Christian Leaders Should Become Irrelevant

With all the talk of relevance and of trying to relate to people, be value added, and gain power and prestige in the world so it will listen to our message, the truth of the Incarnation shouts to us from Bethlehem long ago: "Power is made perfect in weakness."

Henri Nouwen in his beautiful little book, "In the Name of Jesus" says it well:

"Feeling irrelevant is a much more general experience than we might think when we look at our seemingly self-confident society. Medical technology and the tragic increase in abortions may radically diminish the number of mentally handicapped people in our society, but it is already becoming apparent that more and more people are suffering from profound moral and spiritual handicaps without having any idea of where to look for healing.

"It is here that the need for a new Christian leadership becomes clear. The leader of the future will be the one who dares to claim his irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows him or her to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success and to bring the light of Jesus there."

___________________

He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ~ Philippians 2:6-7
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry