We all geek out to something, right? The more secure of us just let our freak flag fly.
So I wanted to throw out a thought that’s been rolling around in my head for about 6 months that I’ve discussed with a few people who seem to think there might be some validity to it.
You’ll remember in Exodus that Moses is getting absolutely hammered in taking care of all the Israelite problems. Finally, his father-in-law Jethro pulls him aside and has the “come to Jesus” meeting with him that probably started like this: “Honestly man, if you don’t change something or slow down, you’re just going to keel over and die.”
He then gave some very shrewd advice in Exodus 18: But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain —and appoint them as officialsover thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.
What Jethro seems to be suggesting is this (and Paul perhaps alludes to as well): There is a grace that sits on people up to a certain threshold. Some people have a leadership threshold of 10. Some 50. Some 100. Some 1000. (and so on).
But because we’ve bought into the Western myth that bigger always = better, many assume that our grace is bigger than it actually is (or hope that it is). Here’s another way of putting it: It’s pretty important that, for the most part in your time of leadership, that you operate in your grace sweet spot.
Some people operate best while leading only 10 people. That’s where they truly shine and feel most alive. For others, it’s 100. That’s where it all clicks for them: their grace, personality, gifts, experiences, skill-set, etc all come together.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about as this relates to church planting: For people who have a grace that might exceed that of 100, church planting will probably be really hard. I mean epically hard.
