12. The Crisis of Leadership Groping with the Unsure or Following the Sure?
Alliance Witness, 1980.06.25, P. 24-25.

Good leadership is indispensable for the success of any cause or movement. This is certainly true with the greatest of all causes, that of making Christ known through evangelism.

In Acts we find among the apostles wonderful leadership that inspired the whole church for powerful action in evangelism.

But the apostles were at first weak people. They all fled when Jesus was crucified. Peter denied the Lord three times. God changed them, however, and turned them into strong leaders.

The lack of leadership creates a great crisis in a church. That church will not of itself reach out for Christ. May God more and more continue to raise up the leaders we need in our churches.

Let us look at the leaders the early church had.

1.When the Jerusalem church was persecuted many Christians left. But what did the apostles do? They were in the greatest danger for their lives. They should have been the first ones to run. But we read in Acts 8:1 that all the Christians left Jerusalem except the apostles! We cannot but be moved by their faithfulness, their spirit of dedication and their sense of responsibility.

Before the Communist takeover in Viet Nam a group of pastors of tribal churches in the mountain areas walked for many days to Saigon, hoping to be transported to the United States. Upon arrival in Saigon, they had a prayer meeting together, and the Holy Spirit worked in a mighty way. They rose from their knees to make a totally different decision—they decided to walk back to their villages because they felt that their flocks needed them.

The head of the C&MA church in Viet Nam also decided to stay in Saigon, refusing to be evacuated.

2. The leaders of the early church showed a great selfless spirit. Two outstanding examples are Peter and Barnabas.

Peter stayed in Jerusalem during the persecution, but he departed after it was over, leaving the top leadership to James. From Acts 15 we gather that Peter never took that position back again.

Barnabas went to look for Paul and brought him to Antioch to take over the leadership of that great church from him, not thinking of position and privilege at all. He did it for the good of the church at the expense of his own leadership.

3. The leaders of the early church had a deep sense of identification with their people. Perhaps the most moving illustration of this is the martyrdom of Stephen. He longed for the salvation of his own people and he pleaded with them to accept Jesus. When the Jews were stoning him to death his heart was still filled with compassion for them, and he prayed for their forgiveness.

The apostle Paul expressed an even greater sense of identification when he said that he was willing to be accursed, cut off from Christ, in order that his kinsmen, the people of Israel, might be saved (Romans9:3).

There is a still clearer illustration of this sense of identification in the life of the prophet Ezekiel. God commanded him to lie on his left side for 390 days and then on his right side for 40 days to symbolize God’s judgment on Israel (4:4-6). As a servant of God he was identified with his own people, and this created a great burden in his heart for them.

4. The leaders of the early church had great eloquence. The preaching of the apostles was very persuasive, turning people to God in faith and repentance.

What constituted their eloquence? There were at least four factors:

Their eloquence came from their personal experience with Christ. The apostles simply testified to what they had seen and heard of their Master.

They proclaimed with certainty and boldness the risen Lord whom they had seen with their own eyes. Peter said before the officials of Jerusalem, “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 420). That testimony was powerful itself.

Their eloquence was the result of being taught by the Lord. They passed on what they had received from Christ.

We are reminded of God’s words to Ezekiel, “When I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord” (3:27).

Their eloquence was an outward channel for inward grace. The apostles’ spiritual qualities were heightened by the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and eloquence resulted.

Spiritual gifts are of two categories: those directly bestowed by God, and the natural abilities or talents a person has. When the former are uplifted, the latter are improved.

Their eloquence came from the authority of the Word of God. The apostles always based their preaching on the Word of God, and therefore their messages carried divine authority.

5. A wonderful unity in spirit and service was one of the outstanding features of the leadership of the early church. The first apostolic council as recorded in Acts 15 is a very good example of their unity.

The Book of Acts is filled with this spirit from cover to cover. The precious words “of one accord” appear six times in the hook. It is no surprise that under this influence of the apostles the whole congregation lived in an atmosphere of loving fellowship.

Humility was one of the elements of this unity. For instance, when the apostle Peter performed a miracle the people of Jerusalem expressed their admiration. But Peter said, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?” (Acts 3:12).

Unity was easy to keep when the leaders of the church all gave glory to God, and not to themselves, in true humility. Cooperation was a natural product of such a spirit of unity.

If we want to do greater things for God, we have to learn the lesson of unity.

6. The leaders of the early church had absolute confidence in the gospel. They were perfectly convinced that the gospel was God’s plan of salvation for all who believed. They were absolutely sure that Christ was the only Savior of the world and that He was going to appear as the ultimate Victor in history.

A most moving passage in Acts 4:24-31 tells us the apostles, after having suffered from persecution, prayed together with great faith, extolling God and expressing jubilant confidence that everything was going to happen as God had revealed in prophecy.

Only those leaders who have this confidence in the reality of the gospel are willing to pay a real price for its propagation. Others will look for substitutes for the gospel and are never strong on evangelism.

7. The leaders of the early church were men of moral integrity. They commanded the respect of the common people (see Acts 5:12).

With amazing ability and integrity they handled the extraordinarily large sum of money received from church members after they had sold all their possessions (Acts 4:34-35). Under this kind of leadership the whole congregation won the good will of all people (2:47), which meant a great force in evangelism.

The apostles made a special point of telling the early church that their leaders must he “of honest report” (6:3). The church at Antioch followed this principle when it chose Barnabas, who is specially mentioned as a “good man” (11:24), to be its leader.

8. There was real internationalism among the leaders of the early church.

Both the Jerusalem church and the Antioch church were international in their leadership. In the Jerusalem church at least one was a foreigner from Antioch (6:5). As for the Antioch church, two of the five top leaders were black brethren, Simon called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene (13:1). But they worked together in harmony and mutual respect. It was only natural that this international makeup produced international missions.

Nationalism is never a Christian concept and emphasis. Christians should exhibit love and loyalty to their country hut not a nationalism that promotes hatred or prejudice.

All nations need a new international outlook that cultivates mutual understanding and goodwill. All narrow nationalism should he discarded. Church leaders should aim at closer fellowship and cooperation with one another on an international level, such as in missions and theological education.

9. The leaders of the early church were men of vision. The Book of Acts is a hook of visions. We can count twelve, all necessary for the enlightenment of the leaders of the church.

Many of these visions were received during prayer. Prayer and vision are usually found together in the Bible. Visions have been given to prayerful leaders in all generations. Prayerless leaders have imaginations and dreams, but not visions.

The visions that the leaders of the early church received opened their eyes to new possibilities and set their feet on roads leading to new growth and new development for the church.

A leader is a seer—he sees a vision. He is a follower—he follows his own vision. And he is a drummer—he rouses others to follow his vision with him.

Are we the leaders the church needs?