Why People Won’t Lead

Yesterday I got to spend some 6 hours with a great friend of mine from college in St. Louis watching our Cardinals lose.  Todd is the Worship Minister of Broadway Christian Church, my home church.  We got to talking about ministry and how some people just won’t come along when it comes to the mission of Christ.  They attend church their whole lives and somewhere along the way it becomes about them.  No longer is worship a time for getting our vision for mission filled, it has become about how good I can feel when I walk out at the end of the hour.  

As I was driving back home last night, I began to think about what Todd and I spoke about and how that translates into why people won’t lead others.  I would suggest that when the Church becomes more about us than others, we no longer have anything to lead others to.  There are a few leaders throughout history who were able to lead others to an agenda all about them, but those always end tragically.  Most of the time when we are selfish we don’t lead others because we don’t really care about where they are or where they need to go.  We don’t worry more about the agenda of God than we do about our agenda.  

Jesus reminded us while talking to one of the lawyers in the crowd…(Matt. 22:36-40)

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

People don’t lead because they don’t follow through with those two commands.  

What do you think?  What are other reasons people won’t lead?