Lead and Get Out of the Way: The Following Leader

I've been discussing the issue of leadership within the Church and, more specifically, leading the ministry of which I have been given oversight. If you haven't already, you will really need to read the last two posts in order to track this continuing dialogue. I would also recommend that you read the comments as there have been some very interesting conversations that have ensued.

I thought it would be helpful (for me, at least) to brain-dump an example of how I have seen this leadership come into play at "10:35". Healing has never been a part of my ministry. Never may be too strong, but to be honest, for the better part of my ministry I never treated it seriously. Let me explain.

I believed God healed. However, I never really, truly expected to see healing myself. I would pray for it when I visited folks in the hospital, but usually these prayers were pretty safe. I would pray for God to fully equip the doctors to use the gifts he had given them. I would pray for a quick recover from a surgery already performed. Any healing beyond this I would always temper with the phrase "If it be Your Will." "Father, if it be Your Will, please heal [name] from [insert condition]." "Father, we ask that you heal [name] from [insert condition], but Your will be done, not ours." Safe, conditional, healing prayer. Occasionally, when someone was really ill we might have a group of people lay hands on a person and pray. But this was prayer reserved for desperate times. It was not the norm. It was the exception and any answer to such prayer would have stunned us all. Certainly, we would have given God the credit and praised Him for it. But, that was a vague hope. The desperate pangs of a desperate people.

I had often felt convicted by this and had even shared my concerns with some colleagues over the years. I challenged them to consider whether our actions demonstrated that we really believed that God could and does heal. This was usually met with much skepticism. However, I never really went much further with this. I still struggled with believing, really believing, that God would heal, or even more to the point, that he would choose to heal someone through our prayer. This was my basic mode of ministry for over eighteen years.

Then in the summer of 2007, I was introduced to a group of people in Sheffield, England- St. Tom's Church. They seemed to really believe, yet even more than believe, they totally expected God to show up in their midst and do miraculous things. Their reason for believing it was so simple and so child-like that it couldn't help but make you smile. "That's what God promised to do. Just read the Bible," they would say. Still, what was I to make of this? Initially, I was forced to make a choice much like the famous "choice" of CS Lewis in Mere Christianity. Either they were lying, in which case, they were deceivers and really very bad people, or they were delusional. There was some form of group hallucination taking place. They all really believed God was doing miracles, but they were wrong. If this were true, there was at the root of this church an unhealthy and dysfunctional culture. Neither of these made sense in light of the relationships I formed and the people I grew to know and love. Moreover, while I was there, I experienced a number of things that convicted me to open myself up to the possibility that God wanted to be far more involved in my life than I had allowed Him to be. So, upon returning from Sheffield, I made a simple promise with God. I was committed to being more open to his working in my life. That, my friends, was the beginning of the end of all my previous perceptions of leading the Church.

God took control and to bring us back to our former conversation we flash forward to the winter of 2008. It was at that time that God compelled me to write a message on the issue of healing. The text was, of all things, the second petition of the Lord's Prayer- "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done." [ah, remember the tag-line to those safe, healing prayers I prayed] I really had no clue how to approach this message, so I dived into the Bible and read everything on healing. I came away completely convicted and convinced of not only God's power to heal, but also God's desire to heal. I shared that message being completely transparent to how challenging this was for me. I really had no idea what the response from people would be.

Let me pause here to bring us back to the issue of leadership. Previously, every message was given with a predetermined outcome in mind. Everything was done this way. It all pointed to and was prepared to move us toward a defined and preferred future as a church. I don't mean to make this sound too clinical. God was certainly invited into the process, but truthfully we orchestrated it. We were leading. I was leading. I would ask God for his guidance, but I was treating God a little like my own personal GPS unit. "God-God how do I get to …" I relied on God for direction, but I was still behind the wheel.

Suddenly, God was driving. There was no predetermined outcome in mind with giving this message. No preferred future as a church, other than growing closer to God. There was no reason for giving this message other than God having decided it. I was now beginning to lead by following. That sounds so formulaic and staid, but in reality it was terrifying. I was out of control. I had no idea how the people of 10:35 would respond to a message that we should expect to see signs and wonders and foremost among them was healing. What I certainly did not expect was for them to embrace it wholeheartedly. People began asking for healing prayer and other people started praying for them. I mean really praying for them- pulling them aside on Sunday, before worship, after worship, laying hands on them. And they believed. They had every confidence that God would heal.

And God did. He continues to do so. Time and time again, we are seeing it. Cancer, inner-ear problems, damaged hearts, arthritis, blood disorders. God has and continues to do miracles in our midst. Now this is what I mean in a previous post by "leading from the middle." God compelled me to share a message. The people responded and followed the Word of God. Now we are a church heading in a direction I would have never expected. People want healing. People pray for healing. God delivers. I'm not deciding the direction of the church. I am a witness to it. I bear witness to what God is doing in our midst and what God wants to do. The rest is God and His Church. It's really a pretty amazing thing to be a part of. What do you think?