Dare Great Things

Christians who lead faith’s many paradoxes – we are supposed to be humble and yet we have authority.  We are supposed to be docile and yet we assert ourselves.  We are supposed to be virtuous and yet we place ourselves in positions that are often tempting.  Is it any wonder that so many people think Christians aren’t supposed to lead or so many Christians refuse to lead.  Pope St. Gregory the Great gives us a keen answer in chapter 6 of his second book, “On The Rule Of Shepherds.” 

When you’re in charge you don’t have a cookie cutter method for guaranteeing you are doing what is right.  You have to make decisions that are difficult and uncertain and you have to make them every day.  Pope St. Gregory the Great understood this because he had to do the same thing every day.  And in his book, “The Rule For Shepherds” he gives us insight on how to bridge the paradoxes and find a way to leading our people with a unified vision despite the variety of decisions that fill our day. 

Pope St. Gregory The Great has an enigmatic phrase at the beginning of Chapter 3 of his second book of his monumental work, “The Rule Of Shepherds.”  He says, “A leader must be first in all of his actions.”  Simply put this means a leader’s actions must be excellent, magnanimous, kingly.  There’s an indication and an expectation that those who lead live at a higher level of excellence.  But how does this call translate for a Christian today?

Let’s face it , leadership is hard!  As soon as we start to lead we encounter a whole host of sacrifices and challenges that we never had to face before.  And yet for everything daunting about it, leadership also presents a unique blessing for us.  By persevering through the challenges and continuing to do the mission Christ has given us, we grow in holiness and in charity.  This is the positive message that Pope Gregory The Great puts forth in his second book of his Rule For Shepherds, and his wisdom from more than a thousand years ago continues today.

Christian leaders have to do something difficult – we have to constantly balance asserting ourselves and using our talents and being humble before God.  Errors can happen in both ways either by not asserting ourselves or by losing sight of the service we render to Jesus.  St. Paul was not unaware of this challenge.  In First Timothy 5 and 6 he shows St. Timothy how to make this proper balance and exhorts him to lead while being friend to Christ.

For anyone who has tried it is obvious that leadership is not easy.  Besides skill and opportunity, a leader needs a tremendous amount of steadfastness and just plain grit.  In St. Paul’s First Letter to St. Timothy, we see St. Paul encouraging St. Timothy with the full realization that what he has commanded Timothy to do will be hard.  May the Word of God inspire us to persevere as well.

Does God expect us to lead out of our strengths or out of our weaknesses?  It seems like both are good options.  In the First Letter of St. Paul to St. Timothy chapter 3 we read St. Timothy give us a list of the qualifications that God wants to see from his bishops and his deacons.  Qualifications which could be applied to any of our positions of leadership.  Is this an indication that God wants us to be qualified for leadership?  If so, how do we get that qualification?

St. Paul the Apostle was an incredible leader in his own right.  Before dying he left his legacy in writing both to St. Timothy and to St. Titus.  In this second part of this series on his First Letter to St. Timothy we see Paul express the importance of leadership and the specific contribution to Christian leadership for everyone in the world.  As Paul encourage Timothy so also he encourages us today.

Sacred scripture is replete with references to leadership.  And the wisdom of the Saints such as St. Paul can have great impact for the leaders of today.  What does St. Paul leave behind him?  In this series on the First Letter of St. Paul to Timothy I want to examine the lessons in leadership that Paul bequeaths to his young follower.  In chapter one we see Paul leaving a legacy of character based leadership that must both maintain the old and bring it to the new.

Even though written fifteen hundred years ago, Pope St. Gregory The Great’s landmark treatise on the rule of shepherds continues to provide valuable insight to us today on what it means to lead.  Notably he says that leaders have to be virtuous.  Why is this?  What’s the role of virtue in leadership?  This last class in this series closes out our treatment of this great document by comparing the virtuous rule with the rule of the wicked.

Leaders know that they’re talented.  You know that you have gifts that you are called to share.  But how do you stay humble?  Is it ever okay to refuse the honor of leadership out of a sense of deference or humility?  And on the other hand is it ever okay to accept to lead because you know that you are the best one for the job?  These are the questions that St. Gregory The Great treats in chapters 5, 6, and 7 of his book, “Regula Pastoralis”, that is, “A Rule For Shepherds.”

Leadership is a challenge for all of us for many reasons but almost every leader complains of being distracted.  Not being able to focus on what they have to do and sometimes being overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of the problems before them.  You might be interested to know that the same complaint was shared by a pope, Pope St. Gregory The Great.  In his book, “On The Rule Of Shepherds” he writes about this and about how to overcome it by the grace of God.

St. Gregory The Great lived a very long time ago but his words remain important for us today.  Even though he was a Pope and a Bishop he was first and foremost a leader.  His book, “On The Rule Of Shepherds” is a hallmark on leadership from the middle ages to today.  Looking at this book can give us insights into what Christ asks for those that follow Him by leading others.

One of the biggest challenges a leader has is the fact that everyone of us is responsible for the decisions that the people under us will make.  How can I help the people that I lead make good decisions?  St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica writes a great deal about making choices.  By following his teaching we can have an insight that will help us to make good decisions.

Of all the kings of the Old Testament King Solomon stands apart.  His reign was stupendous.  His wisdom very deep.  His success by worldly standards was unparalleled.  And yet he fell and he fell mightily.  What can we learn from his example?  An example of a talented man, extremely wise and extremely successful, but whose lack of virtue gets the better of him.

Among the saints in the New Testament Saint Paul stands apart.  He was successful in ways that we can’t even measure.  He was the apostle to the Gentiles, the founder of churches, and the model for evangelizers.  But Saint Paul also knew hard times: riots, anxieties, afflictions, imprisonment.  What can we learn from the things the Bible shows us where Saint Paul knew not only victory but defeat.

Sometimes leaders feel like they have to be perfect.  It can be good, however, to study the times that leaders aren’t perfect.  Seeing that God shows mercy to us even when we are imperfect can encourage us to continue to lead even during difficult times.  In Part 3 of our series “Where Leaders Fail” we read about Moses.  Just like we can learn from his wonderful deeds, we can also learn from his weaknesses.

Most of us are aware of the story of King David, of the way that God blessed him and of God’s eternal covenant with David.  And most of us are aware of the story of Bathsheba and David’s famous lack of chastity.  The lessons of the life of David for our spiritual lives are many and deep.  But studying his failures from Bathsheba to Absalom his son to his census of Israel teaches us a powerful lesson about God’s merciful love for his leaders.

We all know that leaders need to be strong and bold and brave.  We all know that a group’s success will depend in large proportion on the success of it’s leadership.  But what happens when leaders aren’t successful?  Have there ever been saints that showed us the other side of failure?  What can we learn from the stories of leaders, even Saints, who may have come up short from time to time.  Join me in my first part of the series, “Where Leaders Fail.”

In this final episode of my class on Saul Alinsky’s book, “Rules For Radicals,” I give an overview of this thought and describe why I think his thought is so dangerous and at the same time so appealing.  His vision for organizers represents a vision that many people share about leadership.  But I think it’s also an opportunity for us who follow Christ to understand better what the world is really longing for from our leadership.