How Do We Lead?

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
January 17, 2010

How Do We Lead?
Romans 12:9-17

Did you hear the vows our officers took a few minutes ago,
the vows I asked of them as we ordained and installed them
to the office of Elder and Deacon,
vows to serve God and this church?

It’s a long list, the nine different questions
I asked them to respond to,
all from our Book of Order,
all part of the service of Ordination and Installation
that every Presbyterian church uses
for Elders, Deacons, and Ministers.

There are the questions we would expect:
“Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior,
acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church,
and through him believe in one God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit?”

“Do you accept the Scriptures
of the Old and New Testaments to be,
by the Holy Spirit,
the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ
in the Church universal,
and God’s Word to you?”

“Will you be governed by our church’s polity,
and will you abide by its discipline?
Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry,
working with them,
subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?”

“Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ,
love your neighbors,
and work for the reconciliation of the world?”

There is the question that reminds us
that we are grounded in Reformed faith
and that we look to our Book of Confessions
to help us understand how we live our faith:
“Do you sincerely receive and adopt
the essential tenets of the Reformed faith
as expressed in the confessions of our church
as authentic and reliable expositions
of what Scripture leads us to believe and do,
and will you be instructed and led by those confessions
as you lead the people of God?”

And then there is that last question that all officers respond to:
“Will you seek to serve the people with
energy, intelligence,
imagination and love?”
(all from W-4.4003)

Last weekend at our Officers’ Retreat at Meadowkirk
we spent some time talking about
what it means to serve with energy,
with intelligence,
with imagination,
and with love.
We wanted to go beyond the words
to dig into them,
to understand them as they guide us,
all of us,
as we serve God and this church,
this Body of Christ.

What does it mean to serve with energy?
Does it simply mean to do everything in a hyper-caffeinated way?
No, of course not.
We agreed that to serve with energy is to serve
with enthusiasm,
to serve with joy.
To serve with energy is to serve with drive;
to invest one’s self fully,
to be completely committed;
It is to act,
take action,
sometimes bold action.

To serve with energy is to work to make a difference,
as we work grounded in the spirit,
grounded in faith.

It is to work to be transformative,
understanding that the first step to being transformative
is for each of us to open ourselves
to the renewing and transforming power of God’s Holy Spirit.
“Do not be conformed to this world,”
Paul teaches us,
“but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,
so that you may discern what is the will of God.”
(Romans 12:2)

To serve with energy is not to say,
“I don’t have time,
I’m too busy.”
To serve with energy is to understand that
when God calls us, our response should always be,
“Here am I, Lord. Send me.”
God will help us set our priorities,
help us to find the time,
and help us to find a way to do what God calls us to do.

We does it mean to serve with intelligence?
We agreed that this isn’t about high IQs,
or a mastery of the Bible,
or a deep and broad knowledge of theology,
as much as it is about
serving with wisdom,
serving with sense,
serving with sensibility.

To serve with intelligence is to serve with discernment,
to serve with an awareness that begins
with being a good, careful,
and patient listener,
being a willing learner,
keeping an open mind and an open heart
absorbing and assessing information
without a rush to judgment.

The televangelist Pat Robertson this past week
gave us an extraordinary example
of what it means to serve utterly lacking in intelligence
with his comments about Haiti.
They were graceless and unchristian,
but mostly they were profoundly ignorant.
There’s often too much of that in organized religion:
intelligence replaced by dogma and certitude.
To act with intelligence requires us
to reject words and actions
that distort Christ’s teachings
and all that Christ calls us to learn,
do, and to stand for.

We are called to lead with imagination,
and our liveliest discussion focused on this term.
What does it mean to lead with imagination?
Leadership is often thought of as management,
administration,
governance: planning things,
and then implementing plans.
Is there room for imagination?

Yes, absolutely.
The very essence of leadership is bound up with imagination.
We are called to be open to new ways,
to dream,
wish,
hope,
to step back and think about new possibilities and paths
for our church.

To lead with imagination is to brainstorm,
to listen for God’s voice through the voices of others,
remembering that none of us has all the answers,
and that the voice we may be least likely to listen to,
may well be the voice God is speaking through.

To serve with imagination is to think outside the box,
to be creative.
It is to trust,
to hear our Lord when he says,
“do not be afraid.”
To lead with imagination is to follow the example of Peter,
when he – and only he of the disciples –
stepped out of the boat,
stepped over the gunwale and onto the service of the water,
trusting completely, even if only for a few seconds.
(Matthew 14:29)

To serve with imagination is
to look at six acres of farmland on a hilltop
miles from center of town
and say, yes:
this is where God is calling us to build a church.
It is to see Sunday School classrooms
and imagine ways to fill them with people and activities
Monday through Saturday.
It is to see all the unserved and underserved ministries
we have in this church
and say, yes,
we can – we must –
add an associate pastor to our staff sometime in 2011.

And we are called to serve with love.
Love begins with respect,
that we serve God lovingly by working
with deep respect for one another,
listening to one another,
looking to see the gifts God has given each of us
and nurturing those gifts, drawing them out.

To serve with love is to be compassionate,
and empathetic,
putting ourselves in the other person’s place,
to try to understand their perspective,
their point of view.

To serve with love is to be patient,
forgiving, grace-filled,
calm,
filled with the peace of Christ,
confident that God is with us,
all of us,
leading us, guiding us
even through the most contentious, difficult issues.

To serve with love is to remember how easy it is
to injure another person with words.
It is to remember how the brother of our Lord teaches us,
“Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak,
slow to anger;
for … anger does not produce God’s righteousness.
How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire,
and the tongue is a fire.
The tongue…[can] stain the whole body.”
(James 1:19ff)

Our elders lead by working with me
“to strengthen and nurture
the faith and life of the congregation.”
(G-6.0304)
Together we lead “by seeking to discern the will of Christ.”
(G-4.0301d)

Our Deacons lead “by ministering with compassion,
witness and service to all those in need
after the example of Jesus Christ.”
(G-6.0400)

But leadership is not limited to our officers;
we are all called to lead,
all called to lead with energy,
intelligence,
imagination,
and love.
This is not a charge limited to our ordained officers.
Everyone us is called by Christ, the Head of our Church,
to “demonstrate by the love of its members for one another,
and by the quality of its common life
the new reality in Christ…”
(G-3.0300c2)

Listen again to Paul’s words to us from his letter to the Romans:
“So, Let love be genuine; hate what is evil,
hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection;
outdo one another in showing honor.
Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit,
serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering,
persevere in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the saints;
extend hospitality to strangers.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice,
weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another;
do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;
do not claim to be wiser than you are.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil,
but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.”
(Romans 12:9-17)

That’s how we lead.
All of us.
AMEN