We are not our own. God our maker, called us to serve His purpose and fulfill our design potential.
I read a quote recently, which implied that we cannot reach our potential without Jesus.
That sounds good enough, but I am never happy to just accept motherhood and apple pie. I need to dig into an expression like that and get to its soul.
In 1947, Howard Hughes built a huge, eight-engined propeller powered aircraft out of wood (due to wartime shortages of metals). Critics soon dubbed it the “Spruce Goose”. The eccentric billionaire had taken flying to the edge on many occasions, but he invested all his passions into building this great aircraft: the largest flying boat ever and the reigning world champion for all aircraft in terms of wing span (97m) and overall height (24.2m) – compare that with dimensions for the world’s largest passenger aircraft at 76m wingspan and 24.1m height and you get some idea of how big the Spruce Goose was.
But, alas, the Spruce Goose only flew once at a height of 70m and a speed of 135mph. Critics argue that she lacked the power to climb and only achieved her maiden flight through ground effects. Well, whatever the truth, I am sure the plane was never designed to be parked in a museum, in Long Island. It was designed to fly and carry cargo. But it never reached its potential.
Everything in life is designed. Go and look at the smallest insect and you will see design and logic. Each has its place in the cycle of life, the food chain and the functional balance of nature. Nothing is wasted.
It is as true that we were built to specification. We may not be Spruce Gooses, but each of us is uniquely designed for a purpose. God created humans to serve many general and specific purposes, but He never intended any aspect of His creation to become a mere museum artifact. We were made to live, breathe and be of value.
So, when we speak of reaching our potential, we at least refer to the fulfillment of the potential invested in us by our maker. But there is a more subtle point here. We have not reached our potential merely for the fact of doing or achieving many things or through the exploitation of our talents. We can only reach our potential within the context of God’s will and purpose for our lives – He is the sole judge of what we are supposed to be and whether we realize that potential.
So it is right to say that without Jesus we cannot reach our potential – we can do much and achieve great things, but we can only reach our potential on the terms of our maker.
This introduces two key leadership issues.
Firstly, are you a leader at all, by God’s standard, if you merely achieve. No you are only a leader insofar as you achieve His purpose. That is not at all unreasonable. When shareholders elect a CEO they entrust the stewardship of their investment to the chief executive, which may or may not center around profit growth. In return, the CEO entrusts issues of compensation to them. No CEO who is truly worth his own salt exists for himself. An executive exists to satisfy the objectives of his shareholders and his performance will be judged by them alone.
Church leaders are there to execute God’s mandate. In effect they are really just midwives who oversee the outworking of God’s potential and the realization of Christ-likeness in the lives of individuals.
That brings me to the second point. You are not a leader if you mold followers to your ways or your patterns and make them replicas of yourself, for you are not and shall never be the standard by which their potential shall be measured. You can only consider success in terms of the degree to which Christ is formed in the hearts of people and that is exactly what Paul defined as the whole purpose of ministry (read it for yourselves in Ephesians 4). As partakers of the divine nature of God He has given us all we need for life and Godliness, so that the outworking of His potential may redound to His glory without ever being the product of human ingenuity or original thinking – indeed, no flesh shall ever glory in His presence.
I get the feeling that the modern shepherd has become more of a cowherd, living with the notion that leadership is all about herding people from meeting to meeting and doing relevant crowd management through good music, entertaining ministry, creative programs and comfortable auditoria. Well that’s all good and well and may have its place, but when you stand before Him one day, the sole shareholder of this divine enterprise will only be concerned with the faithfulness of your stewardship. If we fail to implement the patterns He has prescribed for us, we have not achieved at all and we will have missed our potential.”
Look, simply put, the church is not a good ideas club. It is God’s design for bringing us all (not an exclusive few) into unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. That is what we are about and what we must achieve, nothing more, nothing less. If people do not grow up into the head, which is Christ, and thus become like Him as true disciples, well then you can only really claim to have formed a museum artifact, something with unfulfilled potential that was designed for greatness.
I read a quote recently, which implied that we cannot reach our potential without Jesus.
That sounds good enough, but I am never happy to just accept motherhood and apple pie. I need to dig into an expression like that and get to its soul.
In 1947, Howard Hughes built a huge, eight-engined propeller powered aircraft out of wood (due to wartime shortages of metals). Critics soon dubbed it the “Spruce Goose”. The eccentric billionaire had taken flying to the edge on many occasions, but he invested all his passions into building this great aircraft: the largest flying boat ever and the reigning world champion for all aircraft in terms of wing span (97m) and overall height (24.2m) – compare that with dimensions for the world’s largest passenger aircraft at 76m wingspan and 24.1m height and you get some idea of how big the Spruce Goose was.
But, alas, the Spruce Goose only flew once at a height of 70m and a speed of 135mph. Critics argue that she lacked the power to climb and only achieved her maiden flight through ground effects. Well, whatever the truth, I am sure the plane was never designed to be parked in a museum, in Long Island. It was designed to fly and carry cargo. But it never reached its potential.
Everything in life is designed. Go and look at the smallest insect and you will see design and logic. Each has its place in the cycle of life, the food chain and the functional balance of nature. Nothing is wasted.
It is as true that we were built to specification. We may not be Spruce Gooses, but each of us is uniquely designed for a purpose. God created humans to serve many general and specific purposes, but He never intended any aspect of His creation to become a mere museum artifact. We were made to live, breathe and be of value.
So, when we speak of reaching our potential, we at least refer to the fulfillment of the potential invested in us by our maker. But there is a more subtle point here. We have not reached our potential merely for the fact of doing or achieving many things or through the exploitation of our talents. We can only reach our potential within the context of God’s will and purpose for our lives – He is the sole judge of what we are supposed to be and whether we realize that potential.
So it is right to say that without Jesus we cannot reach our potential – we can do much and achieve great things, but we can only reach our potential on the terms of our maker.
This introduces two key leadership issues.
Firstly, are you a leader at all, by God’s standard, if you merely achieve. No you are only a leader insofar as you achieve His purpose. That is not at all unreasonable. When shareholders elect a CEO they entrust the stewardship of their investment to the chief executive, which may or may not center around profit growth. In return, the CEO entrusts issues of compensation to them. No CEO who is truly worth his own salt exists for himself. An executive exists to satisfy the objectives of his shareholders and his performance will be judged by them alone.
Church leaders are there to execute God’s mandate. In effect they are really just midwives who oversee the outworking of God’s potential and the realization of Christ-likeness in the lives of individuals.
That brings me to the second point. You are not a leader if you mold followers to your ways or your patterns and make them replicas of yourself, for you are not and shall never be the standard by which their potential shall be measured. You can only consider success in terms of the degree to which Christ is formed in the hearts of people and that is exactly what Paul defined as the whole purpose of ministry (read it for yourselves in Ephesians 4). As partakers of the divine nature of God He has given us all we need for life and Godliness, so that the outworking of His potential may redound to His glory without ever being the product of human ingenuity or original thinking – indeed, no flesh shall ever glory in His presence.
I get the feeling that the modern shepherd has become more of a cowherd, living with the notion that leadership is all about herding people from meeting to meeting and doing relevant crowd management through good music, entertaining ministry, creative programs and comfortable auditoria. Well that’s all good and well and may have its place, but when you stand before Him one day, the sole shareholder of this divine enterprise will only be concerned with the faithfulness of your stewardship. If we fail to implement the patterns He has prescribed for us, we have not achieved at all and we will have missed our potential.”
Look, simply put, the church is not a good ideas club. It is God’s design for bringing us all (not an exclusive few) into unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. That is what we are about and what we must achieve, nothing more, nothing less. If people do not grow up into the head, which is Christ, and thus become like Him as true disciples, well then you can only really claim to have formed a museum artifact, something with unfulfilled potential that was designed for greatness.
(c) Peter Eleazar at http://www.bethelstone.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment