Following is More Important Than Leadership
W e often think of leadership in terms of who has the authority to tell other people what to do. This probably develops from childhood. Parents are the leaders of their families. Children who don’t respect that leadership may receive a few good swats on the backside. But authority isn’t always so clearly defined. There are many cases in which a group of equals choose to follow a leader. Consider the case of a church choir. We could correctly make the claim that the choir director derives his authority from the church, since the church elected him, but the choir is voluntary. Its members don’t have to participate and yet they show up and look to the director for leadership. Maybe a better example would be a small group Bible study. Five or six people decide to get to get together for a Bible study. They are all equals, but one of them leads. That one person may set the time they will meet. He will control the format of the Bible study. He may choose which section of the Bible they will ...