Leadership Development for Global Impact

It's a privilege to be invited to address you. Our assignment reads: everything rises and falls on leadership. We are experiencing unprecedented revival and church growth globally. Greater growth is still to come. Leaders must be ready. What leadership principles are taught globally that can also impact locally?

The fact is, 2020 has been mostly a year of leading in crisis. When you define crisis, it spans from crunch to catastrophe. I don't know where you find yourself today, but we can all find ourselves on that chart. In this session, we'll discuss three leadership principles. There are many more, especially in the days that we're living in, but for the sake of time, we'll only deal with three.

Crisis leadership demands being, number one, Spirit-led. We must have God ideas. God ideas — good ideas won't get it done. The old saying is that good is the enemy of great, and that's true in this situation, and we all must realize great is only found in God. Making ministry decisions based on ministry comparison is dangerous. This is why we must be Spirit-led. So the question is: what is the Spirit saying? What is it saying to you — for you, your family, your church, your city? This day that we're leading in, ranging somewhere from crunch to catastrophe, demands the level of Spirit leading that we read about in the book of Acts. We read how the angel of the Lord told Philip to go south, and when he did, he met the Ethiopian [eunuch]. We see how God knocked Saul to the ground, and that was the beginning of the life of Apostle Paul. We see where Cornelius and Peter had connecting visions. We literally see how Paul's ministry was Spirit-directed, to the tune that the Spirit would say, "Go here, don't go there; say this, don't say that." And so to all of that, I say: we must be Spirit-led.

We could read many examples in the Bible of people being Spirit-led. The good news is, the Spirit leading did not stop in the pages of the Bible. Pastor Ray Johnson, a great man of God that just recently went to his reward, told the story of when he was pastoring in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. It was a time when they desperately needed land, because they had outgrown where they were having church and they needed to build, but no one would sell to them because they were Pentecostal. One night he had a dream — it was a Spirit dream. He saw a home and some land. Later, a few days later, he, his wife, and his little son at that time, Billy, were driving the countryside, and he sees that very house and that land. He drives up. He knocks on the door. A lady answers the door and literally tells him, "I know why you're here. It's about that land. Get your wife — and you have a little boy in the car — tell them to come in." They go into her house, and she prepares coffee for Brother and Sister Johnson. And then she tells the story. She says, "My husband, while he was on his deathbed some ten years ago, he started talking about this land, and he said, 'Do not sell it, because there will be a day that a preacher and his wife and their little boy will come by, and they will be the ones that need that land. Sell it to them for whatever they can pay for the land.'" I'm happy to say that an apostolic church stands on that land today.

Bishop G. A. [Mangun] was greatly led of the Spirit. One of his many stories was being led to a businessman's office. When he walked in, the man saw a halo over his head. That businessman then provided what was needed for a revival that Bishop G. A. [Mangun] was leading. He and his entire house were born again and became saints and leaders in the apostolic church. I saw Pastor Anthony [Mangun] Spirit-led on many occasions, involving people and property. Pastor Jeff [Harpo] was led to a Chevrolet dealership, and the end result was the owner being born again. Bishop Chester Wright was led to an apartment building, and literally Spirit-led to the very door of two hippies. They were hippies then, but today they are Bishop and Sister Ron Libby. What an incredible story — all of these are. And there are so many more stories that I could tell, and many that you could tell.

One thing is clear: we will not make it in this day and time. We will not be effective unless we're Spirit-led. We will never be smart enough — intellect will not get this done alone. We will never be networked enough, or rich enough, to accomplish our kingdom assignment. It will take being Spirit-led. We must be Spirit-led in all levels of our leadership: to know what to focus on, what to preach, what to teach, who to call, when to call them. Never discount those names that come to you while you're in prayer. We need to be Spirit-led to know what books to read, who to invest in. We know that we are to cast the net for all. But it's one thing to cast the net, and it's another thing to individually invest your life. The Spirit will lead you to who you need to be investing your life in.

As we lead in this crisis, our main responsibility is doing whatever it takes to position ourselves to be Spirit-led. We simply cannot be in control. We must be Spirit-led to the point that we will be adaptable and flexible. Our hands cannot be on the steering wheel. It'll be very dangerous for us in our leadership if we try to steer what the Spirit is doing in this day. So being Spirit-led is our number one goal.

I believe crisis leadership also demands that we be kingdom-minded. I have said countless times: we are all kingdom-minded — it's just a question of whose kingdom. Kingdom-mindedness starts with being focused on the King — King Jesus. It's King Jesus over any human. All humans must be put out of the king zone. If it's not approved by the King, it's not worth our time. If the King says it's right, it doesn't matter who says it's wrong. If the King says it's wrong, it doesn't matter who says it's right. First the King, and then the kingdom. It's the kingdom over any system: the kingdom over Republicans, the kingdom over Democrats, the kingdom over independents, the kingdom over liberals, the kingdom over conservatives, the kingdom over religion and religious tradition, the kingdom over family and family tradition. It's kingdom priorities over any priorities. Now I know that when we decide what our kingdom priorities are, we don't have to look any further than the book of Matthew, and we clearly see that three of the leading kingdom priorities are salvation, healing, and deliverance. Our individual lives, and our families, and our churches, would drastically change for the good if these three kingdom priorities were our focus. We simply must be Spirit-led and kingdom-minded.

The last principle that I will deal with in this session is: crisis leadership demands we be humble. Now, there's none of us that feel like we're qualified to teach on humility, but this must be mentioned. James 4 and 6: "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." God resisteth? There's a major difference in God resisting us and man resisting us. We have all been resisted by man, and unfortunately our days of being resisted by man are probably not over. And while we can be slowed by man, we cannot be stopped by man if God is in what we are doing. But if God resist us, it's over.

We can look in the Word of God, and we can look at Lucifer, or Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, or the Prince of Tyrus, or Herod — that's just a few of the names who allowed pride to get in them, and pride finished them. Pride kills. Pride must be rooted out. The goal is humility. The enemy is pride.

Pastor Tim Sullivan from Fort Smith, Arkansas gave me a gift of a great book. The title is Humility. It was written by C. J. Mahaney. I will share some of his thoughts, because he explained it so well. He said, "Humility draws the gaze of our sovereign God. God supports the humble." Our definition of humility must be biblical, and not simply pragmatic. To this I will add what I've heard as a definition many times when people speak of humility. They have said, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself — it's thinking of yourself less." That's a good definition. But a greater definition is more biblically based, and it's this: "Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God's holiness and our sinfulness." Pride fights humility, and none of us are immune to the logic-defying, blinding effects of pride. The real issue here is not if pride exists in our heart — it's where pride exists, and how is it being expressed in our life. Pride not only appears to be the earliest sin, but it appears to be at the core of all sin. The reason God hates pride so passionately is because it causes humans to aspire to his status and position, and not depend on him. Pride takes countless forms, but has only one end, and that is self-glorification. Pride also undermines unity, and can ultimately even divide a church. Where there is division, there is pride. These were great words by C. J. Mahaney.

Now, ending this session, I'd like for us to look at Jesus, our example of humility, to tie all this together. When we look at Matthew 20:28, we see a word spoken by King Jesus himself. It would absolutely change our lives, our families, our churches. It would change our cities. It would change the world. And it says this: "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" — if we would just live that one verse. But then, if we could add Philippians 2:5-8: "Let this mind be in you" — in other words, we have a choice; he's saying allow — "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

So in this session, we're speaking of leadership principles, especially in time of crisis. And I believe that it takes being Spirit-led, kingdom-minded, and us being humble people. My challenge to you is to lead on — just make sure that you're leading his way. Because when we lead his way, we will have his provision. And there's nothing more that we could ask.