Leadership

Quiet Strength, a book by Tony Dungy, the head coach of the Super Bowl Champion Indianapolis Colts, is a book that Coach Dungy wrote about his faith has effected his leadership of the Colts. He uses the verse Matthew 20:26-27 which says:

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.

I absolutely love this verse. Tony Dungy constantly explains how he got the players to respond to his message, he served them. Coach Dungy would stay at nicer hotels with the team, he would make sure his players could get the family time they needed by ending practice earlier than most coaches, Dungy would respect his players and take his time to listen to the problems they had, this is why Coach Dungy can get his team to respond so well to him, he serves them. In the same way, I believe this is the way we have to approach witnessing. When we serve people, they see our actions and those actions open the door to much more conversation. People notice our actions and a consistent lifestyle and I think thats what the verse is getting at. Witnessing, in my opinion, is a combination of adequate leadership skills, which is defined by serving others, and a consistent lifestyle.

Ministry

Tonight, Matt began a three week series on words. He was using a passage from Jeremiah and I got reading a little bit after we ended and came across this verse.

"Today I appoint you to stand up against nations and kingdoms. You are to uproot some and tear them down, to destroy and overthrow them. You are to build others up and plant them." Jer. 1:10

I got to thinking about it and this is the way I see this verse. We are called to minister to people of all kinds, different religions, races, beliefs, etc. When we minister to a person, one thing you must do is point out the contradictions in their belief system. I think this relates to the verse in the sense that, "some you must uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow." But the awesome thing about this verse is the next part. "You are to build others up and plant them." This is the coolest part because after God has helped tear down a belief system, we have to replant them in something that will help them grow. So, I do not know that this verse is talking about literally tearing down nations and kingdoms, I believe that those kingdoms and nations are people and belief systems.