Leadership | Esthers Women Ministry

Isaiah 56:10-12

10 For the leaders of my people-the Lord’s watchmen, his shepherds (leaders) -are blind and ignorant. They are like silent watchdogs that give no warning when danger comes. They love to lie around, sleeping and dreaming.

11 Like greedy dogs, they are never satisfied. They are ignorant shepherds, all following their own path and intent on personal gain.

12 “Come,” they say, “let’s get some wine and have a party. Let’s all get drunk. Then tomorrow we’ll do it again and have an even bigger party!”

Introduction

ig·no·rant

ADJECTIVE:

1. Lacking education or knowledge.
2. Showing or arising from a lack of education or knowledge: an ignorant mistake.

3. Unaware or uninformed. (American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition)

I. Ignorance-A Leader’s Greatest Mistake.

A. When we think of the word ignorance we often attribute negative connotations to this term; such as: stupid, dumb, uneducated, or mentally-challenged. However, for the purpose of this lesson, I would like for us to focus on definition number three of the word ignorant: Unaware or uninformed. As leaders we cannot continue to be unaware or uninformed. A better definition of the word ignorance comes from its root word: ignore.
ig·nore
To refuse to pay attention to; disregard. (American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition)

1. Ignoring a problem, issue, or weakness will not eliminate its existence. When sweeping the dirt from the floor of our homes we do not sweep the debris under a rug. If we had, we would not be completely removing the unwanted matter. It would lie in wait and accumulate.

2. Law ~ Ignorance of the law is not an adequate defense from prosecution (i.e. consequences) under the law.

B. In his book The Emotionally Healthy Church, Peter Scazzero shares his experiences as a Christian, a minister and pastor. After experiencing a split in the Spanish Ministry of his church he began to slowly recognize the error in his response to the crisis. He says, “The main problem was that I lacked both the courage and maturity to confront him. (One of the assistant pastors of the Spanish-language congregation)The sad truth is that my ‘godly, lamb-like response’ had little to do with imitating Jesus and much more to do with unresolved issues and emotional baggage I was carrying from my past.” He continues, “Meanwhile, I struggled to be honest with how I presented the situation to others. I had a terrible habit of embellishing or editing the truth lest people get upset. (God calls that lying; I renamed it good vision-casting).” He adds, “I preferred to be quiet and hope the church problems would disappear by themselves. They did not.”

1. All too often we have a tendency to overlook or ignore issues and problems, secretly hoping they will simply vanish. As the saying goes, “Out of sight, out of mind.” However, personal problems and issues cannot be wished away; they must be carefully and prayerfully dealt with, lest they haunt our very being and affect every aspect of our lives. These will most certainly rear their hideous heads in the most unfortunate and inconvenient moments.

2. Where did this weak and frail perception of Christianity originate? After careful examination of the scriptures concerning the life and death of Christ, who (in their right mind) can truly say that being Christ-like is to don the persona of a weakling? Can any true Christian say that living for God in a Christ-like manner is easy? I tell you the truth; it takes a determined, tough individual to be a Christian in this day and age. To be in the world, but not of this world is not for the faint of heart!

Conclusion

Throughout history we can find countless examples of leaders in every aspect of society making what is perhaps a leader’s greatest mistake: ignorance Leaders of some of the greatest nations in the world have lost wars and even their own sovereignty due to the absence of a watchful eye or their blatant disregard to the issues or problems they faced. Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake.” My brethren, this is the most commonly used strategy of our enemy. He does not always use the most obvious weaponry or tactics against us, but prefers to exploit those things that lie hidden and dormant because of our own ignorance.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1911997

In the Church we are often confronted with leading, or at least being a part of one activity or another. I can remember back to the days of my youth when practically every hour not spent at school, was spent organizing the next Youth activity or working on the up-coming church newsletter. After a few years of long nights the realization that there were more activities than I humanly had time for started to bubble up. The thoughts and principles presented here are partly based on nearly 9 years of being a husband, father, employee, and 15 years serving in my local church.

“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…” Ephesians 5:15-16a (NIV)

A critical way to check on how things are falling in line with God’s will is to evaluate your time management and priorities and those of your church leadership team. Priorities help in achieving our number one goal: living a life pleasing to God. I can remember my Dad always telling me to “…look first for the kingdom of God…” (Matthew 6:33), but I didn’t always understand what that meant. Fortunately for us the Bible clearly outlines what’s important.

Every Christian’s Marching Orders
Each leader needs to lead by example, here are a few thoughts:

a. Sharing your faith (Acts 1:8, 2nd Corinthians 5:18-20)
b. Worshiping God and fellowshipping with the brethren (Hebrews 10:25)
c. Prayer (Philippians 4:6-7)
d. Study of the Word of God (2nd Timothy 2:15)

Developing a list of your activities and setting their priorities based on those such as the above list goes towards deciding what is a good use of time.

The Biblical Order Of Priorities

1st – Your Personal Relationship with God
2nd – Your Family (1. spouse, 2. children)
3rd – Your Christian Ministry (church)
4th – Your Job

Setting priority to the relationships in your life help to further define what is important and what falls into secondary levels of importance. For the sake of brevity, let’s look at the first two priorities on this list. The first is easy, Matthew 6:33 instructs us to seek what is of God and all other things will take care of themselves. The second item is so important to having a strong home life, one that will support your ministry as the years progress. Putting the proper attention to nurturing his or her relationship with their spouse and family will assure an awesome testimony. There is no stronger way for the devil to discourage a leader in the church than to see his family crumbling.

Living By Your Priorities, Not Others Pressure
It’s pretty safe to say that God does not want us to live by pressure, and the idea that something needs to be done, doesn’t neccesarily mean your the one to do it. Once you’ve established your priorities and developed a weekly schedule around them, begin to analyze new activities with this list. Ask yourself: Does this activity fit within my priority structure? Should I re-work my priorities to fit this new opportunity?

It takes time and prayer to develop priorities; remember to keep in mind the gifts the Lord has given to your charge. Don’t allow others to set your priorities, you alone are responsible before God on how you use your time.

Developing A Weekly Schedule
In maintaining a weekly schedule, Godly priorities result in a pattern in your daily living. Crisis will arise, but the beauty of scheduling these important activities is that they will get done on a consistent basis. Not following a regular schedule of Godly activities allows the inevitable crisis to put one further behind in doing what is the will of God in your life.

Making Better Use Of Time
Christians are particularly susceptible to the devil when it comes to the issue of time. If Satan can fool us into making bad uses of our time, he is being successful in minimizing our effectiveness for the Lord and His Church. For the person wanting to mentor and disciple along with helping the Church to multiple, time becomes an important issue.

Here are some principles to help us be clear on the issue of time:

1. All men are created equal with respect to time
No one really has more or less time, there are 24 hours in the day for everyone. The difference is in how we use our time; sometimes we are tempted to come up with excuses of having less time to cover our bad time management.

2. We will always have enough time to do God’s will
Time problems occur when we try to do more than God’s will for our own lives. This principle should be a red flag in our minds whenever we find ourselves overwhelmed and unable to accomplish all that we are charged with doing.

“For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” – 1 Corinthians 14:33

3. Time is lost on the smaller things first
It is said that we lose minutes before we lose hours, days before we lose weeks. Often, time is lost in the gaps between activities doing unproductive things. Make a habit of keeping work with you to fill these gaps (reading material, homework, letters to write, Bible Scripture to memorize).

4. Relaxation is not wasted time
Our bodies were created in a such a way that we need down time and rest for our bodies to get back into an optimal state. The Old Testament concept of the Sabbath made the case for rest and relaxation. Jesus Himself gave us an even greater example:

“The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’ “ – Mark 6:30-31

5. Time management is a measure of knowing God’s will
Time management provides a way of walking carefully before God and of proving His perfect will.

I hope that these thoughts and principles will encourage you to make the best use of time for your relationship with God, your family, and your Church! God bless you.

“Be very careful, then, how you live–not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” – Ephesians 5:15-18

* A great book that goes deeper into the topic of Christian time management and priorities is “The Dynamics of Discipleship Training” by Gary W. Kuhne. Some of the principles outlined in this article are from this book.

Resource: http://www.inspiredchristian.org/cyber/111300jf.html