Leadership and Followership

Good Saturday morning! This is one of those weeks where I am up and at the computer, later than I wanted to be but I am finally here.

A big part of my week was spent at a leadership training. I always have such high hopes and aspirations when we head to these things. I usually learn a few things but I usually come away thinking, "huh, nobody really told me any big secrets that makes leading others just a piece of cake".  This was a very, very, good training though and I have probably brought back more personal growth than I have from anything in a long time.

One of the things that we did was write down our own leadership philosophy. This was a homework assignment, and as I sat in my hotel room that night and thought about it. I was able to come up with 8 things right now. We had studied Colin Powell's philosophy earlier that day, it had taken him 30 years to come up with this, I didn't think my 8 was bad for one night.

One of my 8 points stuck out to me, and has weighed on my mind the rest of the week. I wrote down that to be a good leader, you have to set a good example of being a good follower to those who are your leaders. We talked a lot about the teams that we actually lead and how to deal with different personalities, and agendas. To me, it was very encouraging that we had one very notable team and leader mentioned, Jesus and the apostles.  I have thought a lot about this as I was preparing for this weeks devotional.  So......

Our scripture this week is from Luke 6:13-16


¹³ And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles;
¹⁴ Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew,
¹⁵ Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes,
¹⁶ And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.

We actually got to talking about when you have someone on your team who isn't going the right direction, and is causing problems. That brought us to Judas. Yes, Jesus knew all along that Judas was going to betray him but I think a lot of people believe Judas was never a believer because he betrayed Jesus. I would love to say I am perfect and never betrayed a friend's trust, but at times in my life, especially when I was worrying more about myself, it has happened. So, to think that Judas was this all over bad person, I don't think that is the case. I think he is a classic case of putting ourselves ahead of Christ, and let's face it, we do it.  We went on to talk about how long you try to correct someone's actions and when it is time to let them go.
I can go on and on about the deep thoughts I have about Christ and Judas, but I will let you ponder those on your own today.

We got tons of resources from Jesus on how to live, but we also got many lessons on how to follow from the apostles. We watched a video about a guy at a music festival. He stood up and started dancing, all by himself. Then along came a second guy and started dancing, hereby referred to as the first follower. The first follower made the guy dancing a leader. Before too long, there were lots of people dancing and they now had a movement. 

I spend a lot of time focusing on trying to be a good leader, this week, I was reminded in a big way that I need to be a good follower and that the most important one to be following is Jesus. I was also reminded how easy it is to get off track, even though I am supposed to be following Jesus, sometimes I see myself veer off and get distracted, we know from Judas, that can get us in lots of trouble.

So, this week, the challenge is, ask yourself as you make decisions, am I following Jesus or am I following me?

I leave you with Jamie Grace's You Lead.

Hope you have a blessed week!