This week, I received a newsletter from a campus ministry. The newsletter contained this brief narrative:
For almost two years now I (campus minister) have mentored a junior … named Stephen. I have written about him in past newsletters as we have formed a close friendship.
Throughout our time together … I have seen Stephen place his faith in Christ, go through a season of doubt, and come out of his questioning. And currently, I am witnessing his faith grow rapidly like a chia pet day by day.
This semester Stephen initiated and organized a weekly bible study at his fraternity without me prompting him. I provided some materials but he has done the rest. You can often see ten to fifteen young men studying the Word in their fraternity house on any given Monday evening.
What that newsletter vignette shows is not only leadership, but next level leadership: leading leaders and doing it well.
This is an area for which I have little natural aptitude. (For those of you who know me well, that’s like hearing me say that “water is wet” or “the sun is hot.”) Leading leaders is essential to building a great church, and I believe it will always be an area at which I struggle.
You know what that means? The campus minister I’m talking about didn’t come by his knack of leading leaders through genetics. Because it’s this guy and his wife.
If he didn’t get it from his paternal side, then how? For sure, there are his maternal genetics.
But I think something more is at work.
What do we read in Luke? Nothing is impossible with God.