Leadership is more than the happy thought, get rich, make people follow you idea. It is following Christ and influencing people to do the same. It requires sacrifice, selflessness, and passion for God and people.

The Dilemma

I remember walking down the streets and the residential buildings taking in the scenes around me. Homeless people sleeping right in the middle of the side walk. Hopeless, broken people shut up in their hotel rooms where depression was felt so strong. Drug attics, alcoholics, and prostitutes were out and about in the afternoon sun going on with their daily lives. I had volunteered at a Rescue Mission in the heart of the San Francisco Tenderloin. It was my second time volunteering there and I had prepared myself to see the worst of the worst. I was walking down the inner-city streets distributing food and praying for people when I had the opportunity. The church was right next door to a strip club. You couldn’t miss it as you walked by the church. At one point, a bloody faced, man who just got out of a bar fight walked right up to me and looked me straight in the face.  I couldn’t help but feel something eerie and disturbing as he approached me. He murmured something obnoxious and walked off. I remember praying for people on those particular streets that day and feeling the brokenness and utter hopelessness that enveloped the tenderloin in San Francisco.  My heart melted as I watched a grown man try to hide his tears after he asked us to pray for him to get a job so he could support his family. It broke me to see such brokenness, and irritated me to see so much darkness in one area.

                                                                             

We drove down the streets of Santo Domingo, the capital city of The Dominican Republic praying for all the prostitutes on the side of the road.  We were told that The D.R had become a major hub for sex trafficking and was now full of under aged girls selling their bodies for whoever wanted to engage in their services.  Girls who couldn’t be older than 14 or 15 were standing on the streets corners waiting for a customer to drive up and lure them into the car. Every year, girls were being exported to other countries to be the sex slaves of the foreign predators. As we drove down the streets we were told horror stories of girls being sold by family to brothels and the underground sex industry.  At one point, we got out of our van and walked a street notorious for the exploitation of women and children.  I couldn’t help but notice young girls in their teens engaging with older, Caucasian males that were obviously from another country. It was an unforgettable experience and made a permanent impact on everyone from our van.

These are only two of my outreach experiences that have left a mark on me for the rest of my life.  As I go back, and revisit those memories I can’t help, but have an overwhelming sense of distaste and rising anger for the injustice and brokenness I encountered. The more I experience and live my life, the real world, the big, broken, and bleeding, real world is opened up to me. I see people caught up in addictions, in lifestyles, and life-draining relationships all just to fill the void they have in their hearts for a Savior. Even the people who seem to have it all together with their nice houses, great paying jobs, and expensive cars are in need of something more. If you read in between the lines you will notice that they put on a façade to cover up their emptiness and insecurities.  All this translates into nothing, but a need for a Savior.

The Call

It is an irrefutable fact that the world that we live in is in need of a Savior. It is a place of darkness and broken people searching for answers. Turn on the local news or entertainment and you will see obvious signs of humanity running from God. With greed, poverty, war, famine, and social injustice prevailing everywhere it is no question that people need an encounter with Jesus.  Jesus said that He came to give us life and that we can have it more abundantly.  His death and resurrection made it possible for us to have life. He also gave us His Spirit to know His unending Love, to guide us in our walks with Him, and to experience power to be His witnesses.

If Christ came to give us life, then why is there so much death? If His cross made a way for us to experience life and if the power from His indwelling Spirit makes it possible for the hearts of people to experience His fulfillment and His Love then why is there so much darkness? Why is there so much brokenness and corruption if Jesus said He came to seek and save those who were lost? Why does it seem that people are turning everywhere, but God?

God loves those around you and I as well as those on the other side of the world (John 3:16), and doesn’t desire for anyone to be separate from Him (2

Peter 3:9) even when they are turning to everything but Him.  Understanding that the people around us are searching for more, the answer is clear. The solution starts with us. It starts with people who have encountered the living God and His freedom. The only way for people to know God’s love is if His people, who have experienced His love, love those who don’t know His love.  Romans 10:14-15 explains, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Here the Bible clearly says that if we are not the ones to step out and make an effort towards the culture around us then no one will. He has decided to use us as His instruments to reach out to a lost and dying world.  In Matthew 28 Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This is more than just a request. This is a command and, yes, the ultimate calling. Command? Does that mean we are disobeying God, when we aren’t reaching out to those around us and pursuing the lost? After understanding that God doesn’t want anyone to perish, that He has chosen us to be His instruments in the Master Carpenter’s plan, and that He commissioned us to go out and make disciples, I am lead to believe that we are out of line with His will and hurting His heart when we don’t reach out to others.

Jesus, however, took this concept a step further even before He gave us this significant calling. In a conversation with the Pharisees and Sadducees Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all of your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Now this was a brilliant revelation, because it sums up the entire Bible into two statements. Not only that, it sums up our every move, our every action, our every idea into two statements. This includes the idea and the calling of outreach.

A great leader in my life once communicated this profound idea to me that changed my life. He said do not put the Great Commission before the Great Commandment. Let me tell you, this rocked my world. This turned my views of outreach upside down. It changed my motives and it changed my heart behind the outreach I did. We are to Love God with everything that is in us, and out of that Love for God we have an unconditional Love for people. People are not numbers to be saved. They are people to be loved.  This is how God calls us to lead.           

The Answer

This is where we are faced with a decision. There is a world that needs us. Are we going to go on in our daily lives with the goal of living for ourselves? Are we even going to think about all the people around us? If we are to make a difference we must answer the call of God to be leaders in a world that needs true leadership. This is a call to more than just leadership. This is Kingdom Leadership. Going beyond the finite social endeavors and selfish humanity to love people and lead them to the Kingdom of God.