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| Deangelo, Alyssia, Wayne
Families Can Make
the Question of Leadership Nugatory
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What would be three top qualities you would look for in a leader (a) Vision? (b) Integrity? (c) Service record? (d) Promises made? (e) Looks? (f) Other? (Serendipity Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1324).
- A leader should be helpful. Sometimes this requires assertion and action; sometimes it requires silence and forbearance.
- A leader should be a good follower—listening to and following God and with discretion those around them.
- A leader with the help of others cultivates a family feeling so that everyone gets to enjoy fulfillment of the equal/special paradox. A basic human need is to feel part of a family—that one abides in loving and caring relationships. In churches I have attended this is achieved in many ways but a principal one is that all share a common ancestry in the characters and stories of the Bible. Without banning criticism entirely, loving families share support—lifting up and encouraging rather than engaging in mean-spirited criticism. Paradoxically, the curtailing of such criticism actually cultivates a habitual and refreshing honesty characterized by consideration, frankness, and love. As the old saying goes, “A family is where you can fart with pride.”
Notice my quick sketching of three principal leadership qualities is significantly quiescent in a way. If anything, it is understated in “leader of the pack heroics and dramatics” and is devoid of dictator penchants for hogging the stage. The leader, in short, leaves it for others to find the commendable trait within him; it’s not something he assumes or asserts himself. Often the question of leadership is made nugatory by the pervasive spirit of participatory democracy—at which point heaven seems to intercede.
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