cope with embarrassing or tragic situations.

For example, very often when you are leading a

group someone will say something totally irrelevant, which is recognized to be very foolish by everyone

in the group. A tactful leader must be able to divert the attention of the group back to the main course

of the discussion without heaping scorn upon the

individual.

Another example, which I recall, comes from

my experience at Wheaton College. I was present

at the chapel service where V. Raymond Edman had

a heart attack in the pulpit and fell over and died.

Hudson Armerding, who followed him as president,

was sitting behind him when Dr. Edman paused in

his lecture, took one step to the side, and fell over. In one of the most beautiful and sensitive demonstra-tions of tact that I have ever seen, Dr. Armerding

quickly kneeled beside him as 2,000 students fell

silent. Then he stood, led us in a brief prayer com-mitting Dr. Edman to the Lord, and dismissed the

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students quietly. Dr. Edman died as we walked out.

The tact of a leader must demonstrate it-

self in forthright confrontation. The person who

is unwilling to approach a person who needs

admonition or rebuke will not be a success-

ful spiritual leader. Combined with his judg-

ment of people’s character, a leader’s tact will

enable him to handle delicate negotiations and

opposing viewpoints. His choice of words will be

astute rather than clumsy. (There is a big difference between saying, “Your foot is too big for this shoe”

and “This shoe is too small for your foot.”)

12. THEOLOGICALLY ORIENTED

Colossians 3:17 says, “Do everything in the name

of the Lord Jesus,” and 1 Corinthians 2:16 speaks

of the spiritual man as having “the mind of Christ.”

A spiritual leader knows that all of life, down to

its smallest detail, has to do with God. If we are to lead people to see and reflect God’s glory, we must think theologically about everything. We must

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work toward a synthesis of all things. We must

probe to see how things fit together. How do war

and sports and pornography and birthday celebra-

tions and literature and space travel and disease and enterprise all hang together? How do they relate to God and his purposes?

Leaders must have a theological standpoint that

helps give coherence to all things. This will give the leader a stability that keeps him from being knocked off his feet by sudden changes in circumstances or

new winds of doctrine. He knows enough about

God and his ways that things generally fit into a pat-tern and make sense even when they are unpleasant.

So the leader does not throw up his hands but points the way onward to God.

13. A DREAMER

According to Joel 2:28, in the last days (in

which we now live), “Your old men shall dream

dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”

This is the positive counterpart to restless-

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ness. We must not only be discontent with the

present but also dreaming dreams of what could be

in the future. In 2 Kings 6:15–17, Elisha and his

servant were surrounded by Assyrians in the city of Dothan. When the servant sees this and cries out

with dismay, Elisha prays and says, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” The Lord answered

Elisha’s prayer and “opened the eyes of the young

man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full

of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

Leaders can see the power of God overshadow-

ing the problems of the future. This is a rare gift—to see the sovereign power of God in the midst of seem-ingly overwhelming opposition. Most people are ex-

perts 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

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today. O 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 as-

suming 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.

14. ORGANIZED AND EFFICIENT

A leader does not like clutter. He likes to know

where and when things are for quick access and

use. His favorite shape is the straight line, not the circle. He groans in meetings that do not move from premises to conclusions but rather go in irrelevant circles. When something must be done he sees a

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implementation. He sees ways to use time to the full and shapes his schedule to maximize his usefulness.

He saves himself large blocks of time for his major productive activities. He uses little pieces of time lest they go to waste. (For example, what do you do while you are brushing your teeth? Could you set a

magazine on the towel rack and read an article?)

A leader takes time to plan his days and weeks

and months and years. Even though it is God who

ultimately directs the steps of the leader, he should plan his path. A leader is not a jellyfish that gets tossed around by the waves, nor is he an oyster that is immovable. The leader is the dolphin of the sea

and can swim against the stream or with the stream

as he plans.

15. DECISIVE

In 1 Kings 18:21, Elijah cries out, “How long

will you go limping with two different opinions?

If the Lord is God follow him; but if Baal, then

follow him.” A leader cannot be paralyzed by

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indecisiveness. He will take risks rather than do

nothing. He will soak himself in prayer and the gos-pel and then rest himself in God’s sovereignty as he makes decisions, knowing that he will very likely

make some mistakes.

16. PERSEVERANT

Jesus said in Matthew 24:13, “the one who endures

to the end will be saved.” Paul said in Galatians 6:9,

“Let us not grow weary in doing good.” We live in

a day when immediate gratification is usually de-

manded. That means that very few people excel in

the virtue of perseverance. Very few people keep

on and keep on in the same ministry when there

is significant difficulty. Vision without perseverance, however, results in fairy tales not fruitful ministry.

My dad once told me that the reason he thought

many pastors fail to see revival in their churches is that they leave just before it is about to happen. The long haul is hard, but it pays. The big tree is felled by many, many little chops. The criticisms that come 40

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your way will be long forgotten if you keep on doing the Lord’s will.

17. A LOVER

Here I am speaking directly to men who are hus-

bands and leaders. Paul said in Ephesians 5:25,

“Husbands, love your wives!” Love her! Love her!

What does it profit a man if he gains a great following and loses 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 de-

riding and putting their wives down, especially with careless little asides in public; leaders who speak well of their wives in public and complement them spon-taneously when they are alone; leaders who touch

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her tenderly at other times besides when they are in bed.

One of the greatest temptations of a busy leader

is to begin to treat his wife as a kind of sex object. It starts to manifest itself when the only time he ever kisses her passionately or touches her tenderly is

when he’s trying to allure her into bed. It is a tragic thing when a wife becomes a mannequin for masturbation. Learn what her delights are and bring her to the fullest experience of sexual climax. Talk 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.

18. RESTFUL

We began with the quality of restlessness, and

we end with the quality of restful. “Unless

the Lord builds the house, those who build it

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labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep”

(Psalm 127:1–2). The spiritual leader knows that ultimately the productivity of his labors rests in God and that God can do more while he is asleep than

he could do while awake without God. He knows

that Jesus said to his busy disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31).

He is not so addicted to work that he is un-

able to rest. He is a good steward of his life

and health. He maximizes the totality of his la-

bor by measuring the possible strains under

which he can work without diminishing his

efficiency of unduly shortening his life.

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CONCLUSION

No doubt, many other qualities could be mentioned

which, if a person has, would make him an even

more successful leader. These are simply the ones

that came to my mind as I was pondering this sub-

ject. One need not excel in every one of them. But

the more fully each one is developed in a person the more powerful and fruitful he will be as a leader.

Let me emphasize again that it is the inner circle

that makes the leadership spiritual. 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 the Scriptures 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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