Spiritual Leadershp (3) J.Oswald Sanders

QUALITIES ESSENTIAL TO LEADERSHIP II“
It is the courageous and triumphant ability to bear things, which enables a man to pass breaking point and not to break, and always to greet the unseen with a cheer.” The man who is impatient with weakness will be defective in his leadership Another important ingredient in leadership is the faculty of being able to draw the best out of other people. In achieving this, personal friendliness will accomplish much more than prolonged and even successful argument. It was John R.Mott’s counsel to “rule by the heart. When logic and argument and other forms of persuasion fail, fall back on the heart-genuine friendship.”
THE INDISPENSABLE REQUIREMENT
Spiritual Leadership can be exercised only by Spirit-filled men. Other qualifications for spiritual leadership are desirable. This is indispensable. However brilliant a man may be intellectually, however capable an administrator, without this essential equipment he is incapable of giving truly spiritual leadership.Reduced to its simplest terms, to be filled with the Spirit means that, through voluntary surrender and in response to appropriating faith, the human personality is filled, mastered, controlled by the Holy Spirit.
THE LEADER AND HIS PRAYING
It is much easier to pray for temporal needs than for situations which involved the
intricacies and stubbornness of the human heart.
THE LEADER AND HIS TIME
The manner in which he employs the surplus hours after provision has been made
for work, meals and sleep will make him either a mediocrity or a man to be reckoned with. A sentence which will seldom be heart on the lips of a leader is “I don’t have the time.” Very seldom is it strictly true. It is usually the refuge of the small and inefficient person. The problem is not that of needing more time, but of making better use of the time that we have.His day should therefore be carefully planned. If it is his ambition to excel, there must be selection and rejection, then concentration on the things of paramount importance. The strength of moral character is derived and conserved by the refusing of the unimportant.
THE LEADER AND HIS READING
The man who desires to grow spiritually and intellectually will be constantly at his
books. John Wesley had a passion for reading and most of it was done on horseback. He rode sometimes ninety and often fifty miles in a day. He read deeply on a wide range of subjects. It was his habit to travel with a volume of science or history or medicine propped on the pommel of his saddle, and in that way he got through thousands of volumes. After his Greek New Testament, three great books took complete possession of Wesley’s mind and heart during his Oxford days. “It was about this time that he began the earnest study of the Imitation of Christ, Holy Living and Dying and The Serious Call. These three books became very much his spiritual guides.” He told the younger ministers of the Wesleyan societies either to read or get out of the ministry! The determination to spend a minimum of half an hour a day in reading worthwhile books which provide food for the soul and further mental and spiritual development will prove richly rewarding to those who have been inclined to limit their reading to predigested or superficial books. The spiritual leader should read for spiritual quickening…mental stimulation…cultivation of style…acquiring of information. He should read, therefore, to keep abreast of his age, and should be reasonably well informed in his own field. We can afford to read only the best, and what will be most helpful to us in the fulfillment of our mission. In other words, our reading should be regulated largely by what we are and what we do or intend to do. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed.
THE COST OF LEADERSHIP
The man who has absorbed the spirit of the welfare state is not of the caliber required in a leader. If he is not willing to rise earlier and stay up later than others, to work harder and study more diligently than his contemporaries, he will not greatly impress his generation. In a letter to a young minister, Fred Mitchell once wrote: “I am glad to know that you are taking any blessing there is about the criticism brought against you by________, in which case even his bitter attack will yield sweetness. A sentence which has been a great help to Mrs. Mitchell and myself is: ‘It does not matter what happens to us, but our reaction to what happens to us is of vital importance.’ I think you must expect more and more criticism, for with increasing responsibility this is inevitable. It causes one to walk humbly with God, and to take such action as He desires.”