UPSIDE DOWN LEADERSHIP

For some time, I have been aware of the upside down view of leadership, even (especially?) within the church. We get our ideas of greatness and of leadership roles from the business world, or from the academic world, and then we re-interpret the words of Jesus to support that view. But recently, Michael Wilson gave each of the elders a copy of the book by Henri Nouwen, IN THE NAME OF JESUS. This little book, written in 1989, captures the concepts of Jesus and how our Lord views leadership. It is truly upside down. Well, I have read through the book three times now, and I want to try to summarize it here:

The book is interesting, but the fact that Henri Nouwen was also living its truths in a radical way makes it powerful. Nouwen had been in the priesthood for 25 years, and had taught at Harvard for two decades. He faced a sort of mid-life crisis, and asked himself, "Did becoming older bring me closer to Jesus?" Here was his answer:

After twenty-five years of priesthood, I found myself praying poorly, living somewhat isolated from other people, and very much preoccupied with burning issues. Everyone was saying that I was doing really well, but something inside was telling me that my success was putting my own soul in danger. . . . I woke up one day with the realization that I was living in a very dark place and that the term "burnout" was a convenient psychological translation for a spiritual .

The solution? Leave all the trappings of success and go to live and work in a group home (called L’Arche, where he served until his ) for mentally handicapped s. Nouwen writes, So I moved from Harvard to L’Arche, from the best and the brightest, wanting to rule the world, to men and women who had few or no words and were considered, at best, marginal to the needs of our society. It was a very hard and painful move, and I am still in the process of making it.

Nouwen is guided in his new insights around two biblical accounts: Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, and Jesus’ words to Peter after the Resurrection. Both have three components, and they provide the structure for the book. Jesus endured three temptations: the temptation to be relevant, the temptation to be spectacular, and the temptation to be popular. And Jesus said three things to Peter: "Do you love me?" "Feed my sheep." And "Someone else will take you." He folds those stories into his own change of calling, and it proves to be a convicting combination.