If You Are Or Want To Be A Spiritual Leader- PLEASE READ THIS!

POWERFUL words from Reggie McNeal. This is taken from his book "A Work Of The Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. I know this is lengthy but take some time and read it slowly. LISTEN to the wisdom in Reggie's words. I think he nailed it here! (Please excuse the messed up spacing. I'm to lazy to type it all by hand and I'm not techy enough to figure it out I guess)

Leaders often neglect communion more than any other heart-shaping arena. Many spiritual leaders seem oblivious to the battle that actually targets them. Perhaps they see the arsenal of weapons arrayed at them as benign. The leader often appropriates them, accommodating their deployment in self-destruction.

Fax machines, e-mail, telephones, beepers, an overcommitted schedule, the press of
people's needs, program concerns, ministry agenda-these are the tools of mass
destruction for spiritual leaders. Their development and deployment proceed often
without inspection. They threaten to shut down the spiritual leader's communion with
God. Once that happens, the leader's effectiveness is destroyed. The leader becomes a
casualty of a struggle that is as old as humanity-the drowning out of eternity by the
screams of temporal concerns.

A small neglect of God occasioned by an unanticipated spate of unusually consuming
problems signals the beginning of a skirmish. God-time yields to "more pressing"
concerns. The leader's communication line with the commander begins to register static. In response, the leader sometimes does exactly the wrong thing. Instead of repairing communication by altering the busy schedule to make time for God, the leader compensates for the lack of divine guidance by increasing chat time with the established network. The only approval that satisfies, the "well-done" of the Commander-in-Chief, is set aside to curry favor from ministry constituents. Ministry efforts increase. So does the static. Episodic interruptions in the communication lines to God give way to a routine neglect. The leader goes off-line with headquarters.

Out of touch with command, the leader begins to operate from the memory of previous
orders and directives. As time goes on, these seem increasingly unrelated to more
immediate issues. Activity replaces productivity. Genuine missional enthusiasm and
purpose give way to maintenance and routine, with an accompanying loss of joy and a
rise in self-doubt.

Leaders who continue to act in this way become cut off from genuine divine intervention on their behalf. They begin to rely on their own diminishing reserves of spiritual firepower. Their activity becomes sustained either by adrenaline or perfunctory performance rather than the Spirit. They bank on their talents, their smarts, their relationship skills, and their position to cover their basic failure at the critical core function of their call. That function is to reflect God's heart to God's people. This cannot be done apart from a leader's firsthand knowledge of God's heart. This knowledge does not derive from historical encounters in a leader's past; it springs from a vibrant, up-to date walk with the Almighty.

Devoid of a growing, personal, dynamic relationship with God, spiritual leaders become casualties. Some are removed from battle, too wounded to go on. Some remain engaged but are missing in action. Others desert, going AWOL on God and his people. Perhaps the worst scenario is the tragic figure of a spiritual corpse going through ministry rituals like the zombies of science fiction horror movies. However, this is real, painfully real. No amount of promise or talent or intelligence can ultimately shield the spiritual leader from some variation of this fate if communion with God is neglected.

Communion lies at the center of heart-shaping. Through communion, the leader learns
the lessons of God's activity in the other subplots. The examining and distilling of life experience occurs here. Through communion, the leader secures the relationship with the Heart Maker and Heart Shaper. In communion, the leader strengthens the spiritual foundation that will support total leadership effectiveness.

Lack of attention to this essential aspect of heart-shaping explains many spiritual
leadership heart ailments. Anemic communion creates shallow leadership, the kind of
leadership informed only by methods and style without substance. "Pop leadership"
practices knee-jerk reactions, adopts the latest fads, uses "with it" vocabulary. However, without a real center this leadership is hollow at the core. It implodes, collapsing in on the leader, who frantically and frenetically tries to stave it off by paying too much attention to the props and not enough attention to the story itself.

"Faux leadership" can be explained, in part, by a lack of communion. Fake leadership
comes in several distinct styles. In American culture, leadership often parades as
charisma. It often manipulates and exploits to maintain its power. Spiritual leaders who mimic this kind of leadership do so because they fail to submit their leadership to the surgical knife of intimate communion with God. With false leadership, it is all about the leader and not those served. The leader's agenda. The leader's vision. The leader's passions. The leader's goals. People play a role in helping the leader get to where the leader wants to go. People are not served. They are used.

These statements may seem too harsh. Unfortunately, I have seen too many wasted lives, too much pretension, and too much lost opportunity to pull punches. On the other hand, I have witnessed powerful spiritual leaders who attend to communion with God. They have a sense of presence that comes from only One source.

The noncommuning leader can hardly be a servant. Voluntary servanthood requires an
intact self at the center. This self has to be developed in communion with its Creator. The power and mystery of Incarnation lies in its willful act of self-emptying. As we have seen, Jesus could stay on task with this constant servanthood only through vibrant communion with the Father.

A spiritual leader practicing communion leads from a solid, integrative sense of purpose. The vision of God's preferred future both for the leader and for those in the leadership constellation gives direction and meaning. This vision for the future grows out of time spent with the One who has already been there.