June 23, 2010

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

I’ve been involved in some organizations where the Past President stays on the board for the coming year to add continuity to the group. It’s a nice gesture and in a sense it also helps the outgoing leader adjust to his new role of having less authority and official respect. In the arena of elected officials it’s somewhat shocking and yet humorous, at how quickly people are shuttled into and out of office. The phone starts ringing the day you’re sworn into office and abruptly stops the day your term is over. Paul reminds us about our temporary positions in life, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.” (Romans 12:3 NIV)

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----God created perfect human nature. He created us to think and act according to our own choices which were to be based upon an honest assessment of what is real and true in the circumstances we face. Satan convinced Adam and Eve to except distortion into our nature, to think and act according to what we want circumstances to be rather than to what they are. Therefore the corruption of self-interested bias entered human nature, and personal perception became shaped more by self ambition than by reality of situation. The Holy Spirit led Paul to write, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment,” because the trickery of this self-ambitious twist in human nature makes reality difficult to perceive.
-----Government is necessary, and many nonprofit organizations are formed by good people to provide specific benefits for others. Both are created by their charters - our government by the Constitution, and nonprofit organizations by their articles of incorporation. These documents are reality. But whether it be government or NPO‘s, the organization becomes what its leaders are. Not only do its benefits then flow either to the people the organizing documents intended or to the leaders, but leaders can even distort the intended benefits to the point of actually being detriments. In response to this, we think that circulating many different people successively through the leadership posts will enable the organization to stay on course with its formulated purpose. We are wrong.
-----Leaving a past leader on the board will not initiate the heart of a new one. The primary responsibility of leadership comes less from knowledge and more from the heart. Founding documents are the primal director of the organization. Yet leaders circulate through the driver’s seats many times over bringing the ambitions of their own individuality into direction and twisting the organization away from its founded intention. Generations of twisting compounds previous twisting until soon the organization no longer serves its founded purposes. Witness our Federal government. And many public foundations now serve ideologies that would make their founders roll over in their graves. Only the truly humble heart accepts guidelines of founding documents. And that humility is in Paul’s message.
-----Whether the community just does not understand, or simply does not care, it accepts leaders who think more highly of themselves than the contracts formed by founding documents. This also happens in the church for which the Bible is the founding document. And we expect little more of each other than what the community in general accepts, failing our duties by accepting community standards. For every one of us knows someone else, often in important positions, and community expectations rise when challenges and pressures to not think more highly of self than of truth are respectfully levied upon one another. This is one of the most basic responsibilities of fellowship.

Love you all,
Steve Corey