week 6 responds
Week 6 responds
Jermaine Willis
leadership and calling
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Spiritual formation and leadership go hand and hand. Spiritual formation is personal growth. Leadership growth is growing a group or organization. The leader must grow. Growth is critical in spiritual formation and leadership. Pettit suggests, “Spiritual transformation in a group or ministry setting requires effective spiritual leadership.” [1] In order for a group to spiritually transform, the leader has to already spiritually transform or active getting to another level. Spiritually, a leader cannot be on the same level as the group he or she is leading. A leader should have gone through what the individuals that he or she had gone through or know to navigate through situations because of experience. Spiritual leaders have experience in spiritual formation. The leader must be able to give support to the group or ministry. Also, a leader must have the character to service the people he or she is leading. Serving should be a part of a leader’s identity. Pettit declares, “Leadership is primarily an expression of who we are.” [2] God will develop His Chosen leaders because his purpose comes through a man. Pettit references J. Oswald Sanders comments, “It has been said that in achieving His World-purpose, God’s method has always been a man. God used a man since the beginning of time to initiate his plan. Pettit reference Bennie observation, “No leader sets out to be a leader per se, but rather to express himself freely and frilly.” [3] Leaders express what is already in them.
All humanity is called but depends on the call that humanity answer. All calls are not from God. When an individual commit to the process of Spiritual formation, he or she learns to hear the voice of God and can feel the Spirit of God move on them. A call gives an individual direction. God calls individuals for His purpose and glory. An individual’s call gives individual instruction and purpose for the advancement of the Gospel and growth of the Kingdom of God. Many looks for their purpose and without spiritual formation, an individual cannot understand the purpose of their life. Once operating in the Spirit of God an individual can follow the yearning that they must live out their purpose. Pettit concludes, “Only the call of God can ever fulfill this longing for God.” [4] Spiritual formation helps an individual to become more like Christ which makes it easier for them to walk in their call. We all have the call to come to Christ. Pettit alludes to, “Throughout scripture, the chief concern is always God calling his children to himself and calling his children to live holiness. In addition to the primary call, there is a functional calling. Pettit declares, “The functional call is how we live out our primary calling.” [5] Every believer has a function that can differ from another believer. The church has many parts and each part has its own function.
[1] Paul Pettit, Foundations of Spiritual Formation: A Community Approach to Becoming Like Christ, Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2008, 177.
[2] Ibid., 181.
[3] Ibid., 181.
[4] Ibid., 197.
[5] Ibid., 197.
Adam Leis
Forum 3 - Leadership and Calling
Top of Form
Leadership and one’s calling are linked to spiritual formation by the three “necessary resources” that Jonathan Morrow outlines in Foundations of Spiritual Formation:1
1.
Study and knowledge of the Word
2.
Inward working of the Holy Spirit
3.
Community involvement
Each is connected to the aspects of leadership and calling in that the process of becoming a leader and discerning one’s calling is done by drawing close to God, learning who God is, what God wants, how to accomplish those things, and growing with the community of believers as we shape each other.
Andrew Seidel explains that, with the abundant research in what makes great leaders, “... more writers in the area of leadership are recognition the importance of the inner life of the leader. Leading ‘from the inside out’ has become a recurring theme….”2 This “leading from the inside out” implicitly touches on an important point regarding leadership: it stems from one’s sense of identity. Seidel later contrasts leading from identity against leading to define identity.3 Essentially, some will lead based on who they are and the kind of person they are, and others will “fake it ‘til they make it,” or pretend to be someone they are not prepared to be. Only when someone is secure in their identity and who they are will they offer a more stable form of leadership.
Once a person trusts Jesus’ work over their own for salvation and invites Him into their heart, the individual is completed. Until a person welcomes God inside to God’s rightful place, the person is incomplete. If the person is complete due to God’s Spirit indwelling them, their identity has been completed, whether they know how to live that out at the moment; Jesus lives within, and the Holy Spirit indwells the person (point 2 from above). The person learns more, with the help of the Counselor, by studying God’s Word (point 1 from above). The community of believers, the body of Christ, works together to edify, build up, teach, and correct each other, again guided by the Holy Spirit (point 3 from above).4 The person is transformed and exposed to leadership opportunities within the church, community, and one’s family. Leadership requires other people, after all. This is how leadership relates to spiritual formation.
A person’s calling appears quite a bit more generic than the dramatic sense of “destiny” it typically invokes. George Hillman explains two kinds of calling, interestingly coined by American Puritans: a primary calling and a functional calling.5 The primary calling is quite simple: engage in a love relationship with God.6 Loving God, loving Jesus, is simply described as keeping God’s commandments.7 The functional calling entails the daily efforts of carrying out the primary calling. The time we make for God, the effort in studying His Word, the time spent with other people: these are all ways we fulfill the command to love God. The pattern of necessary resources emerges again. No one can keep God’s commandments if ignorant of them, so time in God’s Word in study, prayer, and meditation are required (point 1 from above). Actually exercising obedience, following the commandments, is loving God and possible with the help of the Holy Spirit (point 2 from above).8 “Everything that brings you into a relationship with other people is a part of your functional call” (point 3 from above).9 Ultimately, God wants our hearts, not our actions, for Himself.10 Our actions will flow correctly from a heart given to God.
Leadership, which depends on a strong sense of identity in Christ, and one’s calling, which depends on closeness and commitment to God, both require the necessary resources that come with spiritual formation. It is difficult to imagine that a person would not be led into leadership positions and discern their calling if they are growing spiritually. It is largely focused on the identity of the person as a love relationship with God is cultivated. Not surprisingly, Jesus is the prime example of one who grew spiritually11 and led from His secure sense of identity with the Father, living out the primary calling in loving His Father by building up His followers in His functional calling of teaching and discipleship.
1 Paul Pettit, ed., Foundations of Spiritual Formation: A Community Approach to Becoming More Like Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2008), 45
2 Ibid., 178.
3 Ibid., 181.
4 1 Cor. 12:28; Col. 3:16; 1 Thes. 5:11.
5 Pettit, ed., Foundations of Spiritual Formation, 198.
6 Mat. 22:37; cf. Deu. 6:5.
7 John 14:15, 21, 23; 15:10; 1 John 2:3; 5:3; 2 John 1:6.
8 John 14:26
9 Pettit, ed., Foundations of Spiritual Formation, 201.
10 Psalm 51:16-17
11 Luke 2:52
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