When a leader and those he leads part company, we learn a whole lot about both of them. Their true values become apparent. The things they are really about become clear. There is no more game-playing when it is time for a leader and those he leads to part company.
Sometimes they separate involuntarily. Sometimes there is an accident, or a death, or a family circumstance. Sometimes things just happen, and a leader is suddenly snatched away. That’s one of the times when we find out what sort of person that leader really was, and when we find out what kind of people he led. I think of those terrible days, one of them in November of 1963, when John Kennedy was killed, the other in April of 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated. We found out then how much we valued them. And we learned that the American people will step up and do what needs to be done. When leaders are taken away in sudden catastrophes, we learn to value them, but we also honor them by committing ourselves to the things they were all about.
However, sometimes leaders and those they lead do not part company because of disasters. Sometimes they part company because the leader sees another opportunity elsewhere. She is offered a new environment. He is given a chance to work on a new problem. Leaders sometimes leave what they are doing because they feel drawn to a new venture. When that happens, we get suspicious, don’t we? We start thinking that it’s all about money, and that people in leadership positions are interested in nothing more than high salaries. From what I read, most universities cannot keep a president more than three or four years, because some other university outbids them. Many cities cannot keep a police chief more than a few years, because there is a very active market for people of that caliber. And don’t even get me started on school superintendents. Hey, for six hundred thousand dollars I’ll take that on, won’t you, politics and all?! It is true that leaders and those they lead part company over money sometimes; but let’s remember that sometimes it’s about a new vision. And that’s not a bad thing. It gives a leader a chance to find out more about who he is; and it gives those he leads a chance to figure out who they are. Let’s not be cynical and think that people do what they do only for money; some do not. It’s also about vision and opportunity.
So, what have I said thus far? Leaders and those they lead may part company because of disasters. Leaders and those they lead may part company because of new opportunities. But there is another way in which leaders and the led part company: because the leader decides to make a strategic withdrawal. Because the leader believes that the best way to mature the people he is leading is to back off, give them some room, trust them, and let them grow up. Because the leader sees that if she gets out of the way, those she has led will mature and take responsibility. A teacher, for example, decides that she will no longer do her students’ math problems. She has showed them how to solve them, and now they must do the work. A parent decides that he will no longer repair his teenage son’s car; he has showed him how to fix it, and now fix it he must. A grandparent determines that he will no longer guide his little granddaughter’s tricycle down the sidewalk, especially when she says, “Let me do it myself, grandpa.” You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?! That means the time has come for a strategic withdrawal! And when that happens, you really do find out what people are made of. When a leader and those who are led part company because the leader is making a strategic withdrawal, backing out in order to push the people toward maturity, you find out that there is no substitute for faith. Faith is the victory that overcomes that situation.
Jesus had taught His disciples for three years. He had instructed them in Kingdom principles. He had put them out as apprentices, visiting towns and villages two-by-two to preach. Jesus had demonstrated what He valued. And His people had gone through the depth of crisis at the cross and the exhilaration of victory at the empty tomb. They were ready. In Jesus’ estimation, they were ready. Whether they thought they were ready is another matter. Their leader saw that it was time. Jesus’ ascension is a strategic withdrawal. Jesus recognized that if He were to stay around any longer, they would never grow up. They would remain dependent. And so He withdrew, but not before He had made them a promise and had given them a plan.
The promise is, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” And the plan is, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” With these words, Jesus makes His strategic withdrawal. And the next thing you see is a bunch of shell-shocked disciples standing around, with their mouths hanging open, wringing their hands, wondering what to do next! I love what the angels said to this crowd:
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’
Guys, why are you standing around here with your tongues hanging out and a glazed look in your eyes? Fellows, why are you still here? Don’t you get it? Jesus said He was leaving. He told you to get about His business. But you are still here, standing around, waiting for something else to happen! Folks, this is it! What you see is what you get! Why do you stand around looking up into heaven, as if you expect to be rescued ? Disciples, it’s your responsibility to go on from here. Believers, it’s time for you to get with the program. And since Jesus has made a strategic withdrawal, figure out who you are. Do you have what it takes? Why are you standing around looking into heaven, when it is time for you to do what He taught you to do.
It’s a good question, isn’t it, why are you standing around? What stands in your way? What obstacles do you face in being what you are supposed to be? What stands in the way of our doing what God has called us to do? This is an issue for our church. What stands in our way? Let me lift up several possibilities.
I
What stands in the way? Why are we standing around looking into heaven and not getting on with Kingdom business? Could it be because we are tired? Could it be because we feel exhausted and depleted? I can surely imagine that those who stood there that day, watching Jesus leave, felt pretty tired. They had tramped the roads of Galilee and had run the streets of Jerusalem for quite a while. They had been through taunting and trial and torture on the way to Calvary. They had spent sleepless nights, even after the resurrection, too excited to rest. I can imagine they felt tired.
I can relate to that, can’t you? I have felt that too. A few years back when several people left the church over a controversial point, I felt frustrated and tired. And when, only a few months later, another key leader left unexpectedly, I just felt old. Not merely tired, not a little bit weary. I felt old. Just plain old old. Anybody here ever felt that, when plans went awry and somebody you had counted on walked out? Just old.
Well, maybe that is what the disciples felt too. We’ve done all this with Jesus, we have been with Him through thick and thin, and now He wants to leave. What’s that about? We feel old and tired and worn out. We feel powerless and exhausted. But look at what they did. Look at what they did with their powerlessness and their exhaustion.
A
First, they gathered – all of them. The text says they were all there. All of them. Brothers and sisters, do not leave Takoma. Do not walk out on Takoma. Do not say, “I don’t know if my needs will any longer be met at Takoma.” This church is not and never has been about your needs alone. It’s about Kingdom needs. It’s about what we contribute toward Kingdom needs. If there is anyone here who is tempted to leave because there is going to be change, I beg you to consider what you are saying. I beg you to examine what that would reveal about who you are. You did not join this pastor! You joined Christ and you joined Takoma as an expression of the Body of Christ. The early disciples replenished their strength because all of them gathered, all of them.
B
And watch this: they gathered with the marginalized. They gathered with those on the outer fringes. Oh, don’t miss this. They gathered, not just the leaders. Not just the inner core. Not just the deacons and the Sunday School teachers. They gathered with a whole lot more than just the folks who had been there forever and a day. They gathered with the marginalized, those on the edges. Look at it – the women were there; women were surely on the edge of everything in the world of that day. And the brothers of Jesus – do you remember about them? In the gospels they came to pick up Jesus and carry Him off to the equivalent of St. E’s! The other sons of Mary were not in Jesus’ inner core. They were out on the edges. But somebody was wise enough to include them as the church started to go forward. Friends, there are a whole lot of folks who are a part of our community, but we don’t see them. We don’t see them at prayer meeting, we don’t see them at business meeting, we don’t get them on committees, they don’t become deacons. But are you aware than between 550 and 600 people are served in some way by our church? That is the number of individuals who worship here at least once within a year. And that does not even count those who come as visitors for the first time! 550 to 600 people that register their presence and get counted in the computer, members and people who are not members but who worship here. Our temptation is to ignore them. No, I’ll put it stronger than that. Our sin is to ignore them! When some of us look around, we see only the people we’ve known for a long time; we don’t even see that large group of people who float around the edges, but who need nurture, and need to be included. The early disciples replenished their strength because they gathered the folks on the edge as well as those in the hard core.
C
And, most of all, they replenished their strength because they gathered to pray. They gathered to connect with God. They gathered to claim Jesus’ promise that they would receive power from the Holy Spirit. I tell you, if Jesus’ withdrawal had done nothing more than push His people to prayer, that would have been enough. That would have been a benefit. In the months to come, the people of God who gather at Takoma must pray diligently and without ceasing for the health of this church. You must pray for Pastor Wilson as she becomes acting pastor, taking on new responsibilities, and with health concerns. You must pray for Mr. Hart as he struggles with limited resources to provide music for our worship. You must pray for Ms. Mosley as she deals with multiplying health issues and doubtless more work in the office. And you must pray that the Lord would lead us to the right temporary staffing, that He would empower other leaders, and, most of all, that He would bring Mr. Ingram and the Pastor Search Committee to that candidate who can be what this church needs for the years to come. Why do you stand around looking into heaven? Spend no time at all in standing around looking into heaven; spend it instead on your knees looking toward heaven for the needs of your church.
To the question, “what stands in the way, why are you standing around?” I say that it may be that you feel exhausted. But follow the pattern of these disciples who gathered, all of them, with those on the edges, and prayed, and you will be replenished.
II
But that may not be your issue. That may not be what you feel. If you do not feel exhausted and worn out about your church, maybe your problem is that you just do not know what to do. You feel as though there is no plan, no strategy, no pattern. Maybe you are like a few people who have said to me that they feel “crippled.” They have said that because of the way I work they feel unable to do the work of the church. I’ll have to accept that critique, but I wonder if these early disciples felt anything like that. Did they have a clue about what they were supposed to do? Was there a plan in place?
Yes, there was. There was a plan in place. Jesus said it very succinctly, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Folks, that is an action plan. That is a strategy. All you have to do is work out the details and do them. Just do them.
Think back over some of the things we have done together. We created a values statement; we read it from time to time. It affirms the things we believe in and focuses us on worship, evangelism, ministry, education, and fellowship. And then we added to the values statement a vision statement, and committed ourselves to deeper discipleship, multiplied ministries, winsome worship, and sacrificial stewardship. Do you remember that? Oh, tell me that you remember! Tell me that you eat these things for breakfast and that if I phone you at three o’clock in the morning you can recite them to me!
But there’s more. Recently we studied the purpose-driven life and then the purpose-driven church. We have a plan. We have a strategy. And just as Jesus told His disciples to start in Jerusalem and then fan out to Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, so also must we commit ourselves to the place where we are planted. So also must we get deeper into the lives, the homes, and the hearts of the people who live right here. This is not to devalue those of you who live at some distance. This is not to discredit those who have moved to the mountains of Montgomery or the pleasures of Prince George’s. But it is to say that we are given responsibility for the spiritual health of Takoma Park, and here we must be planted, firmly and surely. As long as there are families disintegrating around the corner; as long as there are children who attend no Sunday School; as long as there are men and women who need a Savior and who could hear us sing and preach if we opened the doors a little wider – as long as those things are true, do not even think of abandoning this corner. Bloom where you are planted. In this place, without neglecting others, but start here, in Jerusalem.
There is a plan. There is a strategy. There is an accord about what we should be doing. What stands in the way? We forget about the plan. We stray from the strategy. And we pipe dream about what might be out there somewhere else. If you would build your church, get with the program; plan the work and work the plan, and you will find tremendous new energy.
III
But maybe I have not hit you yet. Maybe I have not touched on your issue yet. If you are among those standing around, fearful or discouraged because a leader is about to make a strategic withdrawal, maybe it is not that you are tired. Maybe it is not it that you are without a clue. Maybe it is that you really don’t feel any urgency. Maybe you don’t think it matters all that much. Maybe for you the pastor’s imminent retirement is just another incident in a long stream of bumps in the road, and we’ll be okay, just let’s not worry about it.
If there were only one thing I could say to you today, it would be this: feel. Feel. Feel some passion about your church. Feel the urgency of getting at Kingdom tasks. Over the years I have brought you any number of new ideas. Some of them you embraced, and I thank you for that. Others you have rejected, though not many, and I thank you for that too. I have had my share of stinker ideas, and most of the time you could smell them, and you pushed them aside. Well and good. But in addition to the ideas you have embraced and those you have rejected, there are scores of ideas you have allowed to flounder. You let them linger. Ideas we worked on, talked about, prayed over, planned for – and then they went nowhere. Buried in oblivion. We said, “we’ll get to that next month.” “We don’t have a quorum, so we’ll vote another time.” And my absolute favorite, “It seems like a good idea, but now we need to prepare documents, write proposals, how does it square with our policies, let’s consult, do other churches to this? And, well, you know; things just get buried, watered down, and the moment passes. We do not feel the urgency.
Those disciples gathered in Jerusalem felt urgent. Why? Because the message was that this same Jesus who had left them was coming back, in power, and He would hold them accountable. He would check on what they had done. For me there has never been a more profound motivation than this – that I am under the all-seeing eye of God, and I am accountable to Him. If I don’t visit a dying person, the deacons may not know about it. But God will know. If I do not share the gospel with a child who is asking questions, the child may not be on my case for long. But God will not let me go, because I am accountable to Him. If I calculate my gift so that it’s only a fraction of the tithe, nobody but the IRS will figure that out. But God will know. And it is to Him that I am accountable. It is to Him that I must answer. That is what is urgent, very urgent.
Why are you standing around looking into heaven? What stands in the way? If you are tired, replenish yourselves by staying together, by gathering in the marginalized, and by praying profoundly. If you are clueless, and without a plan, come back to the work we have done together, and use it, right here, right around us. And if you just do not feel any urgency, if the success or the failure of this church does not matter all that much, then turn to the cross, see His sacrifice, know His pain, and get your groove back! We are accountable to Christ.
The Book of Acts ends with the apostle Paul sitting under house arrest, withdrawing from active duty as a missionary. Why did he withdraw? He isn’t dead; it couldn’t be that. He had no other place to go, and knows that he may never get out from imprisonment, so it isn’t a new opportunity. No, Paul, like his Lord, has made a strategic withdrawal. He has backed off from leading churches. He has relinquished many of his tasks. But he doesn’t wither and die either. He teaches, he preaches, he counsels, and most of all, he acknowledges that there have been some successes and some failures.
But, praise God, the writer of Acts says that Paul is now able, in these later years of his life, withdrawn from all he used to do, still to proclaim the Kingdom “with all boldness and without hindrance.” I look forward to the freedom to do what I have been called to do with all boldness and without hindrance. I look forward to your work on this corner, with nothing standing in your way, marked by boldness and without any sort of hindrance. What stands in the way? Nothing, nothing, nothing!
