The Temptations of Christian Leadership-Part 2

This is part 2 of a review of Henri Nouwen’s book, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, in which Nouwen looks at the perils of Christian leadership from the perspective of Jesus’s wilderness temptation in Matthew 4:1-11 and his interaction with Peter in John 21:15ff.

Beginning on p.51, Nouwen addresses the temptation to be spectacular in order to be popular. In Matthew 4:5-7, Satan tempts Jesus (using Psalm 91!) to throw himself off the top of the temple, trusting angels to save him. Jesus refuses, again quoting Scripture (Deut.6:16) that it’s presumptuous to put God to a test.

Nouwen maintains that the temptation for Christian leaders is to believe and project our omnicompetence. For those in vocational ministry, haven’t we been trained and equipped as individuals for this kind of work? Nouwen cautions on p.55: “Not too many of us have a vast repertoire of skills to be proud of, but most of us still feel that, if we have anything at all to show, it is something we have to do solo.”

So, we’re tempted to do the spectacular, to be liked. And slowly the focus of ministry centers on us instead of Jesus. The expectations become crushing.

Instead, Jesus calls us to love him and then feed his sheep, tend his flock not as the brave, lonely shepherd but in a communal and mutual experience. We are to lead not as problem solvers but “as vulnerable brothers and sisters who know and are known, who care and are cared for, who forgive and are being forgiven, who love and are being loved.” (p.61)

The discipline to lead like this (p.64ff.) comes from confession and forgiveness. Being vulnerable without oversharing. Nouwen cautions: “When ministers and priests live their ministry mostly in their heads and relate to the Gospel as a set of valuable ideas to be announced, the body quickly takes revenge by screaming loudly for affection and intimacy.” (pp.67-68)

Nouwen warns against spiritual voyeurism (p.69). But appropriate confession and forgiveness include us in the spiritual community we serve.

Finally, Nouwen addresses the temptation of leading instead of being led. (pp.73ff.) In other words, the temptation to be powerful.

As we grow older as leaders, we sometimes grow more self-confident, feel more in control. We subtly don’t feel the need for God. We rely on our experience. We believe we must intervene in every situation, have an answer for every question. It is the temptation Jesus experienced in Matthew 4:9 where Satan offered him all the kingdoms of this world. It’s the seduction of power. It’s taking the place of God in leadership.

Beginning on p.76, Nouwen writes that Christian history is littered with leaders who gave in to the temptation to power as the means to proclaim the good news: “Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.” (p.77) Sadly, too many Christians have experienced leaders like that.

Further on p.79, these leaders exercise leadership as “people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.”  How prophetic and prescient!

The apostle Peter provides an example of being led instead of leading. Jesus says this to him in John 21:18-19:

“’Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.’ 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, ‘Follow me!’”

Peter is being led where he does not want to go, but ironically, he is following Jesus in the process: “The hard truth (is) that the servant-leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places. The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.” (pp.81-82)

Such leadership gives up power and control. It’s not leadership which is psychologically weak or spineless, allowing others to seize control. It’s a leader who loves Jesus, shepherds people, and follows him wherever he leads.

The key to such leadership, Nouwen asserts, is theological reflection. Even if by nature we’re not contemplatives, we must think hard theologically to discern where we’re being led. Otherwise, we become captive to the whims of contemporary culture.

Nouwen concludes on p.88: “The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained—through prayer, study, and careful analysis—to manifest the divine event of God’s saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time.”

Lance Ford, pastor, church planter, and author of the recently published, Atlas Factor: Shifting Leadership Onto the Shoulders of Jesus, resonates with Nouwen. He spoke on a recent podcast on the Julie Roys website the following: “The prevailing leadership systems in most churches of our day are not only not rooted in the words and the ways of Jesus in the epistles, they come from what Jesus called the ways of the Gentiles.”  

With sincere hearts, may we recover the way of Jesus so we lead in the name of Jesus.