Leading With a Worshipful Heart
For many people, when they hear the word “worship,” the image that immediately comes to mind is of people raising their voices and hands up to the Lord in song and surrender. Worship is often immediately linked to music in our minds, and this is not a bad thing, by any means. Corporate worship through song is one of the easiest ways for people to come together as a Body in one voice to worship the King of kings.
But what about other parts of our lives? Can they be forms of worship as well? Certainly, we can worship through prayer, through Scripture meditation, through taking the Lord’s Supper. We worship through giving and serving. We worship through fellowship. But what about leading? Can we worship through leading? I believe wholeheartedly the answer is yes!
In Luke 22, Jesus is having what we know as the Last Supper with His disciples. Luke writes that, “In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!’ They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this” (v. 20-23). The disciples were in a rough spot. Not only were they hearing that the Rabbi they loved and had given the last three years of their lives to follow was about to die, but one of them was the betrayer who was going to hand Him over! Not surprisingly, they were concerned.
Their concern about the identity of the betrayer evidently did not last long because in the very next verse, Luke records that, “A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest….” Is that weird?? Does it seem odd and out of place to anyone else that at one moment the disciples are asking themselves who it is that Jesus is saying is about to betray Him and the very next, they’re arguing about who is considered the greatest?!? Those two things seem like polar opposite thoughts, don’t they?? Who’s going to betray Jesus? Oh, and who’s the greatest? That’s wild!!
And yet…..
I wonder if we sometimes do the same. We can be so very aware one moment of our flaws and weaknesses and susceptible areas, and the next minute, we can be battling pride and arrogance. One minute, we can be saying, “Lord, if You don’t show up and move right now through me, I’m toast because I’ve got nothing!” And then the next minute, we can start patting ourselves on the back, saying, “Man, I’m pretty special! Isn’t the Lord so lucky to have me on His team?”
Here’s the reality: Pride and insecurity seem like polar opposites, but in truth, they are just two sides of the same coin, and we can flip from one to the other like…snap….that. We have a God who loves us and has beautifully crafted us to fulfill His mission and His purposes, and when we recognize our own fallibility and our need to be simply the vessels through which the Master Craftsman does His work, then we can rest securely in Him and experience the joy and the thrill of seeing Him use us to accomplish His purposes. But what happens too often? We get in the way. We make it all about us. I think it’s similar to what the disciples experienced at the Last Supper. They were trying to figure out how they measured up so that they knew what to think about themselves and how to rank themselves in Jesus’ service. And I hate to tell you this, Sisters in Christ, but we do the same thing today, especially as leaders.
So, what do we do?
Going back to Luke 22 and picking it up in verse 25, we read that, “Jesus said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors.” In other words, leadership from a world’s perspective is about dominance and power and patronage. “BUT… you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” Or in Matthew’s account of this conversation, Jesus says, “Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28).
Jesus completely flipped upside down the expectation of what leadership should be. Instead of dominating, we are to be humble and gentle (the only two words Jesus ever used to describe Himself, Matt. 11:29). Instead of having a power struggle or climbing up the ladder by age or experience, we are to be like the one at the bottom rung of the ladder. Instead of patronizing people like a benefactor, we are to treat people with dignity and respect. Instead of being served, we are to serve. That’s pretty wild. It’s wild today and it was especially wild in Jesus’ day, where they were living in the middle of the Roman Empire and leading was all about power and dominance.
But even today, we focus a lot on leadership, which is not a bad thing, but I think we miss Jesus’ point. As author Brant Hansen points out, you can walk into a bookstore and find all kinds of books on leadership but very few about followership, yet followers is what Jesus calls us to be.
Why does this matter? Don’t we need leaders? Yes, we need leaders, but I think the reason it matters is this: Although God does have us lead things, we were made to worship, and if we’re not careful, we’ll start to worship ourselves or our position or authority.
All of us have the capacity to get things wrong in our leadership, whether that’s thinking too highly of ourselves and becoming arrogant or thinking too little of who we are in Christ and getting insecure or feeling like it all depends on us and so getting lost in a flurry of activity. We can start to live in the past or in the future and fail to be present where God has us right now. But the good news is that we also all have the capacity to recognize when we’ve lost the way and to place Christ back on the throne of our lives. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church in Philippi, “if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Phil. 2:1-4).
Remember what Jesus said to the disciples at the Last Supper? He said, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.” Jesus and Paul are saying very similar messages: If you want to have a really profound impact, then humble yourself and become a servant.
Do you know what the end result of this kind of attitude has? If we keep going in Philippians 2, Paul writes, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.” What happens when we have an attitude that is contrary to the world, when we don’t grumble or argue or complain? We shine like stars in the universe as we get to hold out the word of life to those around us! Do you want to be an effective leader? Then make it all about glorifying God, and you will be the type of leader that God uses because you’re surrendered to Him! Your leadership can become an act of worship that points everyone around you to Jesus! It’s not that we don’t try to lead well. Quite the opposite. It’s that we want to lead incredibly well because we know that it’s not about us. It’s about honoring the Head of the body. We’re just the hands and feet and eyeballs and pinky toes. We’re each given a role, a sphere of influence, a group to lead. Your group may be enormous. My group may be small. It doesn’t really matter because it’s not about us. It’s about honoring the King of kings and Lord of lords.
“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that.” May we instead be women who lead with hearts of worship so that people see us but look to Jesus.
