Good evening. Yesterday and today we heard inspiring talks on Ideal, Grace, Laypersons, Piety, Study, Sacraments and Action… Now I’d like to bring it back to the responsibility we have towards others, after God’s great commission to us in Matthew 28:
Go out into the world and preach the gospel
The premise of this Rollo is that everyone is a leader, and it’s not a part we can choose or not choose, it’s something we are each responsible for in our own lives. So I don’t want to talk about it as an option for us but go behind that and help with identifying where we should lead and looking at why we may not be leading. And see how we can build on an area of service we may not even realise we are already doing.
As Christians, we are all called to be leaders, and we have a duty to lead others to Christ. While converting people is God’s work, we mustn’t forget that is it the responsibility of every Christian to reflect God’s love and advance his kingdom, wherever we are in the world.
We can debate the different styles and types of leadership, I could show examples of leaders in various places and contexts, but ultimately I believe it’s up to us to find our own place of leadership wherever we are.
So I want to start by encouraging everyone here:
You are already a leader.
You are unique and you have a special role to play. You know Christ, you are committed to Christ and the service of others. Your life and actions are centred on the love of Christ – aren’t they?
I believe everyone has a message within them. Something that only you can share. And we each have a responsibility to share this with others.
My mission is to encourage others to create lives of inspiration, adventure and joy. I do this through my music – even though I don’t talk about these things directly in my concerts, there is never an appearance that goes by without someone (and usually many people) telling me how inspired and uplifted they were.
I’ve often heard people talk about adopting an alter ego to go on stage or to do their work. They need some kind of cover before they are comfortable allowing people to see them. Maybe this should apply to me too. I am a private person and don’t have a need to be in the spotlight in my everyday life. But when I’m on the stage, I love drawing people into my world and I love that I get to encourage and uplift them.
People always ask if I get nervous before a performance and I find it a strange question – why would I be nervous when I’m about to do something I love so much?
I realised for me the alter ego thing is the opposite. I’m completely at ease on stage. I’m the most myself when I’m on stage. I’m the best version of me.
(And I’m bringing this back to you, so please stay with me.)
I’m the best version of me when I’m encouraging others, when I’m not hiding or masking anything, when my heart is open, when I’m excited to share something beautiful (in my case that’s music, or encouraging words) with my audience.
Here was my question to myself:
Why should I have to wait to go on stage to do any of these things?
Why when I come off stage, should I switch any of it off?
It’s real life now, so let’s close my heart, forget about the things I love and pretend I don’t have anything to say.
That doesn’t make sense!!
So I ask myself, How can I bring this best version of me to my every day?
How can I encourage, uplift, inspire others, how can I share my heart, how can I draw people to me and ultimately to the thing I want to share, in my everyday life?
Let me ask you – What is your vision for the world? For your community? Your family? For yourself? What is there in your heart?
Everyone is on a journey. It’s important to be aware of this because the person whom you think is more experienced and more qualified than you is also on a personal journey. They in turn are looking to someone else who they feel is more qualified and experienced than they. Everyone has a tendency to think – I can’t talk about that, I can’t lead that, I can’t do that, because I’m not at X place.
But here’s the secret – everyone is at point A, and they’re trying to get to B. No matter how fabulously you think someone is doing, they’re at their point A and they’re aiming for B. And the other thing is that we never get to B. We get somewhere along the way, and B shifts to the right.
There’s always going to be a next level, more impact, bigger contribution, a deeper relationship. Don’t get caught in saying I’m not at the next level yet – you’ll constantly be getting ready to get ready.
Instead of saying Who am I to say this? – that should sound a little alarm in our heads, we need to harness that and say: ‘there is someone who needs what I have to share’.
When we say Who am I, we’re making it all about us, but we’re here to make a difference and be of service to one another.
So set aside the thought of Am I good enough. If I can help the person in front of me on some level, if there is something in my heart that I feel they need to hear, then I need to go ahead and do that.
How does this look practically?
First, we decide on what we’re going to do. And if you need help getting to that stage, then I suggest prayer, journaling, getting out into nature – anywhere you can get close to God. You can ask people you trust where they see your strengths and your area of service.
When I was younger, people used to tell me that my music was a gift, I should use it for God. I didn’t understand what they meant. I thought doing something for God meant doing that thing in church or for needy people. I could play my violin in church of course, but playing my music in concerts wasn’t an obvious way (for me) to serve God.
I thought I mustn’t be very holy if my good works weren’t going to be announced from the pulpit – we’d like to thank Rhoda for the flowers today…
I knew that would never be me. I had resigned myself to being a not-very-holy Christian who just did normal things like teach little kids violin, no-one’s going to take a picture of that and put it up on powerpoint in the church service, like they do if you teach in a Bible camp.
But what I later learned was that I was exactly where God wanted me. In using my talents by teaching these children and playing and singing, I was leading my own ministry. The others were right – using my talent was exactly the place for me to serve.
So I found out what my mission is. What’s yours?
If you still need help in identifying this, then ask yourself when you are at your best. What really makes your heart sing?
And then commit to doing that for God.
You may well ask How, but we don’t have to worry about the HOW. Allow God to take care of the how, once we commit to being that leader we can allow him to guide us.
Something we may have to look at are the things in our life we might have to change. For example, if I understand that my mission is showing people God’s love at my work, do I need to show up differently than I’m doing now? If my mission is to show hospitality, then am I opening my home?
If I were that best version of myself, what would I be doing right now? What is the practical step that I can take today?
Like a van Gogh painting made of different coloured dots, a life is made up of moments. We can be encouraged by this, because it takes such a small change to effect a real difference in the result. We don’t have to climb mount Everest to make a difference in the world. Our mission doesn’t have to be huge to be significant.
We only have to make progress.
We don’t have to lead a revolution.
We are all created in God’s image. As creators. As leaders. And we are commissioned as evangelists.
That thing that’s in your heart, that place where you’re at your best…
Where are you being called to lead in your life?
And what is your response?