The Biggest Threat to being a Great Ministry Leader

One of the reasons I love and trust the Bible is that very few of the “heroes” always do it right. In fact, most of the main characters are deeply flawed.

I love this. It speaks to the authenticity of the Scriptures. I mean, who in their right mind, if they were trying to create a religion would make all the characters as messed up as the characters in the Bible?!

Secondly, because the heroes in the Bible are a tangle of brilliance and bumbling, I feel like I can relate and learn from them. In fact, I think one of the greatest lessons in leadership comes from the Bible.

So, today I want to share a leadership lesson from one of the leaders in the Old Testament. I realize none of this will be new or ground-breaking but hopefully this will redirect us and keep us from slipping into unhealthy patterns of thinking and behavior.

So here we go...

Remember that crazy story from the book of Numbers where the people are complaining again? That’s pretty much the entire journey from Egypt to Canaan, but in this particular story, they are complaining about being thirsty.

And then, if you remember, God tells Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock and water will pour out. Instead of speaking, Moses strikes the rock and then God disciplines him by barring him from entering the Land of Promise. Ouch.

What’s the point of this story? And what can we, as leaders, learn from it?

Here’s the simplest way I can think of summarizing this story: As a leader, God cares more about your heart than your results.

Whether he spoke or hit the rock the results would have been the same... water. It’s what the people needed and what they demanded. But, God took issue with the “how” and it had everything to do with trust and obedience.

As leaders, we need to be so careful here. To use sports as an analogy, I think God cares far less about the scoreboard than He does about how we play the game.

[tweetthis]I think God cares far less about the scoreboard than He does about how we play the game.[/tweetthis]

For me, the trouble in this area started in Bible College. My personal Bible reading morphed into my required Bible reading. This began a merger between my professional spiritual life and my personal spiritual life.

The results of my ministry, from an external perspective were right on track but at the same time, my heart was not fully engaged with God. This is a dangerous place to be. Thankfully, I was able to correct this behavior by reprioritizing my personal relationship with God.

A few questions I might encourage you to wrestle with as you consider where you're at:

• How am I treating people? Am I kind? Am I patient? Am I encouraging?
• How am I pursuing God? Is my relationship with God more than just sermon prep?
• How am I battling sin in my life? Am I accountable?
• How am I listening to others? Am I humble?

One secondary temptation here is to believe that all that matters is having a vibrant faith. I do think that our efforts do matter. This is why we talk about strategies, measurable goals and excellence.

These things really do matter. From my experience, we are at our best as ministry leaders when we strike a balance between heart and results. When our hearts are fully committed to God and our efforts are focused on leading with excellence, we are in our sweet spot.

Moses didn’t lose the opportunity of a life-time because of a bottom-line issue. He lost it because of a heart issue.

It is very unlikely that you and I will lose our ministries because of attendance dipping. However, we will be in serious danger of losing our ministries when our hearts drift from God.

The lesson here is heart over results.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. How have you managed to find balance in this area? Or, how have you been able to rekindle your relationship after a season of drifting.