Dare Great Things

One of the most commonly used phrases to describe the experience of leadership is “it’s lonely at the top.”  The phrase resonates with leaders of all stripes and colors but what does it mean for a Christian?  Is there a way to find a deeper meaning to the solitude of leadership?  How did Jesus live His life as a leader?  How did the saints do it time and again?  And in what way can this pathway of solitude be a pathway of holiness for us today?  Here is Part One of our new series Embracing Solitude.

Following the footsteps of Christ into leadership is a wild ride.  Anytime you step forward to change the status quo you need to be ready for anything that can come.  And yet for all of its challenge is there really any other way to live?  Anytime we exert our personal freedom we change the world around us.  Maybe the problem isn’t that we are making a difference, maybe the problem is that we aren’t comfortable with the wild ride.  This is where St. Paul can help us.  In this final episode of our series we see how St. Paul lived life on the edge.

It's one thing to want to Dare Great Things For Christ and begin new initiatives and projects, it’s quite another thing to finish them.  The first stage in any initiative is dreaming, hoping, and aspiring for great things.  But carrying through our aspirations all the way to the end requires another set of skills.  It requires sacrifice, dedication, and just pure grit.  St. Paul embodied all of those qualities and gives us an example of leadership that continues to inspire us today. 

Let’s face it, trying to accomplish things can be exhausting.  Acting upon decisions that we’ve made means spending valuable resource, our time and our energy in pursuit of them.  At first this experience can be euphoric, but soon it can turn into burn out.  We who are in leadership have engaged in lives that are dedicated to this type of action.  What are we supposed to do when we feel burn out?  What did St. Paul do to counter his exhaustion?  In this next class we will try and find out.

One thing is for sure: to do anything, you have to start doing it.  A lot of people have ideas, ideas that can even change the world, but if they don’t start and actually make things happen nothing will ever get done.  The same held true for the lives of the saints like St. Paul.  He too had to face many obstacles, and he lived in constant uncertainty, and yet he started things anyway.  Starting is an art and a science, and I hope St. Paul’s example can inspire you today.

If there’s one thing anybody in charge of anything has in common with each other it’s that leaders of any kind need to know where they’re going.  So what do we do when we don’t know where we are going?  The situation can even be harder for Christian leaders who are trying to become instruments of God.  How do we do something that is entirely beyond our power?  St. Paul gives an example of how to walk in the fog.  His life was full of unknowing and yet he moved forward bravely and God used him as he went.

Vision is certainly one of the greatest challenges to leadership.  In many ways leaders are called to stare into the void where nothing seems possible and find a path forward.  Already this is a terrific blessing for our world, because it allows for innovation and success.  But God wants to do something even more with vision.  He wants His leaders to accomplish His will and to work His plan.  St. Paul teaches us just how to cooperate with God to make this happen.

Christian leadership like anything else is an art and a science.  Of course, there are many things we can do to increase our influence and to use it at the service of God.  But foundationally there is something out of control in Christian leadership.  Namely, the fact that God will use us as He desires.  This requires that we learn a secret, the secret St. Paul knew so well and that he tells us about in 2 Corinthians 12.  I’d like to help you learn that secret today.

When we follow Jesus in our daily life we are faced with many challenges.  Rising up to meet those challenges in accordance with his grace means that we will be making an impact changing the world around us.  Instead of letting the world take its own course we are leading it in His name.  Rising up to meet these challenges gives us a great opportunity to depend more on Jesus.  This is something St. Paul definitely understood and embodied in his life.  This is Part 2 in our series “In The Pattern Of Paul – Insights Into Leadership”.

The life of St. Paul provides Christians with a wonderful example of what it means to lead in Jesus Christ.  In fact St. Paul had to face many of the same challenges we do.  In my book, Coached by Paul the Apostle, I try to lay out many of these insights into leadership and in this series of podcasts I try and develop those insights in greater depth starting with this particular session where I develop the link between authority and freedom.  This follows Chapter 1 of my book.

As we bring this series of letters from St. Francis to a close I thought it fitting to finish with some letters in which the Saint references his own soul.  What were the spiritual lessons that he himself learned on his journey as a Christian engaged in the affairs of the world?  By looking at the themes that he evokes in letters about himself we can find lessons that we can apply to ourselves in our situations as leaders today.  We can learn from him something of the love of God.

One thing a Christian leader can be sure of is that they will be asked to carry the cross with Jesus.  But carrying a cross isn’t easy for anybody and few of us embrace it as we should.  St. Francis de Sales, and early master of the 1600’s, knew this very well and he wrote to the leaders of this world with encouragement to carry the cross that God gave them with Jesus.  But what does this mean for us today?  By reading letters that he wrote to persons of the world we can discover some of what he meant.

The letters written by St. Francis de Sales to persons in the world represent wonderful examples of the application of true spirituality to those living amidst the cares of this world.  All of us who carry the mantle of leadership in our families or in our businesses have to find ways to keep our spirituality alive and at the same time deal with the constant pressing needs around us.  In this third segment of our series we pass on the advice of St. Francis:  Love purifies all things.

In his letter to Persons In The World, St. Francis de Sales writes admirable advice for those whose vocation it is to live in the world but not be of it.  For some Christians involving ourselves in the world is a distraction and others disparage the vocation of business as a temptation that could threaten one’s salvation.  But it was not so for St. Francis de Sales.  On the contrary, he encourages those who are called to engage in the world but gives them great advice about avoiding vanity and ambition.

St. Francis de Sales was the Bishop of Geneva in the early 1600’s.  He wrote many wonderful texts of spirituality and is considered a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church.  He also wrote many letters, especially to people who were in the world, that is, lay faithful who were entrusted with the charges of family, business, and politics.  These letters are treasures of wisdom and spirituality, and we begin the first of our series with a letter on inner peace.

Let’s face it, most of our thoughts about leadership position leaders as folks on the top.  People who have pushed the envelope and have succeeded against great odds.  Is there anything to say for those who have not gone to the top?  People who for one reason or another are in second place.  In the life of John the Baptist we can’t help noticing that Jesus did not call him to be an Apostle.  In fact, He let him die as a martyr in prison without ever publicly following him.  What’s the place for leadership that’s both humble and deep?

Anyone who leads in today’s world knows how important it is to stay in the middle.  After all if we want to have impact in our world we have to belong to it.  And yet are there times when witness is necessary?  Or at least an invitation to go deeper than our customary ways?  In the life of St. John the Baptist we have the example of someone who was extraordinarily successful in his leadership and then put it all on the line to bear witness to the truth.  In this episode we let him inspire us.

The life of St. John the Baptist is a study in detachment.  From forsaking the goods of this earth and the relationships of natural human society to going without in his many forms of asceticism to finally letting go to his own claim to glory and his own claim to his disciples.  St. John the Baptist was poor in spirit.  And yet his influence was extremely powerful. What is the connection between his poverty of heart and the incredible influence that he gave as a Christian leader?

Leadership puts us in the spotlight.  Like it or not, leaders are out in front.  If we follow the ways of the world, the natural prominence of leadership can result in negative consequences like arrogance and self conceit.  It was just the opposite, however, for St. John the Baptist.  He used his prominence to promote Christ and he learned how to make himself disappear behind the glory of the one who came after him.  This is Part 4 of our series on The Bold Leadership of John the Baptist.

Most of us know the figure of John the Baptist but not all of us our familiar with his actual message.  At the heart of John the Baptist’s proclamation was the phrase “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  What does it mean to repent and how is this essential to our leadership today?  In this third part of our series on the bold leadership of John the Baptist, we explore the meaning and significance of his proclamation and show how it impacts us even today.