Home » Posts tagged 'leadership'

Tag Archives: leadership

God or man?

Posted on by | Leave a comment

As followers of Jesus, we are told repeatedly to follow God and not humans.

We are not to have religious leaders.

Mark 10:42-45
42 Jesus called them over and said to them, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and their men of high positions exercise power over them. 43 But it must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave to all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many.”

We are to treat everyone equally.

John 13:13-15
13 You call Me Teacher and Lord. This is well said, for I am. 14 So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done for you.

Only God is above us – we should not take on airs and call or be called by titles. We are to be equal.

Matthew 23:8-12
8 “But as for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi,’ because you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 Do not call anyone on earth your father, because you have one Father, who is in heaven.10 And do not be called masters either, because you have one Master, the Messiah. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Jesus tells us that we aren’t even supposed to follow our own family.

Luke 14:26
26 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be My disciple.

We are to follow human laws, however.

Matthew22:15-21
15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to trap Him by what He said.16 They sent their disciples to Him, with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that You are truthful and teach truthfully the way of God. You defer to no one, for You don’t show partiality. 17 Tell us, therefore, what You think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” 18 But perceiving their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing Me, hypocrites? 19 Show Me the coin used for the tax.” So they brought Him a denarius. 20 “Whose image and inscription is this?” He asked them. 21 “Caesar’s,” they said to Him. Then He said to them, “Therefore give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Matthew 3:13-15
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to stop Him, saying, “I need to be baptized by You, and yet You come to me?” 15 Jesus answered him,“Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him to be baptized.

Matthew 17:24-27
24 When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the double-drachma tax approached Peter and said, “Doesn’t your Teacher pay the double-drachma tax?” 25 “Yes,” he said. When he went into the house, Jesus spoke to him first,“What do you think, Simon? Who do earthly kings collect tariffs or taxes from? From their sons or from strangers?” 26 “From strangers,” he said. “Then the sons are free,” Jesus told him. 27 “But, so we won’t offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fishhook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth you’ll find a coin. Take it and give it to them for Me and you.”

Peter and his fellow apostles understood this message. The Jewish leaders ordered them to stop telling people about Jesus.

Acts 4:19-20
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it’s right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide; 20 for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

And later, when they persisted in teaching about Jesus, they replied the same way.

Acts 5:27-29
27 After they brought them in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin, and the high priest asked, 28 “Didn’t we strictly order you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to bring this man’s blood on us!”29 But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.

So why do the vast majority of today’s churches have ordained ministers, bishops, or elders? Why do we separate and elevate? To elevate certain members of the church over others means to make the others unequal, lesser-than. This is in direct opposition to the instructions of Jesus. If you are in a church that has leaders who are above you, be sure to follow God first and foremost. If God speaks to your heart and a minister tells you to not talk about it or to not do what God said, then you must follow God and not the minister.

(All verses are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Rabid (what really scares me about Trump)

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Trump doesn’t frighten me. His followers do. He is only one person. There are many thousands of them. The fact that he is popular means that they agree with his message.

Remove him from the election and these people will still feel what they feel.

They will still be afraid of anyone who isn’t them, and they all appear to be straight, white, and Christian.

Somehow they feel that the civil rights advances of others are threatening to them. For some reason they feel that allowing other people to live their lives differently means that their own choices are under attack.

They don’t get that allowing gay people to get married does not mean that straight people have to become homosexual. It does not take away straight people’s rights.

They don’t get that allowing people of other faith traditions to practice their religion does not mean that Christians cannot practice their own. It is important to remember that Jesus never said to attack another person’s way of life – in fact, he said the opposite. Judging other people (and making laws against them or discrimination against them is not what Jesus would do)

They don’t get that allowing immigrants into America does not mean that those who are here will lose their jobs or homes. And, lest we forget American history, the vast majority of Americans are immigrants or descended from them. Trump’s own father was an immigrant from Germany.

Trump frightens me because he is a center point to the rage and frustration that so many of them are feeling.

Saddam Hussein didn’t kill anyone. He just talked, and his followers did the deeds.

Hitler didn’t kill anyone. His followers did.

The leaders in the Rwandan genocide didn’t kill anyone. Their followers did.

Nobody has been killed by the people who follow Trump. Not yet. They’ve rioted. They’ve assaulted. It is a start.

I’m surprised that his hate speech hasn’t been called out for what it is. Is it because he is a presidential candidate that he is allowed to incite violence against people? Other citizens are called out for that. There are watchdog agencies that check for such activity. Why aren’t they speaking up? Or are they stunned into silence by his pomposity?

I’m concerned that all of the advances that have been made in the effort of unity and inclusion will be swept away in a tidal wave of fear and ignorance.

The leaders of hate are simply the voice to long unspoken feelings that have been bottled up, suppressed, whispered. The leaders of hate don’t do anything to get their hands dirty. Their followers are the ones who do the evil.

Is this what we want America to become? A nation where it isn’t safe to be gay, or black or an immigrant? Where it isn’t safe to challenge the status quo? Where it isn’t safe to be an intellectual? Where it isn’t safe, period?

Trump is a figurehead to a slow boiling pot filled with people who feel threatened. In making room for people who are “other” they feel pushed out, excluded, ignored. In a way, I understand this. America is a land where it is considered laudable to have gay pride, black pride, Latino pride. But “white pride”? It is seen as racist. They have been told that they cannot be proud of their roots.

You can’t fix discrimination by discriminating. This is true for everyone.

Pink. (better to look stupid than be dead)

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I’m reading a book called “Drunk Tank Pink”. It talks about the many things that influence human behavior, many of which we are unaware of.

One of the chapters talked about a number of studies that tried to determine what makes people act when something bad is going on. Some of the events were real and some were staged. The book cited the story when a woman was stabbed to death in 1964 in full view of many onlookers, as well as another case were a homeless man was attacked and died, also in view of a number of onlookers. Then there was a study where a student thought that he was talking to another student (in another room, unseen) who acted as if he was having a seizure. In another study, a student was waiting in a room with other students (who were in on the study) and smoke started to appear under the door.

What caused people to act or not? The determining factor was the number of other people. The more people, the more everyone thought that someone else would take care of it. The more people, the less happened.

People don’t want to cause a fuss. They don’t want to be out of place. They look to others to act.

Problem is, what if we all do that, and we all burn to death in that room? People die when nobody acts, or acts too slowly.

I had a thought when I was reading this – instead of doing a study to find out what makes people act or not, why not have a class that teaches people how to act in such a circumstance? Who to call, what to do? That kind of stuff. Teach everybody how to be a first responder. Teach everybody to be able to handle it on their own, rather than expecting someone else to take care of it.

Because if you wait for someone else to take care of it, someone is going to get hurt.

I was in a tiny restaurant that had big glass windows. A big storm came up. My husband and I were sitting by one of the windows. I asked to move, and we took everything over to a corner, as far away as we could get from the windows. The bathrooms were nearby as an escape route.

I had been in a similar situation once when I was a child. My family had gone out to eat and an equally bad storm came up. The storm broke the window at the table we were sitting at, and my brother’s head got sliced open by the glass. The rest of the evening was a blur as my parents drove us to the doctor’s office to get stitched up. I’m not sure why we didn’t go to the emergency room – but I suspect it was because we didn’t have health insurance.

But this time, at this restaurant, it caused a little bit of a fuss to move everything, and the other patrons decided to speak up. They started making fun of me.

I’m still angry thinking about this.

I’m moving to safety. I wasn’t telling them to move, nor was I preventing them from moving. There was no reason to mock me.

I’m glad I stood my ground and moved. Funny to say it that way, but that is how it is. I would have taken care of them if they had gotten hurt, but the only way to be able to take care of others is to be safe yourself. I saw no reason to take a chance with that storm and that window. It was a bad combination. Ideally, I wouldn’t have even gone out that night if I’d realized how intense that storm was going to get.

So maybe that is also part of why people don’t get involved. Not only do they not know what to do, not only do they think someone else will do something, but they have previously been chastised for doing or saying something.

Eh. I’m going to speak up. And I’m going to move. And if it means I’m going to look stupid doing it, so be it. Better stupid than dead.