Courageous Leaders

I must admit that I’m coming off a bit of a high after yesterday (Sunday, Jan. 16^th)! We had 114 in worship and around 25 kids upfront for the Children’s Time. We had a good amount of guests in worship as we have had for the last month or so. There are some really encouraging things going on in our church!

The Thursday before we had our first Council Meeting of the new year. We approved a new business meeting format for 2011 (see article “New Council Format) that will hopefully minimize the amount of evenings we spend on business and maximize time for ministry and relationships. Our Council Chairperson, Kim Kirby, started the meeting with a devotional from a book she recently read, “Courageous Leadership”, by Bill Hybels.

Courage happens to be a value of our church: Courage, Compassion and Honor. Leaders who lack courage are people-pleasers. They are very happy with the status quo and will very reluctantly do anything new that might upset the balance of satisfaction within their circle of influence. Leaders who are courageous have a desire to strengthen people, practice servant leadership and make hard decisions in order to further their cause or the cause of their organization/institution.

The cause of the church is to “make disciples and teach them to obey the commands of Jesus Christ” – Matthew 28:19-20. Any church with a vision or mission statement must contain that seed phrase somewhere within their statement. Adding anything more to it can almost endanger the most important aspect of it. As leaders of this church we must courageously and successfully go about this cause. So, what flags and alarms are going off in your head right now? What is more important to you than the mission of our church? Courage is setting that thing aside; leadership is helping others move their things aside and together we are the church captivated with Christ, moving courageously forward in his mission.