Without hope, we will never be able to see value and meaning in the encounter with a decaying human being and become personally concerned. This hope stretches far beyond the limitations of one’s own psychological strength, for it is anchored not just in the soul of an individual, but in God’s self-disclosure in history. Leadership therefore is not called Christian because it is permeated with optimism against all the odds of life, but because it is grounded in the historic Christ-event, which is understood as a definitive breach in the deterministic chain of human trial and error, and as a dramatic affirmation that there is light on the other side of darkness.
Every attempt to attach this hope to visible symptoms in our surroundings becomes a temptation when it prevents us from the realization that promises, not concrete successes, are the basis of Christian leadership. Many ministers, priests, and Christian laity have become disillusioned, bitter, and even hostile when years of hard work bear no fruit, when little change is accomplished. Building a vocation on the expectations of concrete results, however conceived, is like building a house on sand instead of on solid rock, and even takes away the ability to accept successes as free gifts.
Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory. This might sound romantic, but when we enter with our fellow human beings into the fear of death and are able to wait for that person right there, “leaving the safe place” might turn out to be a very difficult act of leadership.
In fact, it is an act of discipleship in which we follow the hard road of Christ, who entered death with nothing but bare hope.
Christian leadership is a dead-end street when nothing new is expected, when everything sounds familiar, and when ministry has regressed to the level of routine. Many have walked into that dead-end street and found themselves imprisoned in a life where all the words were already spoken, all the events had already taken place, and all the people had already been met.
But for a person with a deep-rooted faith in the value and meaning of life, every experience holds a new promise, every encounter carries a new insight, and every event brings a new message. But these promises, insights, and messages have to be discovered and made visible.
Christian leaders are not leaders because they announce a new idea and try to convince others of its worth. They are leaders because they face the world with eyes full of expectation, and with the expertise to take away the veil that covers its hidden potential.
Christian leadership is called ministry precisely to express that in the service of others new life can be brought about. It is this service that gives eyes to see the flower breaking through the cracks in the street, ears to hear a word of forgiveness muted by hatred and hostility, and hands to feel new life under the cover of death and destruction.
Carl Rogers (quoted in Henri J. M. Nouwen):
…I have—found that the very feeling which has seemed to me most private, most personal and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be an expression for which there is a resonance in many other people. It has led me to believe that what is most personal and unique in each one of us is probably the very element which would, if it were shared or expressed, speak most deeply to others. This has helped me to understand artists and poets who have dared to express the unique in themselves.
…[W]hen one has the courage to enter where life is experienced as most unique and most private, one touches the soul of the community. Those who have spent many hours trying to understand, feel, and clarify the alienation and confusion of one of their fellow human beings might very well be the best equipped to speak to the needs of the many, because all of us are one at the well-spring of pain and joy.
After so much stress has been laid on the necessity of leaders preventing their own personal feelings and attitudes from interfering in a helping relationship, it seems necessary to re-establish the basic principle that none of us can help anyone without becoming involved, without entering with our whole person into the painful situation, without taking the risk of becoming hurt, wounded, or even destroyed in the process.
None of us can stay alive when there is nobody waiting for us. Each one of us who returns from a long and difficult trip is looking for someone waiting for us at the station or the airport. Each one of us wants to tell our story and share our moments of pain and exhilaration with someone who stayed home, waiting for us to come back. […]
Human beings can keep their sanity and stay alive as long as there is at least one person waiting for them. The human mind can indeed rule the body even when there is little health left. A dying mother can stay alive long enough to see her child before she gives up the struggle, a soldier can prevent his mental and physical disintegration when he knows that his wife and children are waiting for him. But when “nothing and nobody” is waiting, there is no chance to survive in the struggle for life. […]
Thousands of people commit suicide because there is nobody waiting for them tomorrow. There is no reason to live if there is nobody to live for. But when someone says to a fellow human being, “I will not let you go. I am going to be here tomorrow waiting for you and I expect you not to disappoint me,” then tomorrow is no longer an endless dark tunnel. It becomes flesh and blood in the form of the brother or sister who is waiting and for whom the patient wants to give life one more chance.
Currently reading: God Save Texas by Lawrence Wright 📚
It is not the task of Christian leaders to go around nervously trying to redeem people, to save them at the last minute, to put them on the right track. For we are redeemed once and for all. Christian leaders are called to help others affirm this great news, and to make visible in daily events the fact that behind the dirty curtain of our painful symptoms there is something great to be seen: the face of God in whose image we are shaped.
But here we must be aware of the great temptation that faces Christian ministers. Everywhere Christian leaders, men and women alike, have become increasingly aware of the need for more specific training and formation. This need is realistic, and the desire for more professionalism in the ministry is understandable. But the danger is that instead of becoming free to let the spirit grow, ministers may entangle themselves in the complications of their own assumed competence and use their specialism as an excuse to avoid the much more difficult task of being compassionate.
The task of Christian leaders is to bring out the best in everyone and to lead them forward to a more human community; the danger is that their skillful diagnostic eye will become more an eye for distant and detailed analysis than the eye of a compassionate partner. And if priests and ministers think that more skill training is the solution for the problem of Christian leadership, they may end up being more frustrated and disappointed than the leaders of the past. More training and structure are just as necessary as more bread for the hungry. But just as bread given without love can bring war instead of peace, professionalism without compassion will turn forgiveness into a gimmick, and the kingdom to come, into a blindfold.