Articles and thoughts by Steve Green.
Leading With a Limp - a response to Dan Allender’s book
October 31st, 2006
I can’t remember the last time I read a book and wept. In part, my tears were from deep conviction. I long to be free from narcissism, fear, dogmatism and the tendency to hide. And partly the tears flowed from a sense of relief. My sin and failure make my story a gospel story rather than merely a successful story or a helpful story. My story of foolishness, redemption, reconciliation and restoration is the canvas that God uses to paint the portrait of His grace.
Redemption requires brokenness and brokenness contains both confidence and openness that come from revealing the worst there is about me. I am a sinner. The good news is that God redeems failures. As Dan writes, “It seems God loves to use troubled, odd, unpredictable people to not only lead others but also to make the gospel known.” I’ve always told my story. It’s not too hard to speak of past failures and God’s redemption. But to talk about the “not yet” part of redemption, acknowledging the still existing sins requires great grace and the courage to be a paradoxical leader.
The model of church leadership is anything but this. Leading from strength and impressiveness seems to be the norm. It is what people want. Just last week at a banquet table I was asked by a retired MLB player about my Scripture memorization. He had heard of it somewhere. Yes, I’ve memorized whole books of the Bible, but why? Probably for mixed reasons. There was a hunger to learn, but memorization has always been easy for me and yielded impressive results. What the table wanted to hear was a story of my exemplary spiritual disciplines. What I felt was emptiness. They wanted me to be the hero, but no heart is uncovered, no wounding is healed, no trembling saint is helped by a presentation of personal power. It’s only in telling the true story, without spin or sugar-coating that the light of the gospel begins to shine and Jesus is rightly seen as the only hero.
Dan reminds us that God’s leadership model is brokenness not performance, relationship not commotion, and grace not success. Humility comes from humiliation and foolish falls. A leader is a saint and a felon. The question is, will I chose to see, name and honor both the dignity and depravity in all my endeavors? How far I have to go. May God help me.
5 Comments »
Hi Steve,
I came across a copy of this book in a second hand store a couple of months ago. Having been called into leadership, I was struggling to come to terms with how I could lead other women when I was still struggling with some of the same issues I was calling them out of. Though I am not where I used to be and God has certainly done a transforming work on me, I am still in the process of being raised up. Your testimony and this book has helped to stop trying to convince myself I have to be a success before I can lead. I have been asked to come forward and lead while I am limping and now quite happy to be where I am. Thinking I had to ‘arrive’ before I could help was a heavy burden and one in which would stop me from shining for Christ.
Thank you for sharing.
God bless
Joanne
Comment by Joanne — October 31, 2008 @ 9:30 am
Hello.
I’m new there
Nice forum!
Comment by KereBarkZes — February 15, 2009 @ 3:06 am
I have been reading what some of the comments are. I should post a comment here also now and then.
Misty:)
Comment by playmisty — March 14, 2009 @ 2:02 am
Absolutely. Feel free to comment anytime you want. Thanks for reading.
Steve
Comment by steve — March 14, 2009 @ 9:25 pm
Looking forward to learning a lot form the people here.
Peace
Rainbow Reef Fiji
Comment by ScottsDad — May 9, 2009 @ 8:14 am