You're not a Leader, You're a Slave

I lead a men's small group and I love them to death. We were planning a valentine's day surprise for the girls in our Christian fellowship and a few of us got together on Thursday night to start making them little packages.

Now, I will not lie, this "surprise" task is of epic proportion. There were only 8 men in LW for 37 girls (our guys:girls ratio is tiny). Since we didn't finish on Thursday night, I figured we'd finish up on Friday.

On Friday, I was surprised that no one could really help. I started to think that this could not be done, and I started to lose hope in my men. This is rare, I'm an initiator, someone who feeds off challenges and motivation. But here, I felt kind of hopeless. Why were my men not coming? I know that we're all busy with a lot of priorities, but surely, 30 minutes can't be that hard to spare... :-/

I luckily had one of my guys come up :-) and he brought along two other alumni. One of them told me when I was leaving, kind of as a joke, but not really, "You're not a leader, you're a slave."

I'm not a leader. I'm a slave.

Am I a slave because I do everything for them. Maybe I don't give them enough responsibilities to grow? Maybe I'm not trusting in them enough? Maybe I'm not leading because I'm not encouraging them to do work since I'm here. At the same time, isn't this how Jesus led? I want to lead by example, because I believe so much more in doing than just saying or forcing. When you do things, you live your thoughts and your life becomes what you stand for. But why isn't this leading style working for me? Why aren't most of my boys,for a lack of better words, "manning up?"

Is what I'm doing right? Wrong?

I'm confused. I want them to grow. I want them to take responsibility, learn how to manage time, learn how to serve others, go out and initiate things.

Today's sermon was quite timely. Pastor LT said that the words "servant" and "slave", in the Bible, could be interchangeable. "Slave", not like the way think of the word, but "slave" as in someone who willingly calls someone their master and serves them and their needs. Jesus says that "If anyone wants to be first, He must be the very last, and the servant of all" (Mark 9:35).

Tough life. But His disciples saw Jesus's servanthood, and now the whole world is changed.

I need to be both a slave and a leader, not just a slave. But how?

On the bright side, when we were making final deliveries today, even if it was at the last moment, a few of my guys pulled together to help :-).

It's nice to see some improvement, but I need to stop focusing on what I want to see, and let God take over.