Spiritual Leadership

"Spiritual Leadership" by J Oswald Sanders comes highly recommended by my Assistant Pastor as the "Bible" on this topic.  I will be embarking on a self-study course through this book this year as part of my church's L.E.A.D University curriculum. 

In the meeting on Sunday, it was pointed out that all problems are spiritual.  There are not two separate buckets, one spiritual and the other not; so, we should deal with issues in a spiritual way.  We also talked about what hurts ministries (e.g. lack of commitment, ego/pride, lack of communication, etc) and what helps them be successful (e.g. prayer, unity, care for one another, etc).   And a principle that we were left with was that when we encounter issues, we should first try to work it out with the person, then bring others in, if if needed bring it up with the oversight elder.   God expects His leaders to make unresolved conflict a priority, for there is a relationship between our worshipping God and our relationships with others.  True worship is enhanced by better relationships between those who come to worship. 

We were given a diagram illustrating how we can approach spiritual leadership  (naturally, we should strive for RR):

     RR     |       RW
--------------------------
     WR    |       WW

(RR = Right Things, Right Way; RW = Right Things, Wrong Way; WR = Wrong Things, Right Way; WW = Wrong Things, Wrong Way)    

Following were the concluding points:

• God will bring things to mind when we spend time in His Presence
• Ask the LORD for a teachable attitude
• Get eyes off myself and listen to what's going on with others   (when we have eyes on others, we get distressed; eyes on myself, we get depressed, but eyes on God, we are blessed)
• If we are a leader that ministers to people, be willing to have our rights violated, in the Philippians 2 sense
• Trust God for the outcome
• Be clear on the goal