After years of serving missions-minded organizations, I am suddenly asking “What do I know about leading a movement?” As the new chairman of the Strategic Working Group of the Lausanne Movement, I find myself participating in the international leadership meetings taking place this week at Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi. Our week will be full of reports, workshops, and networking — classic board member activities I am familiar with. Yet, I feel unprepared to be a board member of an international movement.
Leading a movement takes a unique philosophical framework. Organizations are organized with systems and structures. For the most part, organizations are built upon predictable and measurable units: positions, wages, and time. These basic building blocks are not as clear-cut in movements. Birthed with passion, healthy movements continue to grow through persuasion and prayer. This is how the Lausanne Movement has continued to impact global evangelization after many years of service.
As our meetings commence, whisper a prayer for the meetings. Truthfully, it doesn’t matter what I may, or may not know, about leading a movement. There is only one question that matters — “Lord, what do You know about leading a movement?” I will be listening for His response and learning to lead.
“But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it” (1 Corinthians 12:18, NLT).
You know what you need to know that He who called you will fulfill His work through you. Love that God is using you in this way!
2 Chron 16:9 Reminds us that “…the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.”
Roy, may you experience the “strong support” of our God as you endeavor to serve Him blamelessly in this new capacity! Please be assured of my prayers on your behalf and that of your team.
By no initiative of my own I ended up at a Leadership Coaching course held by CBMC. In that course a trainer took us through a book called Leadership Coaching by Tony Stoltzfus with a thick loose leafed manual to go with it. In the book Tony lays out a coherent biblical Coaching Paradigm. He says, “Coaching is practicing the disciplines of believing in people in order to empower them to change.” Dale Stoll says, “coaching is drawing out of you what God has put in you.” The coaching cycle has to do with listening, asking, acting, and supporting. The foundation is based on “Iron sharpens iron”. At the end of the course they gave all that I had paid back and thanked me for coming. God is good all the time!