Been reading The Mentor Leader by Tony Dungy. Good read. It is easy to see the parallels of Jesus being the ultimate Mentor Leader. He definitely was about building a tight-knit team, unified to accomplish their mission and goals. Ordinary people doing ordinary things leading to extraordinary and exceptional results. Instead of working alongside each other as individuals, we can work together as a team. It's a God thing. One way of looking at leadership is to consider all of your team/workers to be volunteers. They don't 'have' to do anything. You are blessed to have them on board to be a good help. You are hoping to persuade them to catch on to your vision. You appeal to their hearts. You are asking for sacrifice and transcendental perspectives. You are shooting for loyalty. You are promoting the greater good and being a part of something bigger than themselves. You are selling Kool-Aid and you pray they buy in. All the way in. All or nothing. Is this how Jesus rolls? The parallel seems obvious, doesn't it?
What are His goals, His mission, His purpose? In John 17, He prays to the Father that the world may know Him and that they may know that He loves them! He also says He wants them to be with Him in heaven! Three huge goals mentioned right there. Ah, you can just sense the passion and inspiration here. So He gets what He wants, right? Weird thing is He wants to use us to accomplish this. In scripture, you see Him having compassion on the masses of people, healing their diseases, teaching, etc. But He invests intimately with a very small group of disciples and charges them to go change the world. If the way is narrow and few find it, then it follows that He wants to use a minority of people to make a positive difference in the world, just as He did when He walked on the Earth.
So how does He energize and unify so many different type of people spread out over the globe? I think it is by the miracle of His Holy Spirit and His Word. Both are manifestations of Himself, really, since He is basically the only thing that everything needs to be sustained and reach potential of being. As I was driving home this morning, looking at the different people in different cars, thinking of all the different personalities, and all the different personal stories, struggles, involvements, challenges, lifestyles, hobbies, work, family, blah, blah, blah....Wow, Lord. How are you going to pull this off? What a mess we are! I think that is where you would see Him smile a sly smile, put His arm around you, and chuckle, "Don't worry, child. We're doing this together. It's going to be awesome and amazing. I can't wait for you to see it come together. Are you in?"
