Trust And Leadership Through Service

July 2009

One of the first lessons that I ever learned about leadership was one that most of you have heard. “You know you are a leader when you look back and see that people are following you.” I have had the experience of being out in front, looking back and seeing that no one was with me. I have also had the experience of looking back and seeing a church right behind. What made the difference?

I believe that there were a number of factors that made the difference. I want to examine one in this column. That factor is “trust”. I run into young pastors who believe that they can lead based upon position. They seem to be saying, “People should be following me just because I am the pastor.”

Now, scripture indicates that the people of God should follow the man of God that serves as the pastor. People, even though they may know the scriptures at this point, will not usually follow a leader that they do not know until they come to the place where they can trust him.

It is not surprising that churches resist the scripture’s injunction. You don’t have to look far to find stories of pastors who were unworthy of trust. There have been pastors who have failed morally or professionally. Many churches have been “burned” by pastors who were not trustworthy.

I am not trying to say that a new pastor cannot exercise leadership from the outset as a pastor. I am trying to say that a pastor will not have confident followers who will go to places of great risk until they know that they can trust him.

Trust and leadership are won through service. People want to know that a pastor will be there for them. They want to know that he has their best interest as his goal. They want to know that he will lead them with spiritual consistency. They want to know that he will be there through thick and thin. They want to know that he really feels called to pastor them and is not just using them as a step to a bigger church. They want to know that he serves God and not himself.

When I first came to my pastorate in Mulvane, a number of people were asking the question, “Are you just here for a short time and then on the road again?” Others wanted to know, “Will you really love us and care about us?” Still others asked, “Will you be a spiritual leader for our congregation?” I had to answer those questions before I could really lead in the way that I wanted.

At Mulvane, I had to serve. I had to be there for the people. I had to show that I was and wanted to be their pastor. When they understood that, I could and did lead.

In the miniseries, “Band of Brothers,” Lieutenant Winters went through a process of gaining the trust of his platoon. The crux came when they first went into combat together on D-Day. He demonstrated that they could trust him to lead and bring the platoon through the rigors of combat. From that point on, he had their unquestioned trust.

As those of us who are called to be pastors lead our people through the spiritual warfare of this world we will truly lead when our people know that they can trust us.

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