On Being A Friend

A recent string of situations have occurred that have puzzled me. In fact they have out right bothered me. I’ll deal with one here. I heard a recent ” leader” mention to a church youth group that they were leaders & not their friends. This inconsiderate comment almost knocked me off of my seat. Mind you this was brought up after the youth group was asked by this leader how they can better help them.  One of the youth mentioned that they wanted friendship. With a response like that, no wonder youth & people in general don’t want to be part of a church. I reckon that anyone with that mindset has the wrong thinking on leadership & anyone that is teaching leadership with this type of thinking also has the wrong mindset.

Thing is I don’t believe this is being taught outright to some of these youth leaders but its a form of subliminal teaching that some of these youth leaders are somehow picking up on from other more seasoned church leaders. For the most part people in church leadership mean well, I mean don’t they always? People attend church for the sole purpose of worship, friendship & to be part of something greater than themselves. But sometimes the underlying feeling is that leadership is just that…leadership!

After all from my short experience as a Christian I can honestly say that this is my perception. There is you the congregation & there are the leaders! Over the years I’ve made plenty of loving friends in the church & as hard as I’ve tried, in some cases some people in church are not the friendly type but you love them anyway, right?

A few questions come to mind, one of which is what is the definition of Christian leader? Are Gods leaders just that? Are we to have a relationship with God leaders or is there a supernatural mystical separation between leaders in the church & the people that sit in the pews? Are the people in the congregation so full of sin that your required to separate yourself from them? The way some of these leaders behave towards people in the congregation you’d think this is so. But nothing can be further from the truth.

According to Christ, leadership is not so much about leading but about being a servant, period. And yes that includes the youth group. How can anyone even proclaim to be a leader when they can’t even befriend people in the church? These leaders walk around as if the license they carry is what gives them their stature. No, I believe that true leadership coupled with the love of Christ builds friendships not dictatorships, servants or slaves. The way some people in church are treated you’d think they were slaves or second class citizens. Mind you this doesn’t go unnoticed by God.

If you can’t befriend anyone in church there is something wrong with you…I’ll say it again, if you are in leadership & you can’t be a friend to the Christian people in that church there is something wrong with you! And if this is the case you need to go & reevaluate your walk with Christ. I’ll also throw this in for good measure if you can’t so much as befriend a Christian brother or sister in the house of God, than there is truly something wrong with you both emotionally & spiritually, and you need to make it right.

A true leader never has to ask for people to submit to “authority” instead of asking for people to submit, what you need to be doing is re-evaluate the reason as to why your having to ask people to submit.  Ask yourself why? If you have to periodically remind people from the pulpit that they need to submit to your so called “authority” than there’s obviously something wrong with your leadership. People don’t follow leaders they don’t know! Would  you follow someone you don’t know? Even Christ proclaimed that. I can honestly attest to the fact that there are a few church leaders I don’t know. It’s the weirdest thing really. But its the truth! I don’t follow people I don’t know, never have never will & neither will people off the street.

The first time I heard that a Christian was required to “submit to authority” was in an UPCI church.  I thought the request was odd. Then a couple of questions came to mind as I thought on it, “was the person requesting submission an insecure leader or a cult leader seeking a following? I still hear it periodically, thing is I never see anyone following this person. My experience has been that one particular leader lets his congregation know from the pulpit that he is not perfect as a ruse to continue to justify his jerkish behavior all the while asking for submission. What a hypocrite! What a jerk! Sad thing is they know their hypocrites & will tell you so from the pulpit.

On any given Sunday people, leaders will stand there with their hands in the air singing “I am a friend of God” tears coming down their faces but when it comes down to it, some don’t befriend anyone! How superficial! How fake! And even sadder is that it makes a mockery of Christ’s true example of love, compassion & friendship toward His creation.

So how does one befriend a person? How do you befriend another Christian in the church who is in the body of Christ, leader or not? Easy you love them with Christ’s love. True love befriends others, true love does not keep others at arms length & still expecting them to follow your lead when your a stupid jerk! If a following is what some of these leaders are wanting than maybe they need to go to Hollywood not the church of the living God. The pulpit is not your forum to seek groupies or dispute your grievances in a “spiritual manner” my brothers.

God Bless!

~ by carloshernandezphoto on October 15, 2008.