Dare Great Things

For many Christians business is a challenge.  After all it is about making a profit.  It’s driven by coefficients of productivity and therefore moves much more according to justice than to mercy.  And yet at the same time business is an essential part of life as is the world of work.  How did St. Paul interrelate with the world of business and what does that teach us about our own way of looking at it?

We’ve been looking at St. Paul‘s life and the lessons his life gives us about leadership for some time.  But now we need to speak about what’s at the heart of his leadership.  The heart of his leadership is Jesus and his relationship with Him.

None of us like conflict.  And to be honest a lot of see conflict as a sign of failure.  When we read the life of St. Paul, however, we see him constantly in conflict and sometimes in very violent situations.  How did he handle it?  What is God asking of us?

Anyone involved in sales knows that the customer is always right.  If this is the case then why did St. Paul seem to bother his customers so profoundly and irk them so regularly?   What was it that St. Paul was proposing that was so earth shattering to his customers?

Leading our families and leading our businesses entails taking our people to places that are new.  When we do that conflict almost always ensues.  New ideas, new relationships force us to confront old ways of thinking and bring about change.  A lot of people don’t like that.  St. Paul the apostle also dealt with conflict – and here is how he overcame it.

I don’t think any of us have any doubt that leadership can be lonely.  It’s like they say, “It’s lonely at the top.”  St. Paul knew this from the inside and at times in his writings even mentions how hard it was for him to be alone.  And at the same time St. Paul cultivated friendships and had deep and profound relationships.   This becomes a model for us – the lonely, befriended leader.

Nobody doubts that leadership can be lonely at times.  And yet even the greatest of leaders had friends.  In the story of St. Paul and his leadership in Acts, St. Barnabas plays an essential role.  Why would God have wanted St. Paul to have a friend like St. Barnabas?  What role does God want our friendships to play in our lives as leaders?

All of us like to lead when we know what we are doing.  But when foundations are shaken or assumptions that we hold are questioned, it can be difficult and challenging to persevere in leadership.  St. Paul had the same challenge.  In today’s talk I would like to examine with you how we can persevere in leadership even in uncertain times.

I’d like to share about the leadership of St. Paul.  This man’s incredible passion and drive changed the Church.  But like so many great men he had a past.  How did Paul deal with what he had done towards God and God’s people?  How did his past shape his future?  And what can we do when we realize that we too are guilty of doing wrong?  How does it affect our leadership?

Leaders are caught between two worlds.  On the one hand it seems like our faith wants us to be meek and humble.  On the other hand the challenges that we face require us to be courageous and bold.  How do we find the balance between these two?  St. Peter had to face the same challenges.  Let’s see how he met them.

Leaders are those who make a difference.  But making a difference requires having a vision.  What was the vision inside of St. Peter?  What was driving him as he led the Church?  Understanding and getting a glimpse into God’s purpose for St. Peter we can better understand the role of vision in our own lives as leaders and how we can capture it.

I think leaders often get a bad name.  We are portrayed as people whose vision makes us hard and whose clarity makes us intransient. But a Christian leader is called to be something more.  The Acts Of The Apostles show us St. Peter as a leader who is vulnerable, who is emotionally engaged and, therefore, who is even more effective.

Without a doubt St. Peter and St. Paul dominate Church history – their names are as synonymous with Christianity as Our Lord’s own name or that of His Blessed Mother.  But how did the two get along and what was their relationship like?  If you were a leader how would you lead a church with someone like St. Paul in it? St. Peter gives us an example of a charismatic leadership – humble and empowering.

A lot of people expect leadership to go smoothly and when it doesn’t they think that they have done something wrong.  This can of course be true but is it always this way?  How do we lead in a suffering and tragic situation?  Simon Peter shows us in the Acts of The Apostles - giving us a great example.

Every leader has to face trials.  Every leader has to face suffering.  Even St. Peter in his leadership in Acts of The Apostles goes through very hard times. What are the secrets that his leadership shows us about how to cope with the sufferings involved?

There are many philosophies about leadership.  Some hold that the leader needs to keep themselves at a distance from the people that they lead – that the leader always needs to stay aloof and one step above. Others hold that leadership needs to be an exercise from within a community – almost like a shared charge that’s passed around.  What’s the truth?  How do we reconcile the need to lead forward and at the same time belong to the people that we serve?

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.  It’s the same with the business leader today.  If we look backwards we can sometimes allow our mistakes to overcome and overcloud our vision for the future.  Simon Peter obviously had to do the same.  How did he deal with his own sinfulness and brokenness?  How did he become a leader through it all? 

Bruce Lee once famously quipped that in order to win in martial arts you had to be like water.  Willing to find any crack, any way and being irresistible in your motion forward.  We see the same thing in the life of St. Peter and we see the same thing in the life of every successful business leader.  Let’s look at how this applies at our spirituality today.

There are so many reasons for us to be upset today – to be discouraged today – but there are even more reasons for us to be hopeful.  And St. Peter, the leader, demonstrates the role of leadership in inspiring and encouraging hope even in the darkest times.

We all know the value of diplomacy.  We all know the value of consideration and tolerance.  There is also a value in the ability to speak clearly what is on our mind in a persuasive fashion.  St. Peter demonstrates this the day of Pentecost and Fr. Nathan wants to look at that with you!