C h a p t e r 1 1
LEADERS ARE
PACE-SETTERS
“Jesus...went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem”
(Luke 19:28).In this succinct verse we can see a summary of this leadership principle
in the life of Christ. Jesus was always ahead of His disciples. In taking
the lead, Jesus was not trying to distance Himself from them – He was
just out in front giving directive leadership. Like a wise shepherd, a good
leader must always be out in the front of the flock leading – not in the
back driving the herd.
Effective leaders are like the lead runner in a marathon, or the pace car in
a stock car race, they set the pace for others to follow. In the ecclesiastical
realm, they are not pew sitters – but pace setters! As John Piper rightly
observes:
Spiritual leaders have a holy discontentment with the status quo.
Non-leaders have inertia that causes them to settle in and makes
them very hard to move off dead center. However, leaders have a
hankering to change, to move, to reach out, to grow, and to take a
group or an institution to new dimensions of ministry.^1