All to Him I Owe

Spiritual Leadership in the Home

James Burns said, “Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on the earth.”  Countless Christian husbands have echoed the same sentiments through the years as they have wrestled with the question, what does a spiritual leader look like? As a general rule, Christian men seem to know that they are called of God to be spiritual leaders. Most Christian men even desire to be spiritual leaders, but the problem lies in knowing what a spiritual leader looks like.

Absence of Examples

A recent article suggested that nearly 63% of men in the average church state that they did not see an example of spiritual leadership in the home when they were growing up. The examples are scarce, and sadly both the home and the church are seeing an absence of spiritual leaders within Christianity. Unless something changes, our next generation will be raised with an increasing ignorance of what a spiritual leader looks like.

Attempting to Define Spiritual Leadership

Let’s start changing the increasing tide of ignorance by trying to define Spiritual leadership. J. Oswald Sanders said, “Leadership is influence.” While I wholeheartedly agree that leadership is influence, I don’t believe this definition adequately fits for spiritual leadership. For example, a man may run into a grocery store yelling “Bomb” and successfully influence the store to evacuate. He is not a spiritual leader. He influenced but did not influence spiritually. I use this illustration because many men seem to think that they are being successful spiritual leaders simply because they are influencing the people within their home. But spiritual leadership has to be more than just influence.

A definition

Henry Blackaby, in his book Spiritual Leadership, defines it this way: “Spiritual leadership is moving people on to God’s agenda.”  Let’s leave ourselves with this thought: do I know God’s agenda well enough to lead those in my home?

Learning,

Pastor Ron