bows in prayer while seekers come forward—moved by God, not
a manipulative appeal.”
That confidence in the power of the message frees the leader
from having to work over-hard on presentation techniques to
convince the hearers. When a basketball player is not in a position
to take a shot but puts it up anyway, coaches call it “forcing the
shot.” Forced shots are usually ineffective. Coaches will tell play-
ers to wait until they’re in a good position, then the shot has a
better chance of success. Likewise, people can sense that efforts
are forced when a leader isn’t convinced his message is sound.
Because Billy was well connected to his continuous voltage,
he knew where the power came from. He simply made himself
available to receive it.
■ ■ ■Energy and power come in different ways to different leaders. Bill
Leslie was exhausted by the inner-city needs around him. Yet
Danny Morris, a leader in the United Methodist Church, was
stretched and energized by engaging with such needs. “A positive
tension that indicates spiritual health,” Danny told us, “is being
able to walk in God’s presence, enjoy him for ourselves, yet still
feel the world’s hurts. Recently it struck me that most of my
friends are fairly well-off and well educated. My friendships were
causing me to miss seeing the world through the eyes of the bro-
ken, lonely, and downtrodden.”
So Danny went to night court, where people who had been
arrested were brought in before a magistrate.
“As I watched the parade of people, suddenly I realized the
people I usually ran around with were not typical. I saw drunk-
enness and poverty. I saw victims of fighting and cutting, the
rawest kind of life you can imagine. I discovered I was completely
out of touch with these kinds of hurts.”
Spiritual voltage can be generated by the tension of seeing
deep needs, getting beyond our own troubles, and becoming part
of solutions.
The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham