“He found Philip and said, ‘Follow me.’” (John 1:43b)
One of my colleagues on the Duke Divinity School Alumni Council surprised me with a provocative comment he made about a family member and her relationship with a certain beau. This almost-50-year-old friend is a good-old-boy pastor down in the heart of Texas, so hear his remark with a significant measure of southern accent and Dixie-style wisdom mixed in. In talking about his daughter and her new boy friend, this is what he said: “I know that my daughter needs to grow,” he said, “but that boy ain’t the fertilizer!”
Those words got me thinking about relationships, and how iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17) - and, conversely, how sometimes we hold each other back from being the very best we can be. What does it mean for me to be good fertilizer toward your very best effort at discipleship? (I know there’s a string of jokes in there…) In what ways are you bringing out the talent and the energy of Christian disciples around you? How are you, like Jesus with Philip in the scene from John 1, calling others to come-alongside in following and serving our Lord? This, of course, has everything to do with evangelism…but it also has to do with leadership development in the life of a local church. I want to encourage each of us who is active in any form of discipleship right now to embrace the responsibility and the joy of inviting somebody new to leave the sidelines and get into the game. Use your good sense and target someone who is primed and ready for Christian service – maybe even somebody who will replace you someday! Be the fertilizer that causes an emerging leader to come forth.
An interesting proverb in the Hebrew scriptures says this: “Like an archer who wounds everybody is one who hires a passing fool or a drunkard.” (Proverbs 26:10) Read it again! What it means is: you and I have a responsibility to everyone around us to make sure that we recruit and enlist the brightest and the best to work on our team! If leadership development is handled casually or carelessly, the system will fail. At HopewellChurch in this new year, I want to challenge you to embrace a come-alongside approach to team-building which is constantly raising up good new leadership not top down, but from within.
‘One more example. When Jay Leno started his primetime show this past fall, he stated that he was looking forward to being a star-maker for bright, young comedians. “I hope people become famous and get offered shows,” he said. “If I someday hear, ‘Jay, we’re replacing you with the guy you discovered,’ that would be great.” (Scranton Times-Tribune 8-20-09) Now there’s a passion for leadership development; that’s a come-alongside approach to building the team, for today and tomorrow. At Hopewell
UMC, let’s each of us discover the guy who will replace us!
Jesus found Philip, and what happened next? Philip found Nathanael (John 1:45a), and the ball got rolling from there. In our congregation, there is room in the pews for considerably more folks in 2010. Will you say to someone, “Come and see”- ? And for those of you who are already serving well: will you shoulder-tap your neighbor and say, “Please, follow me” - ? What a joy is it to be star-maker! The baptized all around you need to grow. Be the fertilizer that brings forth greatness.
