V a l o r L e a d e r B l o g

Compelling Community

Lead­ing peo­ple toward a com­pelling cause and a com­mit­ted com­mu­nity are two facets of lead­er­ship that should be an inte­gral part of the way we lead.  Moses faced this chal­lenge as the Israelites grum­bled in the desert and rebelled against God and Moses’ lead­er­ship.  Moses con­tin­ued to draw them back toward both the cause (spir­i­tual trans­for­ma­tion of their own heart) and com­mu­nity (by fos­ter­ing unity and one­ness).  Moses lead both out and in and rec­og­nized that peo­ple need to be lead in both direc­tions.  Moses’ heart becomes appar­ent after God pun­ishes him for dis­obey­ing and tell him that he would not enter the promised land.  Moses speaks, in Num­bers 27: 16–17 :

“O Lord, you are the God who gives breath to all crea­tures. Please appoint a new man as leader for the com­mu­nity.  Give them some­one who will guide them wher­ever they go and will lead them into bat­tle, so the com­mu­nity of the Lord will not be like sheep with­out a shepherd.”

Do you sense Moses’ con­cern for the Israelites?  He clearly states his con­cern for lead­ing toward the cause of Christ and also lead­ing inward by cre­at­ing an atmos­phere that fos­ters community?

We can look at few more exam­ples…  As William Wilber­force led the move­ment to end slav­ery he gath­ered a close team of men and women who relent­lessly fought for this cause.  Called the Clapham cir­cle, they started from mem­bers who were cap­ti­vated by the com­pelling cause of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery.  They undoubt­ingly face huge chal­lenged as they sought to change soci­ety view point of the moral­ity of slavery.

The Clapham Cir­cle embod­ied the Acts 2:42 lifestyle, meet­ing together for prayer, shar­ing meals together, liv­ing in com­mu­nity. Wilber­force and Henry Thor­ton began the Clapham Cir­cle with inten­tion­al­ity. Accord­ing to Wilber­force biog­ra­pher, Kevin Bel­monte, “Years later [Wilber­force] would insist that this net­work of sup­port had been indis­pens­able in enabling him to serve effec­tively in pol­i­tics. Oth­ers might dis­miss such a seem­ingly triv­ial notion, but Wilber­force knew that his friend­ships were one of the most impor­tant parts of his life.” — Charles Colson

A third exam­ple comes from one of the great­est move­ment lead­ers of all time, Mar­tin Luther King (MLK).  King speaks, “This hour in his­tory needs a ded­i­cated cir­cle (com­mu­nity) of trans­formed non­con­formists(the cause). The sav­ing of our world from pend­ing doom will come not from the actions of a con­form­ing major­ity but from the cre­ative mal­ad­just­ment of a trans­formed minority.”

Don’t miss it.  A com­mit­ted com­mu­nity is what pro­vides the per­se­ver­ance nec­es­sary for the cause to reach its full poten­tial.  Father help us to build rela­tion­ship among our peers and extend the reach Christ to bring glory and honor to your name.