Leadership (1 Cor. 11:1)

Recently I’ve been going through a book by John MacArthur on leadership. Actually, it’s called The Book on Leadership. Go figure. In this book he goes through 26 characteristics that he came up with for the ideal leader and examines Paul as he fulfils all of them. So far he’s strayed once to take a look at Nehemiah, but other than that it’s been all focused on Paul. I have much enjoyed the exciting stories, especially in the first few chapters, where MacArthur outlined Paul’s situation on the ship during his trip to Rome. Paul started out as the lowest slave on the boat, but he ended up with the influence to tell the Roman centurion, who was in charge, to cut off the lifeboat so that no one would try to escape! That’s crazy. Now, I haven’t read the entire book, but I peeked at the list of 26 characteristics and noticed that the last one was: “A leader is Christlike.” This connected perfectly with the first verse of 1 Corinthians 11. Apparently, Paul knew he was a leader. He knew where his heart was and he knew what his goal was. He was confident, but not arrogant. In verse 1 Paul says: “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” That seems to me to be an extremely bold statement, but that’s what leaders are supposed to be. We are supposed to be examples for others to follow, and the best example to imitate is Christ.

Last year I ran for the new King’s Academy Student Council. I was very excited about having a designated position in which to lead, a place I imagined would be filled with a person who’s character everyone in the school could admire and desire. I did get accepted into the list of candidates that people could vote on, meaning that I was considered a qualified leader of respectable character. Apparently I didn’t advertise myself enough, though, and ended up being one of the 10 that had to hear the “sad” news that God had plans for us elsewhere (sad is in quotes because of this verse: Romans 8:28 – “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”). Looking back at it I realize that perhaps it would have just added to the stress of my already overly busy summer. Perhaps God was saving me from that, or perhaps God was freeing up my time so that I could be open to serve with something else later this year. Either way, reading John MacArthur’s book reminded me of something: effective leadership doesn’t spawn from an impressive title. I can still be just as much a leader at school (or anywhere) without having the title of “The King’s Academy Student Body President.”

I was also reminded of this when I had the privilege of meeting the new head wrestling coach for this year’s wrestling team. I had an excellent first impression: a humble, yet confident God-fearing man who put being a champion into perspective and had high soaring goals for our small team this year. He reminded Stephen Thalin and me that this year we are seniors and therefore have certain responsibilities to lead the team, whether it’s sweeping off the mats or making sure the freshman aren’t messing around. He was inspiring, encouraging, and God-fearing. He always brought Him into the picture and I just thought it was so great – exactly the kind of coach I could ever have wanted. He is a good leader, and hopefully his example will encourage me to be a good leader too.

We can be leaders anywhere, from any position. It doesn’t take an impressive title or job description for us to be godly leaders. If we follow Christ’s example, we can be leaders for anyone anywhere, revealing to people the glory of God.