04.23.2020

Today, CrossChurchSchool.com welcomes guest writer, Caleb Washburn. He is a Resident Minister in the Cross Church School of Ministry serving in the Young Adult Ministry, Springdale Campus. He is from Springdale, Arkansas.

There are so many things that go into leadership, like having a group of people follow your passions and dreams, or how you can be a natural problem solver and lead people out of tough situations. To me we often view leadership as only those two things we miss the other key elements that play into the role of leadership. For me, one of the biggest things that sticks out in leadership is knowing what people need. I have a guy who recently joined our small group on Tuesday nights who has a burning desire to know Jesus. Every time he sees me, he has something new to say to me about what he has read in the Bible and what God revealed to him. His energy is infectious, he gets other people excited about the Lord, and his passion alone inspires me to know more about Jesus. I decided when I got to know him a little better, that I would do all that I could to get this guy to know more about Jesus, so I started a Wednesday night Bible study. We have been walking through the Bible, seeing what Christ has done for us, how we can look like Christ, and how we apply what we learned to our daily lives. For me that is leadership: I knew that this guy had a need to know more about Christ, so I started a bible study night with him so that I could meet his needs. He never asked to start one up, I just saw what his need was and I tried to meet it.

The other take away from leadership is knowing when to share the load of work with others and empowering them to help you. Recently I was placed into a leadership position for one of our impact sites. Impact is a missional effort to reach children and families in low-income areas of NWA with the gospel of Christ. We have some of the people from church that come and help us entertain and feed the children. One of those people stuck out to me because not only is she getting her degree in teaching but also she volunteers in children’s ministry on Sunday morning . Knowing this, I saw an opportunity for her to not only get some teaching experience, but also to let her teach families and children about Christ. I asked her if she would be willing to teach from now on and said that I would be watching and critiquing her. Now she is teaching families and children about Christ, and she enjoys doing it. To me that is a key component in leadership because not only did it help this girl with her teaching and help her grow in the Lord, but it also helps me take the weight off and not put all the work on the leader. It reminds me of Jethro’s advice to Moses in Exodus chapter eighteen. Moses has taken all the responsibility to judge the people, help them know the status of God, and to inquire of God. Jethro says this in verse 21 “ Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens.” Jethro tells Moses that he needs to train up a group of specific men and share the load of his work by empowering other men to do what he does but in a smaller group. That is what I did for this other girl, I realized I couldn’t do this all on my own and I saw an opportunity to grow as a teacher and follower of Christ, so I asked if she would be willing to teach and sure enough she said yes which then in turn took some of the pressure off of me. There’s a lot that plays into leadership, but for me these are the ones that stick to me. Knowing what your people need, and knowing how to share your load with others who can and are willing to help you.

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