I have to admit that back when I was a college professor, I got heartily tired of all the academic effusion about teaching leadership, offering leadership studies, and more. Even though I had a lot of genuine admiration for the literature of servant leadership and prophetic leadership, I couldn’t help but think–is everyone actually called to be a leader?
This article is my mea culpa moment, answering my own question with a yes. Everyone is potentially called to leadership. But it has to be something radically different. It has to be apostolic leadership.
Msgr. James Shea (president of the University of Mary) wrote a brilliant small book, From Christendom to Apostolic Mission, three years ago. He makes a solid historical argument that the Western world, after many centuries, is back in an apostolic age: an age where the one true God is largely unknown by the larger culture, and Christians as strangers in a strange land are called to offer the foundational good news: God is real, he loves you, and he has sent his Son who has given his life so you may live. He reaches out to you now and asks you to turn to him, repent, and come home. We are called to apostolic, kerygmatic mission to the wider world.
An apostolic mission in an apostolic age needs apostolic leadership. And that leadership will look different than the leadership of the age of dominant Christian cultural imagination, an age most of us grew up within. But since we have not seen apostolic leadership modeled, it’s foreign to many of us.
It doesn’t need to be foreign. Apostolic leadership firmly embedded within our Christian theology of baptism.
With the beginning of a new year, this is an excellent time to remember the meaning of our baptism, and our new life in Christ. When we are baptized, we “put on Christ”–the worst effects of original sin are washed away, and we become adopted sons and daughters of the Father, and welcomed into God’s own family. But we tend to just scratch our heads at the phrase that we are baptized as “Priest, Prophet, and King.” What does that mean? Are those words theological niceties, or key to understanding our call as Christian disciples? Tackling our baptism as “Priest and Prophet” deserves another article. In this article, we’re going to focus on baptized to Kingship…and that means baptized to lead.
A Leading Based in Following
To be a disciple is to follow Christ–to let him lead, and for you to follow his lead through the power of the Holy Spirit. We spend a lifetime learning how to follow Christ more honestly, joyfully, humbly. So some of my earlier skepticism about “everyone is a leader” is valid–this leading is always tempered by fundamentally following the one Lord, Jesus Christ.
But even as we follow, Jesus calls us to lead someone else to him. We aren’t all called to be CEOs, or pastors, or presidents, but we are all called to lead someone else to Christ! That is what Luke’s “be my witnesses” in Acts 1:8 is about. That is what being an “ambassador for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20) is about. That is what the Great Commission’s “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:16-20) is about! The key is we are called to lead according to our circumstances and state in life. Pastors are called to a spiritual and material leadership of a parish. All priests are called to a spiritual leadership, pastors or not. Parish directors are called to a spiritual leadership, under the pastor, of an assigned role within the parish. Parents are called to a spiritual leadership of their children. Business owners are called to a particular spiritually-sensitive material leadership of their employees, and a spiritual witness to their customers.
This is one insight that is key: apostolic leadership is not about gaining power. It is about receiving a call to lead others to Christ through your state in life and your daily work.
Why This Changes Everything
Apostolic leadership, rooted in following Christ in an increasingly agnostic society, changes everything because it is rooted in the reality of being SENT. Each one of us has been sent for some particular work, a particular mission within the Great Commission. Indeed, that may involve the traditional elements of leading, such as management, visionary thinking, stewardship, and strategic planning. But the apostolic leader first and foremost lives out of his or her baptism to give witness to Christ in word and deed, and invite and accompany others along the pilgrim age. This is the case whether this person is a pastor, teacher, parent, or the pick up basketball team captain on the 3rd grade playground. Each one of these people is listening to God in prayer, through the Church, and through others, to best fulfill the glorious plan God has for his or her life–because apostolic leaders know, with humility, they are SENT to herald a better way.
In some of the following articles, I will be outlining the practices that animate a truly apostolic leadership: The apostolic leader shares good news; they see the field clearly; they cast vision; they are people of trust; they empower the people in their trust to holy risk; and they foster a culture of hospitality for the lost.
If you are interested, make sure you are signed up for The Mark 5:19 Project newsletter, here. And yes… The Apostolic Leader will be my next book. So watch this space!
Blessed 2024 to all of you apostolic leaders! Let us follow, and lead in our own place, together.
