Read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
I'm not a biblical scholar, a preacher or even a particularly good Sunday School teacher. But I know effective leadership when I see it, and the Bible is full of it.
Who were the big-time leaders in the Bible? From the Old Testament I tend to think of Moses first. He had to lead an entire society through the biggest changes in their history! And for the Hebrews, it was not just a physical change (their location), but also an emotional change (from slavery to freedom) and a spiritual change (God answering their prayers). That's a lot of change!
But the ultimate leader, of course, was and is Jesus Christ. Seriously. Imagine trying to convince people that you are the promised Messiah when you are absolutely nothing like what they expected.
In the book Leading Change, author James O'Toole introduces his case for values-based leadership by discussing a painting called "Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889". To give you sort of a nutshell version of his interpretation, Christ comes back and everybody is too busy, self-absorbed and distracted by the world around them to notice.
That must have been what it was like for Jesus the first time around. Your people have faith and are expecting you, but they have been for thousands of years. Every day they go about their business - working, raising the kids, feeding the animals, washing their clothes in the river (that must have been fun) - and every day most of them find time to pray and worship and ask, once again, for the Messiah to arrive.
And one day He is there, but he's not a powerful king that slays your enemies, puts you in a nice house with indoor plumbing and tells you exactly what to do. He's poor, humble and (my guess is) usually soft-spoken. No wonder they didn't notice at first.
(to be continued)
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