I meet them wherever I go in closed countries around the world. They are just entering the prime of life. In age, in their late thirties; in education, superior; in experience, successful; in giftedness, uncommon; in dedication, unparalleled. They are willing to risk all for Christ--freedom, family, finances, their future.

They are frequently visited by the police. Some are warned, some are harassed, some have their lives threatened, and some have said, "Kill me-I won't stop proclaiming Christ." Some occupy positions of great significance in their societies, having graduated from prominent universities. At least a few have studied in the West and gone back home out of a passion to serve Christ. They could " have been free, but they chose to return home because of love for their Lord and their land.

Some have been successful entrepreneurs, some corporate leaders. I have met single and married women with advanced degrees who held significant positions in multi-national corporations with glamorous roles, opportunities for international travel, power, and wealth, who freely gave this up to serve the lowest of the low. And they do this in the name of Christ.

All the wives of the leaders I have met are as committed as their husbands. They are the ones who would be left behind to protect and provide for their children if their husbands were jailed. Yet they take the same risks as their husbands, teaching and ministering in the name of Christ.

Why? Why do they risk freedom, family, finances and future for Christ?

As best I can tell these men and women have three reasons for taking such great risks.

First, because of their conviction that Jesus really is Lord. Some are third and fourth generation believers. They saw their parents and grandparents suffer for Christ, so they know what they are doing when they take the same stand.

Others knew nothing of Christianity in their youth. They came to Christ out of the futility and emptiness of their previous way of life. He was the least likely Light at the end of their long search for reality. Either way these leaders are convinced He is both Lord and Light, the only Light in the darkness around them.

The second reason why they take such risks is because of the call of Christ on their lives. They simply cannot deny His call. No matter how hard they resist, in the end they must respond to Him, whatever they face. It is the combination of conviction and call that leads them to their third reason for following Jesus so radically.

The third reason is commitment. They are committed---dedicated, determined--to follow Him. They know they follow the Man who carried the cross on His back and they know they must join Him and carry the cross on their backs.

So they are convinced, called, and committed, and that's why they risk everything--freedom, family, finances, future--to serve unseen, unknown, and unvalued by most of the society around them. This is what gives them the courage and confidence to trust Jesus totally.

The answer to the question why raises a second question. Why not? Why wouldn't we respond the same way?

Questions to Ponder:

• Think of what it means for you to be free, to go where you want, to do what you will, to be who you are. What if Christ called you to give up your freedom and be put in a horrible prison for years at a time.? Would you do it? Why? Why not?
• Think about your family and what they mean to you. What if Christ called you to risk their safety, education, and career opportunities? Would you do it? Why? Why not?
• Think about your financial security. What if Christ called you to assume a role that would always leave you at risk financially? Would you do it? Why? Why not?
• Think about your future, your hopes, dreams, and plans. What if Christ called you to turn away from this and risk all? Would you do it? Why? Why not?
• Hard decisions. Think about it. They have—and that's why they're convicted, called, and committed.

How many times have you thought:

• “I don’t have what it takes…”
• “There is someone else better for the job…”
• “If they really knew how scared I was…”

How many times has God asked you to do a task, a mission, or a job that pushes you outside of your expertise, confidence, or desire?

If this has happened to you, then you are in good company.

God’s l

How many times have you thought:

• “I don’t have what it takes…”
• “There is someone else better for the job…”
• “If they really knew how scared I was…”

How many times has God asked you to do a task, a mission, or a job that pushes you outside of your expertise, confidence, or desire?

If this has happened to you, then you are in good company.

God’s leaders are not so much defined by their strengths as by their weaknesses. He picks the feeble to battle the formidable.

Jesus is calling empty-handed men and women
to feed five thousand. This is what His
kind of leadership is all about

He taps the woefully inadequate to lead incredibly significant ventures. Would you pick a murdering insecure stutterer to take on the ruling empire? Would you pick a fearful farm boy who needs multiple miracles to lead an outgunned and outnumbered army? Would you roll the dice with a shepherd boy and a sling? Before they became enduring leadership masterpieces, God chipped away at the hearts of flawed marble in Moses, Gideon, and David.

Biblical leadership must start with an admission – “I don’t have what it takes.” We are going to go on a journey through the middle part of Mark as we look at the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. Through this paradigm miracle as well as four other message miracles, you will discover why God calls us as leaders to step out when we want to shrink back. In addition, listen for the struggle that threatens to deafen, cripple, blind, and paralyze you as a leader.

Video– Paradigm Miracle (Mark 6:33-44)

Video Notes – Message Miracles:

Mark 7:24-30 – The Syrophoenician Woman:

Mark 7:31-37 – The Deaf Man:

Mark 8:1-11 – The Four Thousand:

Mark 8:22-25 – The Blind Man:

Key Points:

A hardened heart deafens the ears, cripples the tongue,
blinds the eyes, and paralyzes the hands.

• As a leader, you must do what you cannot do with what you do not have for the rest of your life.
• Corollary: Jesus says, “I will do what and paralyzes the hands. I can do with what you do have through you for the rest of your life.”
• Leadership – over the sides of the boat and into the waves.

Probing Deeper:

1. Jesus expected Peter to get out of the boat. Is there a specific action Jesus is expecting you to do that will get your feet wet? Are you actively putting yourself in a position of dependence so you can do things you could never do otherwise? If not, why not?

2. Think about the opportunities the disciples missed because they didn’t hear Jesus with an open heart. Have you missed chances to step out of the boat? What kept you from trusting Jesus?

3. How have you seen the principle that “knowledge can easily get in the way of trust” operate in your life? How does it affect your leadership?

4. Where do you hope (and fear) God takes you in the future? What causes you to have this fear? How would your movement into that feared place benefit the body of Christ?

5. What do you think the Dreaded L.D. might be?

Transforming the Heart:

Where are you in your leader formation process? Do you find that far too often you are shrinking in the storm rather than stepping out on the waves? Take a few moments to look down at the words listed below. Select the terms that most accurately describe your feelings about God and your current leadership pilgrimage.

Summarize each feeling you chose with a short statement – one or two sentences – explaining why you feel the way you do.

Based on these responses, how healthy would you say your current relationship with God is? What steps must you take to move your relationship with Him to a place of greater trust and health?

Where do you hope (and fear) God takes you in the future? What contribution would this new direction make to your formation? How would these hopes and fears benefit the body of Christ?

What might cause you not to trust God for His next step for you in your leader formation process? How must you respond to trust God for this next step? What if His next step is just another step on the same treadmill you are on now? How will you respond?

Remember, God’s primary concern for you is your growth, not your success. As a leader, you must remember His goal is to see Christ formed in you, regardless of the cost.

Renewing the Mind:

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
– Isaiah 43:2-3

Imagine the marble turning to Michelangelo and saying, “My arms aren’t shaped the way I like. I’d rather you give me a smaller nose. I’d prefer to wear some clothes. “The sculptor never debates with the marble about what he’s doing. It’s absurd to imagine the marble arguing with Michelangelo about the shape it is being given.

Whether we are talking about stone, canvas, or clay, artists have the right to design whatever they desire from th

Imagine the marble turning to Michelangelo and saying, “My arms aren’t shaped the way I like. I’d rather you give me a smaller nose. I’d prefer to wear some clothes. “The sculptor never debates with the marble about what he’s doing. It’s absurd to imagine the marble arguing with Michelangelo about the shape it is being given.

Whether we are talking about stone, canvas, or clay, artists have the right to design whatever they desire from their materials. Clay pots are a common metaphor throughout Scripture. The prophets chastised Israel for quarreling with the Potter over how He crafted them. Paul picks up this theme when he writes to the Romans, “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use?” (Romans 9:20-21).

Yet we as leaders tend to trust our intuition over God’s direction. So, when we aren’t being formed the way we believe we ought to be – our position doesn’t quite have the prestige we think we deserve, the accolades aren’t arriving as we anticipated they would, our best laid plans fall apart, a job we want goes to a peer – we begin to feel that God isn’t looking out for our best interests. That’s when we fall captive to our own blind self-confidence. In short, we try to become both the potter and the clay. We want to call the shots on how we should be made and used.

Of course marble, canvas, and clay are inanimate objects, but Paul uses the picture of the clay pot to show us that we need to trust the God who created us so He can form us into His kind of leaders. Our responsibility is to trust rather than complain. In this session, we look at how we seek to wrestle control from God. Then we see the four symptoms of the Dreaded Leader’s Disease. By the end of the teaching time, we will stand in the tomb of Jesus and ask the question, “Can you trust the Artist with your life?”

Video - Wanting to be god:

Symptoms of the Dreaded L.D.

1st Symptom - Destructive Competition (Mark 9:30-34)

2nd Symptom - Power Plays (Mark 10:32-37)

3rd Symptom - Insensitivity (Luke 22:14–24 )

4th Symptom - Blind Self-Confidence (Mark 14:27-30 )

Why are we competitive? Why are we striving for power?
Because there’s something in our hearts that’s missing,
something that we seek to fill by overcoming others so we can feel superior
to them. We think that’s leadership.

“They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them.”
- Mark 16:8

Key Points:

We follow the man who calls us to carry
the cross on our backs to the tomb.
That’s leadership for us.

• We as leaders will do everything we can to please God, but will we fall into the trap of wanting to please ourselves at the same time?
• A radical biblical leader lives a death/life lifestyle. We put to death our core expectations and we find life when we trust Christ to raise us from the dead and give us what He wants us to have.

Probing Deeper:

1. Were you one of the ones protesting that you did not have a hardened heart? That you have done everything you can to please God? How do you respond to the call of the cross?

2. Of the three ways that we try to become God – determine our reality, define our identity, or decide our security – which one do you struggle with the most and why?

3. We looked at four symptoms of the Dreaded Leader’s Disease.

A. Destructive Competition

B. Power Plays

C. Insensitivity

D. Blind Self-Confidence

Try and define each in your own words. Then describe how each symptom impacts your life. Apply this question to yourself, “Why do you struggle with these symptoms?”

4. Do you remember those core expectations from the earlier lesson? Have you taken them into the tomb and left them there?

5. Are you laying in the grave right now? Will you give up all control and trust Jesus to raise you from the dead? Will you say “yes” to the grave?

Transforming the Heart:

In the Old Testament, “form” is the root of the word “potter.” God prepares us as His clay, places us on the wheel, and gradually shapes us into the vessel of His choosing. God is intensely involved in forming us for an eternity of service.

What does it mean to you to have God as the Potter in your life? What does it mean that He is forming you into the kind of clay pot He wants you to be?

Have you ever had feelings of dissatisfaction because of the type of clay pot God is forming you to be? Do you ever feel like you’re a water pot when you would really like to be a decorative urn or a Ming vase? What impact do these feelings have on you personally? On your marriage and parenting? On your leadership?

Paul calls us clay pots – merely baked dirt – in 2 Corinthians 4:7.

We’d prefer to be a precious piece of ceramic, even a beautiful umbrella stand in some grand entry hall. But not a water pot, and, God forbid, never a chamber pot.

So in our disgust we, the clay, decide to become the potter and make ourselves something nobler. We want to make God’s hands our hands and wrestle control away from the Potter. We seek to determine our reality, define our identity, and decide our security. Whether it’s through money, image management, safety, or superiority, when we try to put ourselves in ultimate control, we’ve fallen into idolatry. Only God can determine reality. And God has already defined our identity. Most of all, God alone is our security. So, we strive foolishly to become the Potter and in the end we create idols and turn ourselves into worthless heaps of useless clay.

Renewing The Mind:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hardpressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
– 2 Corinthians 4:7-9

How we sculpt great leaders shows what we prize in them. As you stroll through the grass of any grand battlefield you meet the memories of generals who were daring, indomitable, and courageous. When you meander through piazzas in Europe you see the statues of kings and statesmen etched with resolve, passion, and determination. Whether it’s Winston Churchill standing undaunted or General Jackson mounted on his regal steed, we sculpt w

How we sculpt great leaders shows what we prize in them. As you stroll through the grass of any grand battlefield you meet the memories of generals who were daring, indomitable, and courageous. When you meander through piazzas in Europe you see the statues of kings and statesmen etched with resolve, passion, and determination. Whether it’s Winston Churchill standing undaunted or General Jackson mounted on his regal steed, we sculpt what we esteem.

Certainly leaders need to have resolve, passion, and courage. We follow leaders who tower in the midst of battles and forget those who cower in the storm. But do those traits define the essence of a great leader?

If you were to walk across a seminary courtyard in Dallas, Texas you would discover a very different statue. Like the others, it is handcrafted from precious materials. Like the others, an artist sculpted what he valued. However you will discover from the subject’s position a far different message.

He kneels on bended knees with nothing but a slave’s towel covering his waist. With head bowed, he is focused on a basin. His hands hold neither sword nor scepter, but a foot and a towel. Before Him you see the startled figure of Peter – tense, resistant, confused.

When Jesus wrapped Himself in the slave’s towel He changed the world and the way we should view leadership. In this session, we will see why Jesus’ position in John 13 is the essence of true leadership. Furthermore, we will see why the pictures we have in our minds of what a “slave-leader” looks like are all wrong. He will show us through Jesus’ actions in the upper room why slave-leadership looks nothing like the senior pastor serving coffee at the church dinner. By the end of this session, we believe you will begin sculpting a whole new statue of your leadership. We all want–to be the undaunted, passionate, and. determined leader but are we willing to join the Order of the Towel first?

Some of the greatest authority you will ever exercise
as a leader you will exercise on your knees –
and I am not talking about prayer.

Video

John 13:4-11

John 13:12-17

As a slave-leader you have five choices. You can become a:

• Slave to your followers
• Slave to your peers
• Slave to your leader
• Slave to yourself
• Slave to your Lord

Key Points:

There is only one way we become slave
leaders – through the Slave Leader.

• Leadership is not about power, success, or control; leadership is about humility, vulnerability, and release.
• The essence of leadership: bringing followers onto God’s agenda for their lives no matter what it costs.
• One of our chief responsibilities as slave-leaders is to call our followers away from sin.

Probing Deeper:

1. What struck you most about this final session? How do you understand the fact that “slave leadership is not about doing what our followers want us to do?”

2. We focused a great deal on bringing followers onto God’s agenda despite the costs that may be involved (marred reputations, negative remarks, friendships, social image). What cost is difficult for you to pay when you think about being a slave to your followers?

3. How do we as leaders isolate ourselves? How do we attempt to freeze people out when the cost gets too high to truly help them follow God’s agenda?

4. Of the five choices that Bill listed, which slave do you find yourself becoming: a slave to your followers, a slave to your peers, a slave to your leader, a slave to yourself, or a slave to your Lord?

5. As you look back over the previous five sessions, which principles has God used to chisel and craft your heart? What steps are you going to implement as a result of this insight into leader formation?

Transforming the Heart:

The statues of the world’s great leaders all exude a sense of power. Only the image of Jesus in John 13 reveals the essence of true Christian leadership. Of the three leader-destroyers – money, sex, and power – power seems to be the one that impacts Christian leaders the most. Money and sex take their toll, but power seduces even the most mature Christian leaders.

We wrestle with power because it gives us an identity. It makes us feel like we’re somebody, like we matter, like we’re – well, like we’re God. We decide who matters and who doesn’t, who moves up and who moves down, who stays and who goes. Many of these decisions have life-changing consequences and some may even be matters of life or death. But a distinction must be made between personal power and appropriate authority, often called social power. Social power, in contrast to personal power, is exercised for the good of the vision and the group rather than the good of the leader. The difference between the two lies in motives. The same action maybe right or wrong, constructive or destructive, depending on why it is done. Here are two key questions to help identify our motives:

• Am I acting to protect myself or build others?
• Am I acting in light of my interests or the vision’s demands?

At times our personal interests and the interests of the group overlap, but many leaders abuse power because they feel threatened by followers. This misuse of power undermines our accountability before God who entrusted us with this vision and purpose.

So are you a power player? One of the things power players do is take over for God by acting to form their followers in their image. Are you a god working to form yourself and your followers according to your image? Take the power test below. Then give it to some key people in your life: mate or roommate, mature children, your manager, a few of your peers, those who report to you.

A Power test:

Five (5) is the highest number on this scale and one (1) is the lowest.

• Now ask this: What is the one question about my power addiction that is not on this evaluation?

Nobody’s perfect, of course, but score much less than 90 on this scale and you need to note the critical areas. Anything under 80 may well indicate that you are seriously power driven. If you realize you have stepped into God’s formative role, you need to resign as God because you—like the rest of us—are not very good at that. Sign the letter below and give up trying to be God. Otherwise the best you can do is fail and the worst you will do is destroy others. So here’s what I suggest.Write the letter you see on this page. Date it, sign it, and keep it where you will see it frequently, say on your desk or in your Bible. Review it regularly so you make sure that God (and not you!) is God in your life and that you are becoming who He wants you to be.

Renewing the Mind:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that someone lays down his life for his friends.
– John 15:12-13