The Temptations of Christian Leadership-Part 1

[Part 2 was mistakenly published first. The editor regrets the error.]

I remember the first time I was tempted as a Christian leader to take credit for what was happening in our church. Our congregation was growing numerically. So much so that we were building a newer, larger facility. People were praising me for my messages. I was being asked to speak other places. I was, by the standards of our evangelical subculture, a success.

But I was empty inside.

The increased attendance and larger influence didn’t scratch the itch I felt. I too easily believed that it was because of me and my efforts that all this so-called success was happening. But I recalled someone once saying, “Ministry for God is the greatest enemy of intimacy with God.” It was an apt description of my situation.

I had given in to the temptations of relevance, popularity, and leading instead of being led.

In his little book, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, Catholic priest Henri Nouwen reflects on Christian leadership through the lens of Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness in Matthew 4 and Peter’s call to be a shepherd in John 21.

Nouwen himself experienced ministry success: celebrated author, engaging speaker, teacher at places like Notre Dame, Harvard, and Yale.

Yet as he writes on p.20 about this success: “Everyone was saying that I was doing really well, but something inside was telling me that my success was putting my own soul in danger.”

Nouwen describes on p.22 his decision to leave this life behind: “So I moved from Harvard to L’Arche (a community of people with physical and mental disabilities near Toronto, Canada), from the best and brightest, wanting to rule the world, to men and women who had few or no words and were considered, at best, marginal to the needs of society.”

As might be expected, Nouwen’s transition was difficult. The residents of L’Arche cared little and knew nothing of Nouwen’s fame and achievements: “Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction.” (p.27)

These experiences at L’Arche framed Nouwen’s views on Christian leadership. He sees Jesus’s first temptation to turn stones into bread in Matthew 4:1-4 as the temptation to relevance: “I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.” (pp.29-30)

Nouwen is not saying God cannot use our competencies such as preaching, teaching, leading, etc., but that God does not need them to establish his kingdom. The evangelical church values leadership for what it can do; God values and uses us for who we are. Thus Jesus was urged by Satan to do something (changing stones into bread), something Jesus could have miraculously done. Instead Jesus fixes on the life changing power of God’s Word, quoting Deut.8:3: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (NIV)

By focusing on what we can do by trying to be relevant, Nouwen identifies the root cause of ministerial depression and low self-esteem because we so often feel we’re accomplishing nothing. And even if we are, there’s always more to do. No wonder religious clergy leave the ministry. The expectations are never satisfied.

On p.37, Nouwen mirrors the question Jesus asked of Peter in John 21:15-17 and then asks the question he undoubtedly asked of himself: “This rejected unknown, wounded Jesus simply asked, ‘Do you love me, do you really love me?’….’Are you in love with Jesus?...Do you know the incarnate God?” It’s the most important question we can ask ourselves as Christian leaders. A nonnegotiable for Christian leadership is loving Jesus who loved us first (I John 4:19).

On pp.42-47, Nouwen says the antidote to the temptation to be relevant is prayer. Long wandering prayer. Seemingly purposeless, irrelevant prayer. Prayer that intercedes and supplicates of course but prayer that focuses on the God who loves us: “Christian leaders cannot simply be persons who have well-informed opinions about the burning issues of our time…But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.” (pp.45,47)

In Part II of this review, I’ll interact with the temptation to be popular and the temptation to leading instead of being led.