Making Sense of Church
CHAPTER TWO: TOUR GUIDE TO TRAVELER
This chapter deals mainly with leadership. As part of the book, Burke includes commetns left on the Ooze message board dealing with the topic of each chapter. One comment that stuck with me said this: “Leadership schmedership. Why are Christians so obsessed with leadership? What ever happened to followership or servanthood, the greatest being the least, etc?”
That really got to me. I thought about how I am trying to build up leaders in the youth group in which I lead. I began to think about my goals for them and how we go about developing leaders. I have come to the conclusion that you can’t be a leader of men if you are not (1.) HUMBLE or (2.) EMPATHETIC TO THE NEEDS OF OTHERS. I tell my youth, if you aren’t able to understand what it’s like to ‘walk in another man’s shoes’ then you aren’t ready to be a leader.
Has a right concept of LEADERSHIP been abused in the modern church? Have we placed too much emphasis on “the point person”? Every church needs leadership, but not every church gets it. Some think they have it, but might they be wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Burke goes on to speak a little bit about HONESTY. Honesty is a hard thing to come by in the church. What an odd thing to say, but it is true. If we can’t be honest with ourselves, with God or with others then we can never be the Christ-like leader God may be calling us to be. Until that happens, the church (and the world, frankly) will continue to struggle to meet the needs of those we come in contact with.
In order to become a traveler instead of a tour guide, we must be willing to veer off course, not worrying about taking a wrong step. Wrong steps will come. A traveler is able to love and be loved exactly as they are.
A traveler is:
1. On a journey
2. Learning from you
3. Open to finding new ways to do things
4. Doesn’t have to have it all figured out.
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