Part 1 - NOTES FROM THE FIELD

Becoming a Leader of No Reputation
R. Scott Rodin

R. Scott Rodin is President of Rodin Consulting of Spokane, Washington and part of the John R. Frank Consulting Group of Seattle, Washington. R. Scott Rodin is the former president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Journal of Religious Leadership, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Fall 2002), pp. 105 - 119.

I have been asked to reflect on my five years in the presidency at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and to do so honestly, I need to begin with a confession.  I was wrong.  That is the most accurate statement I could make in summing up my experience in this position.  Mind you, I was not wrong about everything.  In fact, I believe we were quite right and accurate about a lot of things we attempted and accomplished during my tenure.  I could make the usual list of ‘legacy’ items that we former presidents do in justifying our term in office.  There is much to be thankful for, many moments to treasure and certainly a legacy that I trust will make a difference to generations of students and faculty at our seminary.

Yet at the very heart of my reflection on my service lies this one major conclusion… I was wrong.  I was wrong in my understanding and preconceived notions of leadership in Christian ministry.  I was wrong in my expectations of others and myself.  And I was wrong in my motivations, which may be the hardest thing to admit.

I look back and wonder why I was so wrong.  My career path had certainly prepared me for leadership in an educational setting: twelve years of fundraising experience, a Ph.D. from a leading school in Great Britain, work in educational administration and a knack for strategic planning and vision casting.  I had good experience in managing effective teams and working with not-for-profit boards.  And my four years at the seminary as VP for Advancement had introduced me to the idiosyncrasies of theological higher education, which I felt I had negotiated quite well.  There was no lack of preparation for the task.

Nor was there a lack of motivation.  I had long believed that God had gifted me for leadership.  I rose naturally and quickly into key leadership positions wherever I had gone.  It felt right, seemed natural and was usually satisfying and challenging.  So it was a logical move to take a top spot in theological education.

My problem was not with preparation, motivation, or even with a sense of true calling and a sincere desire to serve God with the best of my skills and abilities.  The problem lay solely with my pre-determined understanding of what Christian leadership is really all about.

Five years ago, if you had asked me for a Scripture that epitomized the leadership ideal, I would likely have pointed you to Nathan’s directive to King David, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.” (2 Samuel 7:3)  I could identify with David as ‘God’s man at God’s time’ and I believed that God would pour out his wisdom and favor if I could be such a man.  After all, there were kingdoms to conquer and people to be led.  There were great things to be done for the Lord and no vision was too limited and no goal too small. 

Now, five years later, I would point to a different verse.  In speaking of Jesus’ incarnation, Paul tells us, “he made himself a man of no reputation, taking on the very nature of a servant.” (Phil 2:7)  The verse does not say that Jesus became a man of bad reputation, or questionable reputation, but simply of ‘no’ reputation.  That is, reputation, image, prestige, prominence, power, and other trappings of leadership were not only devalued, they were purposefully dismissed.  Jesus became such a man.  Not by default or accident, but by intention and design.  And it was only in this form that he could serve, love, give, teach, and yes, lead. 

In reflecting on these past five years, I have come to believe that true Christian leadership is an ongoing, disciplined practice of becoming a person of no reputation, and thus, becoming more like Christ in this unique way.  In his reflections on Christian leadership, Henri Nouwen refers to this as resisting the temptation to be relevant.  He says, "I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self."[1]  Five years ago I rejected this idea outright.  In doing so, I was wrong.  Today I see and affirm this important notion that lies at the heart of godly leadership.

I will speak here to five areas where I have begun to learn what it is to be this sort of Christian leader.  In each area I found that I began with a misunderstanding of what true Christian leadership looked like, and I have been on a journey of transformation, introducing me to a new way to serve as Christ taught us to serve.

ANOINTED VS. APPOINTED

I know of few Christian leaders today who were anointed before they were appointed.  We have employed the business model of doing careful searches looking for Christian leaders whom we can appoint to office.  We check their credentials, put them through rigorous interviews, and even give them psychological tests before we make the critical appointment.  Once in place, we then anoint them and ask God to bless their work.

The Biblical evidence seems to indicate that God selects leaders in the opposite order.  Samuel anointed David before appointing him King.  The selection criterion for leadership was not based on who would most likely get the appointment, but whom God had anointed for this task.  And appointment without anointment always led to disaster. 

In 1997, I was satisfied that I had met the criteria for the job and was pleased to be appointed for the position of president.  And while our board said a lovely prayer and laid hands on me, in retrospect I think the process was backward.  No one asked me if I sensed God’s anointing for this position.  I don’t know what I would have answered, but the issues and criteria to consider in forming an answer to this question were ones that I never considered in my response to my appointment.

The reason that anointing is so critical to the task of Christian leadership lies in its nature as the most unique form of leadership on earth.  Christian leadership requires nothing less than a complete, wholesale sell-out of your life in service to God and God only.  It is the ‘losing of your life’ to the work God will do in you to benefit your institution, school, church or organization.  And the stakes are high.  Nowhere else in the Christian life will the price for divided loyalties be so costly for so many for so long.  Ineffective and fallen leaders compromise kingdom work, and the effects are eternal.  Therefore, it is a field that must be entered with the utmost seriousness, and only when one has clearly been anointed for the task.

With God’s anointing comes God's power and presence.  There is a special blessing bestowed on God’s anointed.  It is the blessing of God’s power manifest in ways only seen through the work of God’s chosen.  God’s anointed shout and walls fall.  They lift their feeble staff and seas part.  They speak God’s word boldly and movements are begun that free men’s souls.  God’s anointed do the miraculous because they are the servant of the Almighty.  There is a unique presence of God in the lives of those God anoints and calls to leadership through that anointing.  Without it, we are continually thrown back upon ourselves to make things work.  With it, we have the resources of heaven at our disposal if we will be the faithful servant.

For this reason, God’s anointed are incredibly unique people.  God’s anointed will do anything God asks… anything.  God’s anointed will seek God’s will with a passion.  They will not move without it and they will not be diverted from their course once they have it.  God’s anointed will love what God loves and hate what God hates.  That means loving God’s people, God’s church, God’s environment, God’s resources, and God’s plan.  It also means hating sin in every form and coming against anything that stands between God’s loving plan and its accomplishment.  God’s anointed are people of keen discernment, they are branches who are solidly engrafted into the true vine.  God’s anointed are servants first, last and always.  And God’s anointed have only one passion, to know and do God’s will that He might have the glory.  In this way, God’s anointed are people of no reputation.

I did not come into my leadership position with a clear sense of anointing but in these past five years I have come to better understand and value the distinction between appointment and anointment.

Part 2 to be continued