STORY:
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Before we jump back into the 6th century for some leadership lessons from Saint Benedict, let's look at the contemporary world of Business and Leadership Consulting. In this world there's a man named Patric Lincioni, who's considered to be something of a master in the field. For good reason: he's something of a master of the field.
The contemporary world of organizational management makes itself from the tangled intersections of money and power and human motivation, production and art and cultural trends and any number of other forces, all of which seem to move according to their own disconnected or warring rules. This makes this world a very confusing one.
In this kind of environment, it's easy to spend days getting nothing important done but rather simply wondering, of all the seemingly important things that need to be done, to what should a leader devote their time and energy?
For those who feel the tension of this question, Lincioni is able to cut through the confusion by making a move that is kind of brilliant in its counterintuitive simplicity; he says the main job of a leader is to cut through the confusion and create clarity.
If someone can do just this one job in several key areas, creating clarity about what the organization does and why, simply explaining what are the most important strategic initiatives right now, defining how the company is going to strive to achieve those initiatives and plainly assigning who in the organization is going to do what, then this is the leadership needed in today's confusing world.
This kind of clarity, when it happens, is often done by some executive order delivered from the top down, or by a group in some sort of democratic process carried out over the course of an off-site, multi-day, strategic leadership retreat. But however it's accomplished, whenever it is actually pulled off and executed in actual operations, this kind of clarity is a powerful means of getting the collective vision, creativity, intelligence and energy of a group aligned so that the organization can accomplish things not even the most driven and talented individuals could pull off on their own.
But, what this level of clarity does not bring, is clarity on the deeper, spiritual and moral levels that helps us discern whether or not what the organization accomplishes is truly good.
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With this kind of focus, an organization might make a lot of money, and produce more jobs and wealth for many households, but still leave broken families in its wake. With this kind of clarity, a group might create a killer product, and that might be both figural and literal; they might introduce the whole world to something dazzling that stimulates addiction and so kills any number of other dreams.
So now, with both that powerful leadership insight about clarity and that warning, let's move to the 6th century world of St. Benedict, to see how his leadership can help us bring clarity in a way that also highlights and facilitates the connection between effectiveness and goodnesses.
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St. Benedict's leadership began not when he was named Abbot of a monastery, but when we decided to be a great follower.
We often talk about leadership like it's some all or nothing thing. As if God, when creating us, uses that as a primary category, like God's thinking, "This one I'm making 'a leader,' and this one, not." We do this when we say someone is a "born leader," or treat our positional titles like they say something about our identities. But nobody is ever capable of leading everyone, in every dimension of every activity, all the time. No one. Because we trust we are made for good, and that would not be good for anyone.
So notice, even with the sparse biographical details we do have about Saint Benedict's life, we know he was a good follower. When he decided to learn to pray, he followed the advice of Romanus, even when Romanus told him to go live in a cave.
And Benedict stayed there, not just until he got bored or until he felt ready to start something, but until other people started to recognize his gifts and ask for his guidance. Then, he accepted the responsibility even through he still felt fearful and inadequate - which, when you think about it, is another form of following - he followed the genuine needs of the community over his own fears.
And then, it's not like Benedict just followed until he became a leader. Or that once he became the Abbot he was always only the leader.
He continually learned from the Abbots and the monks and nuns that came before him and pioneered monasticism. And, ultimately, for his whole life, whether leading or taking an unseen supporting role, Benedict followed Jesus. Until he became the kind of person who could follow Jesus even in giving commands that would help other's come to see, more and more clearly, how they could experience the goodness of life in Christ.
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And he followed Jesus in the way he evaluated the success of his monasteries: not just by looking at their financial sustainability or the number of new monastics taking vows, following not just the metrics, but by always looking for Christ's ongoing presence in the life of the community marked by the brothers' and sisters' growth in holiness and love and making decisions based on how they could continue to feed that life.
The way we follow, and who we follow, are central to our own leadership, because if you want to get clarity not just on what will win an established game, but what is truly good, it is never a simple matter of judging according to external metrics like profit or number of customers or attendees. All of these things can be easily measured even while they turn sour on the inside. But discerning the good requires inner spiritual work that tunes our instincts and desires toward God. And if you're always grasping after control in every situation, you're missing opportunities to do this inner work.
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So Benedict's larger Sainthood made him a particular kind of leader. Benedict's whole way of life, being oriented toward God, made him someone who could create something like his Rule, something that would clarify precisely how, day after day, in prayer and work and choosing who would handle what duties, a community could come to know God more clearly.
And this is just another aspect of what we talked about in the first episode, where we framed this whole series with the question, what makes the kind of soul that could write something like Benedict's Rule?
So in the conversation that follows, Julius, Kevin and I continue to explore what Saint Benedict's witness can tell us about the quality of soul needed for good leadership in volatile times of disintegration and uncertainty.
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DISCUSSION [Auto-Generated Transcript]
Julius: Welcome back listener to “All Things.” Um, this is Julius and Kevin and will again, um, yep. Yep.
Kevin: Indeed.
Wilson: Yes.
Julius: Verily . Um, today we're talking about, as we keep on going through Benedict's rule and kind of like, um, Take a deeper look into what these monastic communities look like and what we can learn from them.
Um, today we're talking about leadership and, um, this one, I I'm very like, uh, fascinated to see where this conversation goes. Cuz I think this was very pertinent for me in reading through I, I borrowed Will's copy of Benedict's rule like a couple of months ago and kind of was like fing through it myself.
And I remember, I think just like where I was. In life. that time. I was just like, in a particularly like angsty anti-authoritarian mood.
Kevin: As we all are.
Julius: As we all can be. And I think, I remember just like being in a bad mood, reading it and being like. All this stuff about like how the people in the monasteries are to listen to the Abbot and like how much authority is given to the Abbot.
I was like, who the heck is the Abbot? Like why, who gives him this much power? Why is that? Okay. And then like I brought that with will and he said some really good stuff to help kind of like reframe how I understand what authority is and how, um, ways that we can understand authority that is not like exploitative, which is, I think so many of our resistance to it is that we've seen so many examples of bad leadership and authority being exploited.
Wilson: And so. As is like our usual Mo like, how can we kind of like, reframe that and take a look at like, what, like just starting with what can good leadership look
like? Right. That I that's one of, well, first of all, I was all ready to go. And then you gave the intro and it always feels like when the expectations are there, it's like, shoot.
Now I gotta say good stuff. , don't be a bad leader. . Do it. Oh, but that would be so with all, I mean, time after time, after time, I keep coming back to the same sort of like fundamental position where we go like, yes, it's correct. That that is bad. And yes, that is abusive and yes, that is a misuse of these things, but that doesn't mean any of us really wants to live without this stuff.
Like power again, it's not, is there power being used? The question is like, is it good power? Mm-hmm is it being used? Well, authority, judgment. right. You know, again, I, these shouldn't be like fly by topics where you just mention them, cuz people are gonna be going like, whoa, whoa, whoa. hold on. I'm not convinced.
But so like. I guess for all of those things, we'll have to deal concretely with the principle I'm hitting at with leadership. Mm-hmm . So with all of these things before we're ready to think that the world would be better off without them. Right. Let's look for good examples. Yeah. Don't this is over and over again over again.
I tell the people like don't let the bad examples spoil something for you. Like when, when people are grasping for something that has. Influence and power when they're grasping, after it to use it for something bad to just don't let 'em have it. Mm-hmm like, don't let them take it and run a run away with it and do all kinds of wreckage and damage.
Right, right. Pulling back and, and saying like, oh, no judgment or no leadership. Right. Essentially does that. Mm-hmm . And so, so don't reclaim it. And the way to reclaim it is to look okay. If that's bad, if that's not, it what's a good example of, of where there's genuine. Genuine leadership mm-hmm . And so it's, it's clear in Benedict's rule how the Abbot is chosen and they're chosen because the community recognize you have the character and the gifts and the graces that will allow you to take authority in this role.
Mm-hmm you have they've. Already recognized the right kind of authority. And so then they're choosing to put them in that place where they can exercise that authority. Yeah. And think about it in the sense of exercise as a metaphor, use it and enact it in a way that everyone gets stronger because of your gift.
So a, a class, if you go to a class, uh, I mean an exercise class. Yeah. And they're saying touch your toes and you do it. You're recognizing their authority. You're recognizing yeah. That they have something to give. And if you obey. If you follow their lead. Yeah. Then what they have to give will be communicated to you and you will benefit from it.
Yeah. So that that's like good authority. And so I thought of that, like, what's one of the cases of like a place where I've recognized because I have, I mean, this is like, um, uh, who doesn't have issues with authority, right? yeah. It's kind of. Who doesn't have daddy issues, you know, like, you know, did you have a good one?
You, well, you got 'em still, did you not have one? You got 'em, you know, it's like, like who doesn't have authority issues. and I can, I can kick against it. I can have this like inner, passive, and even outward rebellion as much as anyone else, you know? And so when I look back to that phase, when I was kind of the most, most prone to just Uhuh yeah.
oh, I wanted to, yeah. I mean, my go-to example here is when I checked out Frankenstein from the library in my high school, cuz I was honestly just. Surprised that my small Christian school had Frankenstein in the library surprising. And I was like, I wanna read this book. And then by happenstance, a week later, it was assigned to me in my literature class, I had to read it and I suddenly no longer wanted to read it.
So like, oh yeah. And this is like that same phase in my life where, where I could just suddenly. Uh, I now suddenly don't want to do it anymore just cuz you told me I have to mm-hmm was a time when I was like in other ways, most submissive and in a way that didn't turn out to be totally bad for me.
Mm-hmm and so there was a. and actually what I'm doing here is there's one kind of like key example where I, I played, but along with there being one concrete key example for honesty and disclosure case, I'm kind of taking three or four different coaches and putting them into one kind of composite character.
Kevin: Yeah, yeah. Like a Frankenstein.
Wilson: Yeah. Um, most people, but there, but of all of these, there was, there was one that. Most embodied the characteristics. And so got mm-hmm the, the highest kind of obedience from me and that's where it came to basketball. Yeah. And this coach knew basketball. Mm-hmm there were and improved it.
Right. There are people that could talk it, but then to watch them do it, to watch them organize a team. Yeah. And he had been a coach at an NCAA D-1 team that had gone to the final four. Right, right. Had experience had proven himself. And so when this, and so there's that he had that kind of experience that sort of real.
Know how mm-hmm he understood the game. And two, we had a shared desire. I wanted to be a good basketball player. He wanted to make me a good basketball player. Mm-hmm . And from that, we had a shared tell us mm-hmm from that shared desire, we had a shared goal mm-hmm and now in that place, because he had the authority because those pieces came together.
When he told me to do something, I. If he told me to pick up the ball and don't shoot for an hour, but just dribble this way. If he told me to run all these drills for two hours, without even picking up a ball, I did it if he told me to run till I puked I, and literally once like on the court and everyone was like, duh, cuz we had to stop the, we had to stop practice for cleanup.
Like, but if he told me to run till I puked, I ran till I puked because he knew it and in basketball and in area. That there were like secondary areas that had something to do with that. Mm-hmm like, he's the reason that when I was a freshman in high school, I stopped drinking soda because he talked about nutrition.
Yeah. The connection to my body and how that connected to my goals as a basketball player. Yeah. And so I just decided at 15 years old, I'm done drinking soda. And it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't the same thing as like not partying, you know, the peer pressure, but you know, we're talking soda, not the, but it wasn't easy of course, to, for in the next four years to say no to soda, but I said no to soda.
Yeah. Because of this shared and that authority. Right. And it, it reaped huge benefits for me. In ways that still carry over, even though I didn't end up playing college basketball, like was my dream mm-hmm it got certain things into me that carry over and benefit me in all sorts of areas in life, especially now that I'm tipping over.
And I'm, you know, I'm in my forties and aging, there are certain things about physical health mm-hmm and what is good pushing through and what is no, listen and pull back mm-hmm right. That's allowing me even into my forties to experience some activities, some health and do things with my kids. Yeah. That it was, he taught me how to do.
And it got ingrained in me at that point. Right. In those areas where he had that and that's genuine authority. You recognize it. Yeah. You know what you're talking about? And so when you say so I listen. Yeah. I had other coaches that it was like, yeah, no, you have no idea what you're talking about. right.
The school just couldn't find anybody. Right. And you were the only person that agreed to take on this job. Uh, but, but, but Gary, no, no, no. You tell me to run tele IPU coming to run to LPU because you know what you're talking about, we have the shared desire and the shared tell us. Yeah. And in other like secondary issues where that's line, but then there were plenty of other places, especially as we got to know each other more and more.
where he didn't have authority in my life. but he, he tried to give me several times advice about girls and it was just a very quick, no, right? Nope. You're out of your jurisdiction. Exactly. right. No, I mean, you could
Kevin: have tried
Wilson: it and so, well, that was the thing. Like I looked at his history with basketball and his knowhow.
Right. And I looked at his for sure. That's where I'm gonna, this was pre this was no. Book, right. I'm not, I'm not going through his browser history, although I'm pretty sure, but like, but you know, but then I, I looked in those other areas and was like, no, no, no. With, with that, that's just a trailer wreckage and that's not what I want.
And so you're free to tell me these things, but I'm also free to say no, and I'm not gonna do what you say. Yeah. Right. That's that's gen the first key bit of, of genuine authority and leadership. And this is what Benedict gets at very early on the, when he first starts talking about the Abbot, he's talking.
To he's not talking to the potential Abbot that has ambitions for running a monastery. He's talking to the, the monks. Yeah. Saying these are the qualities you look for in choosing this leader. Mm-hmm this is how you recognize genuine authority where
Kevin: you were just going spark several. What sparked several ideas. Mm-hmm , uh, a couple I wanna, I wanna kind of highlight is it sounds like leadership is the kind of, um, the metaphor that comes to mind is like a, like a teacher or master to like an apprentice master. Yeah. Um, or someone like an, a craft, uh, that someone like a right.
You're trying to initiate somebody into a school of craft. Whether it be, I. Uh, wood making carpentry. Yeah. You know, and you're trying to instill in them, here are the skills, here's how you do it. And so leadership should be in that kind of realm of instilling skills and practices and, and things of that nature to make, you know, produce or what's what was a good word there, um, to create.
Someone who is like the master mm-hmm , um, to like, you know, pass on that. And what that got me going with all this, like, talk about leadership and authority is there's, uh, um, I think I quoted Bon ho last time too. So curious again, just pops up outta nowhere. It's like, oh, Hey, Hey Bonnie , um,
Wilson: back at it again.
Um, theology, nerd jokes.
Kevin: uh, but one of the cool things, I think it's in his book Christ center, he talks about Jesus and how he, he comes about and. Ex essentially comes almost outta nowhere. And people are like, who are you? Um, who are you to say these things? Um, by what authority do you do them? Mm-hmm uh, what is your leadership like?
who gave you this? Um, and essentially what Bon Harper highlights is that Jesus is on a different plane than any other human in, in, uh, history. Jesus, doesn't say like here's the teaching or Jesus doesn't have authority or Jesus doesn't give like a good word. Like he is that. Jesus is the authority. Jesus is the word that is being spoken.
Jesus is by its very nature. You know, he brings it. It got me thinking when you were talking, will that, uh, perhaps the, the mistake that abusive leaders and dictators make is that they confuse having authority with like being the authority. Yeah.
Wilson: There you go. There there's I think you, if you didn't nail it, you're right there with like your finger super close to the heart of, I mean, cuz there is a BAJI.
Specific mistakes that they make over, but that's maybe the, the fundamental. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin: It's just confusing that having authority, which where versus saying like, I am the authority. Yep. This is ingrained in my being. So therefore listen to whatever I say, even matters that I have no jurisdiction over.
Wilson: Right. And that's where you start. When you look at. And again, it's like, uh, I mean, this is used so many times, but I, I think there's a reason they talk about counterfeiting the way the FBI trains people to find counterfeit bills is not to chase down all the, the bad ones to show them how they counterfeit or what the mistakes are.
They just over and over show them the real thing. Yeah. Right. They learn to know the real thing over and over and over again. And so. Yeah, it, I mean that's and the truth for all of us, and this is where we're gonna like put a little pressure back on all of us know that I know that this comes back to me too.
Yeah. Is you don't just complain and feel, um, feel like you've done. What is sufficient, if you can point fingers at bad cases of authority. Mm-hmm, like part of what we need to do is recognize, do the work to recognize true authority. When you start to recognize genuine authority, you'll also recognize we all have.
In certain areas. We, part of the mistake we make is to think so, uh, categorically, and even that it, I don't feel like that fully communicates, but we, we think so all or nothing. Mm-hmm so a person is a leader or they aren't a leader. And if all we have is bad leaders, then we shouldn't. Right, right. But what we need to recognize if we're gonna handle this well, is we need to recognize where authority genuine lies.
And if you start to see that, you'll start to recognize the areas where you have it. Yeah. Where people do look to you and where rightly they should. And that means responsibility to develop that so that you can provide. In, in fuller and fuller ways for the people that are looking to you. Yeah. That need that.
Right. This is even in the monastery. Right. And, and this is another, a test case of a good example. Mm-hmm to look at it, to see what's healthy and good. The Abbot is not the whole leader. The Abbot is not the leader. Not the only leader. Right. We'll come back to like what the Abbot is. Yes. There's a, a different kind of authority there because of what you just laid out and what the monastery is seeking to conform to yeah.
In the kingdom of God. But it also talks about like, Hey, but part of what you need to do is choose a leader here. And this is what you look for here as far as virtues characteristics, but also skills. So who's gonna oversee the resources of the monastery. That's not all in the Abbot's hands mm-hmm right.
And that's one of the things where you see with dictators is they want to control everything, whether or not they have the genuine authority to do it. Yeah. And so they make calls and they make hu huge calls that really affect people's lives, where they. . I mean, they may have positional power. Yeah. But they don't have authority.
They don't have knowhow. And so it goes badly and this is why they end up themselves. What they worship is power itself. Yeah. For them. So they grasp after it. And that's why there's like incredible repercussions for challenging the authority. Real leaders love helpful. Feedback right now. Well, maybe love isn't.
I mean, it can still sting them, but they recognize it they're to it and they're open and they listen and they adjust. Right. And so the community and the Abbot also chooses, here's the person that oversees the resources in the seller. Yeah. Here's the person who handles the outside business. Here's the person that, because you guys have authority in this area and they a, a, a good leader in that sense also like enables others to recognize and live into their own leadership.
Yeah. And their own authority.
Um, and the, the thing with the Abbot is, and this is where you have to with, with the characteristics. This is where, um, the things start to coalesce, or I like, I like Flannery O'Connors everything that rises must converge. Mm-hmm like if, if all of these things really are. Rising up toward God, then there's also a, a massive, beautiful convergence of all these disparate elements.
Cause we all live in a dome but uh, yeah, it's a spiritual truth. Not a physical . Alright. Earth. Okay. Um, so what Benedict right off the bat tells the community to look for. And the qualifications of the Abbot are like Christlike qualities. Mm-hmm . Right. And so your right to take it to Bon Hoffer, Jesus is on a different level.
He is the authority. And what does Jesus do when Jesus comes and uses that authority? That's one of the things you see over in the gospel is Jesus shows. He doesn't just have expertise in this area. Mm-hmm he has authority over life. Mm-hmm right. When he says, be heal, he's healed when he interprets the scriptures life changes, and God is actually revealed a book just isn't, uh, talked about right.
Mm-hmm he has authority over life. And what does he do? It's and this is the go to here. It, this is the new Testament in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself. Mm-hmm, the one who has genuine authority, that kind of, that kind of authority, not like positional I'm the master. So do what I say. Yeah.
But the kind of authority we've been talking about Christ has that over life, cuz he's the source of life. And so what is he doing? He's healing and reconciling it. Yeah. And so if the Abbot, this is why Benedict right off the bat says these are the qualities that you look for because these are Christlike, qualit.
Hmm. And he gives the strongest warning to the people who take that position. Yeah. That the consequences of you misusing this are worse than anybody else misusing the authority or the position they have. Yeah. And so, and this is why over and over again, the, the stories of the best leaders, the best Abbots, the best bishops in the church.
Almost all of 'em have an element of, and when the church tried to put them in this position, they tried to run away. Yeah. like, like John Christo literally ran to a cave and hid and they had to physically drag him out and place him on the Bishop's seat before he would take that position. Yeah. Because they realize that in this place, what, and this is what, he's, what Benedict says.
You're you are representing. Re-presenting Christ and that is, that is an authority and a position. And like, that's the kind of thing that you don't want to just arrogantly assume for yourself. Yeah. And you probably you're qualified to take it if a good part of you knows you don't want it. Yeah. um, Because your job at that point, and this is what you see as he lays the rest of it out is to be that thing that, that heals and reconciles.
And so if that's the case, you are not amassing all the authority for yourself, you're helping other people discover, find their authority and trust that in themselves yeah. Become who they were made to be and give them opportunity to give those gifts to the community. It, and it that's the Christlike reconciling power.
That's, that's quite a different thing. You know, this is, I mean, Jesus himself says it. I didn't come to be served. Right. But to serve, yeah.
Julius: I think. That's the important, that's the important distinction that clicked for me in that conversation. When I brought it with you will, was this distinction between like we've named it as positional authority and genuine authority, that authority and leadership is like equality. It's like a type of being, it's a way of being that precedes the title and with so many abuses of power, what happens is Kevin, like you've named that people will like.
Receive the title first that they'll be like, I am the authority. That's me, regardless of whether or not they have like, um, I think you were spot on to connect it to craft because that's what I think of is like, that's the, the immediate analogy of like, oh, there are people who like, I want to learn from them.
I will listen to them because they exhibit, um, virtuosity is what it is right in craft. And in musician musicianship, it's a thing of virtue. It's a way of being that like, If this guitar player, I want to learn from them. And I want to listen to what they have to say, because I know in, in the same way that like in the scriptures, like there's a way that Jesus teaches that he teaches with authority, right?
Not like the other scribes of the day or whatever, but there is just this sense that you kind of get of like, you know what you're talking about. And also like bringing that into conversation that the best leaders that I look to, whether it's like musicians or like, and like pastors are people who know when to lead and when to, when to follow that, like the best leaders, don't always like, feel the need to be in the center of.
Like attention. And yet people still want to hear from them. Mm-hmm, , there's this like, back and forth of like, Jesus knows that he's got like this authority, but it's the Philippians two thing. He never like exploits that authority. Right. But pours himself out, knows when to speak and when to stay silent, when to listen and knowing like.
And I think that's the quality that you see in like, in my favorite teachers, my favorite musicians, like the best, like most virtuosic guitar players, like know when to not play to . Yeah. And they, and like, I there's something too when like, like I, again, like a guitar player or even like a pastor who I see that like, there's a humility in them still of like a, oh, you're still learning too.
Like, there are people that you look up to so that it's not this stark, like black and white of like this person's leader and this person's a follower and like leaders have absolute authority over everything in your life.
Kevin: Yeah. It's because, uh, authority is, is gift. It's always a gift. Right. And that's what I I've always thought about and kind of described to people in the same way.
Like respect is a gift. Like I can't demand respect me, like give me authority. right. You know, it has to be freely given and freely, freely received. Um, but even it's fascinating, even in the Trinitarian life, like Jesus has the authority, but who gave him the authority? Mm-hmm the father. the father bestowed all judgment and authority onto the son.
Mm-hmm , you know, and Jesus receives that humbly re he receives that, um, you know, with grace, but, and then he is that mm. In his very nature and. we commit like ironic idolatries when we think like, oh, I, I deserve this authority. Mm-hmm I earned this authority. I, whatever my titles, my prestige, my history, like I am this authority.
Mm-hmm that, that is just not even the son of God. mm-hmm , you know, claim that. Yeah. And so it just kind of, we rise up to some so weird form of idolatry. Yeah.
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MEDITATION
[PAD AND MELODY SWELL AND FADE THROUGHOUT]
If we're truly leading within the Kingdom of God, then leadership is always most primally about following Jesus -- through all the normal victories, defeats, and pauses of every day, all the way through the normal end that we all face.
And if the central task of leadership in a murky and chaotic environment is to creat clarity, then the first step in that process is getting clear on where Jesus is leading you next.
So, for this meditation, we want to take you through a lectio divina practice of Mark 9:33-37.
Now the ideal setting for this kind of practice is one where you can be quiet and undisturbed. So, if possible, get there, take a posture that is comfortable, but not so comfortable that you might fall asleep, take three deep breaths, and invite the Holy Spirit to guide this time.
The first time through, set aside the urge to interpret or apply anything about the text. Still your mind, and simply listen.
33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Now notice any image, word, phrase, or idea that stood out to you. And just sit with it for a moment. Again, delaying any urge to interpret or apply it.
Now, I'm going to read the passage again. But this time through, ask the Holy Spirit for help in meeting Christ in the text, and understanding what he is saying to you, right now, through these words.
33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" 34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." 36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."
Now, once you have something, talk with God openly about your reactions. Where you are drawn in, or where you feel defensive. Where you are encouraged, or where you might be unsure or afraid. Whatever your responses to Christ's words here happen to be.
Now, with these words, ask Christ for clarity on where he is leading you ... And imagine the concrete events and opportunities lying before you in the coming weeks. And see yourself moving though them as Jesus would.
Finally, ask for the grace that you need to actualize your greatness in Christ. And when given the opportunity, share the clarity you've received with others around you.
This is Christian leadership, as we help others welcome God into our world through Christlike service.
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