Leading Our Homes Well

To me, some of the most moving words in all of Scripture are those penned by the Apostle Paul as his life was coming to an end. The time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day (2Tim 4:6-8). The battle I most want to win is the battle to lead my home well, which is why I’ve given so much thought in my adult years to what Jesus wants men’s spiritual leadership at home to look like. Today, we continue this study.

As we continue our March series, Biblical Strategies for the Battles Men Fight, we again look at how to lead our homes well. Last week we observed that there are really only 3 PARTS to leadership, the leader, the followers, and the objective to be reached, in this case spiritual maturity in Christ. To picture the 3 FUNCTIONS of leadership, we envisioned the above diagram. We then spent the rest of our time considering the orange arrow across the bottom—the importance of STAYING FOCUSED on the objective—our mission to be disciples, i.e. fully devoted followers of Christ: This week we consider the other 2 components of leadership: First the vertical green arrow--BUILDING a CARING RELATIONSHIP with our followers. Then the hypotenuse, the brown arrow from our followers to the mission objective—EQUIPPING and ASSISTING our followers to reach the goal of spiritual maturity in Christ. 

THE SECOND LEADERSHIP FUNCTION: 5 WAYS TO BUILD A CARING RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR FOLLOWERS

A. Through UNDERSTANDING. By taking on human flesh, God the Son came into our world. He sweat real sweat. Hitting his fingers with the hammer hurt him as much as it hurts us. He understands us at a gut level because he came into our world, leading the author of Hebrews to encourage us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (4:15). 

Good leaders get into the world of their followers, if they can. My life was changed forever because a man named, John Hartsock, came into my high school world to show me the love of Christ through the ministry of Young Life. This incarnational ministry principle empowers leaders to be able to relate to what their followers are going through and show an interest in THEIR life that wins their hearts. It is winning the right to be heard. This principle of leadership radically shaped by view of ministry to the men in my congregation. I tried, whenever I could, to meet them at work for lunch and, if possible, meet at their office--THEIR world. One pastor trying this approach met a guy at his construction site. The worker, who was straddling a steel beam dangling from a crane 28 stories up, shouted down to the pastor, “Come on up.” Fortunately, that never happened to me, or I might have canned the “incarnational approach” to leading! This approach always shaped my parenting as well, visiting my kids at their part-time jobs and in one case getting a tour from the owner of a professional grade lawn mover manufacturing plant where my oldest son worked. Just last week, I visited the church of my future son-in-law, where he is very involved. I just wanted to get into his world.

A second aspect of understanding that all great leaders recognize as indispensable to their ability to influence others and succeed is listening well. Lyndon Johnson, while a junior senator from Texas, had a sign on his office wall that read, “You ain’t learnin nothin when you’re doin all the talkin.” John Maxwell identifies six reasons it is essential for leaders to develop strong listening skills:

• Listening shows respect.
• Listening builds relationships.
• Listening increases knowledge.
• Listening generates ideas.
• Listening builds loyalty.
• Listening helps you know how to help others and yourself. (Becoming a Person of Influence).

Listening well is essential for all leadership, but especially for meeting the need of our wife and children to feel understood. One Christian counselor reminds us, The first condition for mutual understanding is the desire for, the seeking after, and the willing of that understanding. Such a statement may appear very commonplace. Nevertheless, this basic attitude towards understanding others is rarer than we think. Listen to all the conversations of our world…They are for the most part dialogues of the deaf. Each one speaks in order to set forth his own ideas (Paul Tournier, To Understand Each Other).

B. Through AFFIRMATION. Paul cried out to the Romans, If God is for us who can be against us?  Jesus embodied the truth that he is FOR US in the way he affirmed the value of humans everywhere he went. Jesus said to Nathanael,“Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”  He said to Peter, “You’re not just gong to be someone who has heard something (the meaning of Simon). I’m calling you Cephas—Peter—The Rock. You are going to be someone who is rock-solid on whom others will lean.” (—that’s the Yagel translation.)

Jesus affirmed the value of the sexually broken woman at the well by doing  something scandalous—not only speaking to her, a Gentile WOMAN, but requesting to drink from the “filthy” unclean cup of a Samaritan. In another scandalous incident, Jesus allowed a prostitute to let down her hair and physically touch him, washing his feet with her hair. In response to Simon the Pharisee’s distain for her, Jesus said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Jesus affirmed the hated Zacchaeus, a Jewish traitor who was a chief tax collector for Rome by saying, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”  When Judas criticized Mary, the sister of Martha for anointing Jesus’ head with costly oil, Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She has done a beautiful thing to me... And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Jesus constantly affirmed his followers.

C. Through COMPANIONSHIP. In Mark 3:14, Jesus reveals to us another vital key to leadership influence. He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach. Jesus’ plan was to equip and send them out, to preach. But notice that he first chose them to be with him. The twelve traveled with him for several years as a part of his ministry team. This unusual situation allowed them to do things together. There is a vital truth here that is hard to duplicate: humans, especially men, build relationships by doing things together. When I consider my two closest brothers one is the result of Phil helping me build a deck on my house and being on my current board. The other, Bob is the result of a mission trip to Haiti, lots of shared trips to our denomination’s national meeting, and being on my current board. Male relationships, especially, form my doing stuff together.

When it comes to leading our children, I believe the current closeness I have with each one is the result of the practice, when they were children, of doing things together on my day off—Monday--partly to give their mom a break. But perhaps more important than the fun stuff we ALL did Mondays, (like having the greatest mud fight ever at Seneca Creek and all trying to figure out how we were going to NOT get in trouble with their mom), was the practice of rotating a “dad date” on Monday mornings with each of my kids. This habit gave us the chance to talk and go through books or character studies together—but often we would just roller skate, ride bikes, practice tennis, or go for walks just the two of us. With my youngest, this quality time came playing racquetball on Thursday nights when my wife was at choir practice and then undoing all the good we had done for our bodies by eating at Roy Rogers. I had a good model to follow in this one-on-one practice. The great Jonathan Edwards, who had 11 children, would take a different child with him whenever he traveled. Nothing builds connection like one-on-one time doing things together.

D. Through his COMPASSIONATE HEART. Jesus' followers continually saw his compassion in action: A leper came to Jesus…falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” (Mk 1: 40-42).

Jesus was tough. He had the guts to call the Pharisees “snakes,” whose moral stench was like that of “rotting bodies.” But he was also tenderhearted. Even though Jesus’ strength is essential to attract me to him as a man, so is his tenderheartedness. Hard-heartedness is an enemy to all leaders; it drives others from us, instead of attracting them to us. All believers are called to tenderheartedness, but it is essential if you want to influence others. Paul writes to the Colossians, Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive (Col 3:12-14). Compassion requires 1) an identification with sin and failure, 2) an identification with weakness, 3) being appropriately vulnerable about your own failures. Compassion draws others to us.

E. Through ATTENTIVENESS TO THEIR PRACTICAL NEEDS. A great way to win another’s heart is to unselfishly focus on serving him or her—meeting their practical needs. Jesus, of course, modeled this care in the feeding of the five thousand and four thousand, and throughout his healing ministry. And he taught: “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all (Mark 10:40-42).

Scripture records the stark failure of a powerful leader to follow these last two principles of leadership, compassion and servanthood. When Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, inherited the throne of Israel he was considering how best to lead his people. He asked two groups of people for advice. The first group said, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever (1Kg 12:7). The second set of counselors said, essentially, “Show them who's boss.” Say, “My little finger is thicker than my father's thighs. And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will ADD to your yoke. My father disciplined you with WHIPS, but I will discipline you with SCORPIONS.’”  King Rehoboam made the wrong choice. All the other 11 tribes of Israel rebelled leading to the Divided Kingdom. Only Judah was left under the house of David, from that day on. What a costly mistake.

The fastest way for a leader to alienate his followers is to use his leadership position selfishly. Conversely, when followers see leaders attentive to their needs and doing a little extra to assist them, their hearts are won. One of the best ways for fathers and husbands to express love for their wives and kids is to be attentive to the practical needs around them and lend a hand with practical chores. (Of course, we should share the chores in the first place—but I’m talking about assisting them with their chores.) I know a dad who tried to get up early and wash his college kids’ cars the morning they left to return to college, as well as stuffing a few 20’s in the kids’ hands. Many of our blog readers and podcast listeners do this well. Don’t overlook the impact it is having in motivating those you love most to want to follow your leadership as you try to follow Christ.

THE THIRD LEADERSHIP FUNCTION: EQUIP AND ASSIST YOUR FOLLOWERS TO GROW TO SPIRITUAL MATURITY

In my opinion, this third process is the most neglected step of leadership. For us to do justice to it requires several podcast/blog series. But here is an overview of six practical ways to help our followers grow into maturity as Christ’s Disciples.

A.Teach them the Word of God. Here are four steps to this process starting with your own heart love for God and commitment to obedience. 1)You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 2) And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 3) You shall teach them diligently to your children, and 4) shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. The Word of God is THE equipping tool for life. You might begin by teaching your kids the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes. 

B. Help them discover and get excited about their unique design and gifts. One of the most comforting and life-building truths we can impart to our children is the confidence that they were perfectly designed by God to accomplish God’s purpose for him or her. Ephesians 2, not only teaches us that we were saved by grace through faith alone, but that God created and redeemed us for a purpose. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (vs 10). Our family has used spiritual gifts inventories, love language and Myers-Briggs inventories, and inventories that match interests to vocational pursuits with each of our five kids. They have helped me love each child better and help guide him to a vocational pursuit that matches his or her giftedness. But more important, I think, was instilling in each child a measure of confidence in themselves—in the way God uniquely created THEM.

C. Regularly encourage and motivate them. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. Our calling as THE SPIRITUAL LEADERS OF OUR HOMES is not to passivity. It is not to “watch our kids grow up.” It is to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph 6:4).

D. Equip them with WISDOM for life. God makes it clear that this is parents’ responsibility in Proverbs 1, where we read the advice to young men, Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck (vs 7-8). Despite what appear to be significant faults as a father, King David did teach wisdom to his sons, at least to Solomon who testified,

When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown (Prov 4:3-9).

E. Help them have Christian friends. Scripture observes, One who walks with wise people will be wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm. In the very first chapter of Proverbs, after explaining the purpose for the book, giving us the two most foundational principle for walking in wisdom—the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and do not forsake your parents’ teaching, the first warning given is about PEER PRESSURE. My son, if sinners entice you do not consent. If they say, “Come with us…(vs 10-11). A child’s job during adolescence is to pull away from his parents and decide for himself what he believes. That is why this is such a strategic time for his peer influence to be other Christian teens.

F. Let your affection for your children and wife drive you to prayer for them. Paul is our example: He wrote to the church at Philippi:

God knows how much I long, with the deepest Christian love and affection, for your companionship. My prayer for you is that you may have still more love—a love that is full of knowledge and wise insight. I want you to be able always to recognize the highest and the best, and to live sincere and blameless lives until the day of Jesus Christ. I want to see your lives full of true goodness, produced by the power that Jesus Christ gives you to the praise and glory of God (Phil 1:8-11 JB Philips trans).

May this constantly be OUR prayer for the loved ones we are LEADING.

For Further Prayerful Thought.

1. In your own life, how have you seen the principle lived out that a leader’s influence with you is based on his care for you.
2. Which aspects of building a caring relationship with a leader’s followers seems the hardest for you.
3. What aspects of equipping or assisting your followers towards spiritual maturity stood out most to you? Why?