BrianIngraham.com | ASPIRE

I have been reading Mark Driscoll’s new book, “Confessions of a Reformission Rev." It has been both enjoyable, insightful, encouraging, and intellectually stimulating. In the chapter entitled, ‘Jesus if anyone else calls my house I may be seeing you real soon,’ he says this:

It was at that time that I realized our church would never have a sign out front that said, “Everyone Welcome,” because I did not want everyone. Instead I wanted people who would reach out to the lost people in our area….

{later} I had heretics calling themselves Christians, I had lazy, selfish Christians calling themselves mature. I needed to start making the calls…

Sometimes the most important thing a leader can do is create strategic chaos that forces people to pull people together and focus on an urgent need…

In the move we lost some of our least-committed people, as I hoped we would.

It becomes clear that Mark was not about just growing a big church, he wanted to grow a church that would impact his city. Sure Mars Hill in Seattle now runs 4000 people, but in its early days it wasn’t afraid to loose people who weren’t on board with the mission.

I have always believed that it is going to take more than another church or increased church attendance to transform this city. It is going to take an ever-expanding group of passionate and highly dedicated Christians, a people of prayer, full of the scriptures, and the Spirit of the Living God to transform this city that has rejected God. Not only do I want to see Glasgow transformed, I want to see this city become one that will be known as a place that sends many fully mature disciple-makers around the globe as champions for the Kingdom of God. It is going to take a people clear about what Jesus mission is for Glasgow, and for the globe. A people full of the Spirit, the word, and prayer.

My fellow missionary Jenny Jack, came across this hilarious excerpt of the television show “King of the Hill.” It is about church shopping (a.k.a. Simon – you know who you are:-)

It is her MAY 5th blog entry…CLICK HERE!!!

CRM, my mission’s agency, is preparing for our quad-annual conference. They just sent us out an email that struck me as a fantastic word on HUMILITY.

The term humility mostly conjures up thoughts of its opposites, such as arrogance and pride. However, the roadblocks to humility usually aren’t such obvious vices. Instead they are more often the very gifts God has given us: experience, competence, strength, success. We, like the Israelites, live in constant danger of forgetting where those gifts came from and giving ourselves the credit for what we’ve accomplished. (Deuteronomy 8 )

When we are asked to humble ourselves before the Lord, we are being asked to recognize the truth about who we are (weak, needy, dependent creation) and who He is (Almighty, Sovereign Creator). We are being asked to lay down what is most dear to us as humans, our independence, and recognize our complete dependence on Him.

–Jody Hovda.

If you have been reading the last two blogs you might be under the impression that I have a low opinion of current works on leadership. Not so. I am currently finishing off ‘Leadership Next’ by Eddie Gibbs, and just today was listening to ‘The Catalyst Podcast’ (a new leadership podcast interviewing people like Andy Stanley, and Erwin McManus.) I also teach leadership with NieuCommunities here in Scotland.

The essence of my caution stems from seeing young aspiring leaders crash hard because their talent propelled them further than their godliness could handle. Erwin McManus said it best, “you need to run as fast as your character goes deep not as fast as your talent goes wide or high…because of our professional degree we have gotten a job in professional ministry and we have never paid the hard price of walking with Christ and developing the kind of character that is able to face the spiritual warfare and the human conflict that leadership requires.”

So I sit back and read about tenacity, creativity, troubleshooting… and inside I know that troubleshooting without character and godliness is a fast road to ruin and disgrace. 1 Samuel 28 is my personal warning story. Saul wants to hear from God (a good thing) and he tries all the approved methods for the king to discern God’s will. Nothing. Then he exercises some creative troubleshooting and decides to see a medium to talk to a dead Samuel. Oops…. Learning about leadership is great, but I want to be a person who while growing in my leadership capacity is more focused on developing my godliness.

I have had this thing for missionary biographies since summer 1994. I was on Summer Staff at Lakeside Bible Camp as a ski boat driver and my mentor Don Crook was the Director of Staff. One day he pulled out a box of missionary biographies and asked us all to choose one and read it. I pulled out Don Richardson’s “Lords of the Earth,” read it, and learned something new about myself. I enjoy vicarious learning (learning via the lives of others.)

Eight years later I worked with Don at Overlake Christian Church. As he was mentoring me through Bobby Clinton’s book, “The Making of a Leader,” he asked us also to read a missionary biography. I let him choose. He pulled off his shelf an old red book, held together by a rubber band about some guy named D.E. Hoste the successor of Hudson Taylor of the China Inland Mission. Don said to me, “be careful with this book, it is out of print… if you ever find one at a used book sale snatch it up.”

Wouldn’t you know, the other day (4 years later) I was walking down Byres road and passed a used book shop. I never stop in but on a whim popped in and found the same old red book about D.E. Hoste. I couldn’t believe it, and of course I bought it.

What makes this book so special besides the fact no one has ever heard of it and it is way out of print. It is about the kind of leader, the kind of man, I aspire to become. A real man of prayer. Hoste was more than a leader who prayed, he was a man of prayer who led. Reading biographies on men of prayer like D.E. Hoste, Rees Howells, and John Hyde, men whose era was 100 years before my own, point the way forward and inspire me to become in my generation what they were for theirs.

In a day where everyone is writing books about the leaders of tomorrow, I find direction in the leaders of the past. Men of the word. Men of prayer.

Why is there so much Christian resistance to reading the Bible? Why do I find it extremely rare to find church leaders who enjoy the bible? Pastors who read it even when they don’t have to prepare to teach it? Why is it I no longer expect to meet a pastor who loves the word?

The single most alarming crisis in Christianity today IS NOT cultural changes (although that sure is shaking things up) but the abandonment of the bible by its leadership. Sure, it is still being used, but is the word of God precious to anyone? I hear a lot about leadership challenges due to this cultural shift. I hear a lot about revisiting theology. Both of those are valuable, but where is the call for a generation of ‘Biblicists?’ Is anyone looking for bible-centred leaders? I wonder if in the age of pop-Christendom and church growth if we forgotten what really matters.

If I was young and looking to become a Christian leader, I would search high and low to find a godly man of the word and a man of prayer and I would seek to become like them. I wouldn’t waste my time on training programs that teach ‘Christian leadership’ unless the Bible and prayer was CENTRAL to the program (meaning that you read the bible not just pull points from it.)

We live in a lazy age. Who wants to spend all that time reading the bible over and over and over again when you can just word search what you are looking for in the moment? Reading the bible is seen as too much work, too time consuming. In an age where things move fast who takes the time anymore? Does anyone else see the impending crisis?