Hey there! If you’re surprised to have received this email, don’t worry – this feels very unusual for me too. I have neither posted nor written another publishable post in nearly a year! I’ll tell you more about my decision later, but for now, get your favorite type of coffee, your bible, and some spare time so we can jump right into it!
How Not to Let the Leadership Sink 👨🏼🏫
One season I find myself in currently would be the process of stepping into leadership. I think I’ve mentioned this briefly in my last post as well. When I was younger, I always thought I’d become a teacher, and in a more spiritual or job-aside way, a leader. The wish to become a father one day is an obvious example, but since the summer of 2022, I have taken over various roles that are remotely or closely connected to leadership. As a person of general interest in knowledge, I feel the urge to learn as much as possible on that topic. Or at least as much as I care to invest time in. What is more, as far as it concerns the gift mix, I am quite clearly a teacher. Do I have a lot of experience? No. But I always enjoyed leading groups in musical camps, sports camps, in the kids ministry at church, and similar. Since I was asked to start leading our Youth Worship team, co-leading our Big Church Worship team, AND since I started working at a special needs school, I was forced to find out more about it. The one thing I can’t stand is having to do something with no basic knowledge of it. I need background information. I didn’t have a lot of input for any of those responsibilities when I started, which made it a bit rough. I realized after some time that making mistakes is okay, it’s not just a saying. Recovering from them was and still is a different topic, but I’ll try my best to work on that. Anyway, I have received more input throughout the year, and as time passed by, I felt more secure in my role. Maybe I need to mention that correcting people’s behavior doesn’t come naturally to me. I had a hard time disciplining kids and telling people under my lead what was okay and what was not for a long time. Those of you who know me would say I’m a kind person, and I agree. I am a former people pleaser, come on. I can’t bear the sad eyes of a kid looking at me with regret, shame, or angst for more than three seconds. But that’s not exactly how you grow in that position…
I am writing all of this because just this week I started reflecting on my work, and I noticed that I am a much better leader just after a year of practice in different regions. This isn’t supposed to sound prideful, it is an observation I and even people from the outside carefully made. And this change means the world to me. Still, I have such a long path to go to become a leader who can fully be trusted, and built upon; a leader who is humble and patient and kind and self-controlled. That’s why those sentences jumped right into my eyes when I read my Bible the other day, and why I was inspired to journal about my discoveries.
Dig in 📖
I recently started reading Numbers. It sounds depressing, but I would be careful with your judgment. The first chapter makes it hard to want to continue reading, I get it. But after that, it gets more interesting letter after letter. And I’ve noticed a few things when reading about Moses as the leader of a people of 600,000 (!) men (not including women or kids). Yes, you read correctly. Imagine having to lead a group of 100 people from a background where leadership was not even in your records. You have no experience, you’re bad at speaking publicly, and you’re asked to lead them. This would already make me sweat. Even if you felt confident enough to say you could manage that right away, I am sure you would feel pressed with 600,000 people awaiting your sound leadership. Here’s why I think Moses was able to somehow survive this until Chapter 11:
Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled. He asked the LORD, ‘Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? […] I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. - Numbers 11:10-11, 14
I mean, now that I’m in the know, it seems impossible to miss. Let’s start with the circumstances: The people were angry because they had eaten Manna for a long time now as their only source of food, and they remembered the fish and vegetables they had back in Egypt. Such diverse food, and many different dishes, and now they eat the same bread every day, trying to make it a little diverse by crushing it in a mortar and cooking it, or by making it into loaves. You see, I understand their argument. The wonderful miracle of Manna and the Exodus aside, this seemed like a first-world problem. Okay, now to Moses. He sees 600,000+ people angrily wailing and asking themselves why they ever left Egypt (what a stupid thing to ask themselves, by the way). Moses is troubled. And it says: He asked the LORD […]. This is already it. I just read the book of Leviticus, and almost the entirety of it was Moses telling God’s words to His people, which makes one thing abundantly clear: Moses stayed connected with God. Time after time, day after day, he sought His presence and advice on things he couldn’t figure out for his life. It goes without saying that Moses carried a ton of weight, but his undisturbed God connection made him find peace and reconciliation with his calling many times. And look what God responds with:
The LORD said to Moses: ‘Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Make them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.’ - Numbers 11:16-17
God meets his needs. He puts people under Moses who help him carry the burden of Israel’s people. Let me say this again because this is powerful: Moses seeks God, and God meets his needs. It is as simple as that. And this isn’t the first time God intervened and helped his faithful servant Moses carry his burden. At the very beginning, he brought Moses his brother Aaron who had an eloquent tongue. Aaron never took over the lead, but he helped him carry some of the pressure and burden of these quarrelsome people. God doesn’t just put you into a difficult position and then enjoys watching you try to handle it somewhat well. He assists you. He literally sent you His Helper. Scripture says God’s Spirit was on Moses, and that same Spirit is accessible to us to this day.
Okay, that was quite a long paragraph for this one discovery I wanted to share. But I have some more findings that I simply cannot leave out. Let’s read a tiny bit from chapter 12:
(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) - Numbers 12:3
Humility was another powerful quality Moses possessed as a leader. What a crazy, easily overlooked statement this verse is! Moses, the human leader of a huge people, was more humble than anyone else on the ENTIRE PLANET. How easy is it for us leaders to become proud? To think of ourselves a bit better, to abuse our power in any way… Sometimes we really think we made it. But our attitude should be the opposite: humble. We are not even a tiny bit better than anyone else. We have no right, actually, to think of ourselves this way. So reading this opens a whole new world for me personally. The second thing I notice about good leadership qualities is humility. I want to master this skill as quickly as possible. I mean I’m already amazing at it (That was a joke, obviously). I want to read one more text from Numbers before we go on to a wonderful New Testament paragraph on leadership and then conclude today’s Coffee Talk.
He said, ‘Listen to my words: When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD.’ -Numbers 12:6-8a
When I read this yesterday, I wondered what Moses has done to get so much of the Lord’s favor. My deliberations were these: I see three great qualities when I think of Moses as a leader, and they are the following in their order of importance: the constant seeking of His presence, obedience paired with readiness, and a humble heart. God comes first, if you’re a leader or not. Matthew 6:33 says, ‘Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” If He is my number one priority and the foundation I build on, many more things will come as a fruit of my set priorities. Secondly, I believe we need to be obedient to Jesus and ready to do what he says, but also what people in charge of us say. If I’m leading a youth worship team, I consult my worship mentor when it comes to issues or questions about leading worship. He knows so much more than I do. And if he gives me advice or disciplines me in my position, the wisest thing to do is obey. Obedience means listening and doing. Not just listening and accepting what I heard. Last but not least: carry out your duties of incredible responsibility with a humble heart. By the way: Humility and inferiority are not the same. This doesn’t mean I have to think less of myself than of others. It means to think less about myself and more about others. Leaders have one pretty known task: leading others. This leads me (hehe) to the last Scripture for now:
Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless – not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. - Titus 1:7-9
I agree, this list isn’t even comprehensive but already overwhelming. I can definitely not identify with all of those attributes yet, and if to some, then not without so much still to learn in that particular area. But it shows more great qualities of how a leader should be, and I am eager to take on this challenge. I want to encourage you, if you are in a leadership position or stepping into responsibility just now, to look up what a good leader does. My illustrations given here are only a few qualities based on the example of Moses, but there are so many more attributes and stories to help us grow and understand the essence of good leadership. And if one part of leading gives you an extra hard time, try to find a biblical foundation or good advice on that from someone you trust. It really helps to talk those things out!
I am well aware that this post almost entirely was a Bible Study, but I don’t regret this outcome at all. I love being able to capture my thoughts as well as the Holy Spirit’s and pass them on to you, hoping to start a discussion and a safe space for sharing. Please reach out to me, it would be an honor. I’m going to end this study with a song recommendation that really goes well with some of my findings:
🎧 Jehova (feat. Chris Brown) by Elevation Worship on their Album Can You Imagine?
Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to work through this with me, and for your incredible loyalty. I can promise it is not going to be very long until you hear from me on this platform again, so stay tuned! God bless you <3
Nic
All Bible verses are from the New International Version if not stated differently.