In honor of my great friend Rick Warren, I will be using an acrostic in today’s post to list out the dangers that church leaders must deal with…
D = Demonic – like it or not, we are involved in a cosmic conflict (Ephesians 6:12), and the leader who refuses to acknowledge this usually gets his/her lunch eaten!
A = Attitude – when we begin to allow our attitude to turn sour towards the church we lead and the staff we are supposed to shepherd, we will begin to focus on making the decisions that benefit us over the decisions that benefit them. (See Philippians 2:5)
N = Neglect – leading in the church can cause us to neglect things that are important…such as time with Jesus, our spouse, our children, and our health, just to name a few. BTW…if any of these are being neglected then it’s YOUR fault…not the church’s. Remember…you are the leader.
G = Gifting – when growth is taking place in a church or an organization and a leader loses focus on Jesus, he/she will actually begin to rely more on their gifting than the One who actually gave the gift. AND…when we believe we can do things by ourselves without His help…well, He’s often kind enough to let us take a stab at it (and it always goes badly)!
E = Enthusiasm – one of the most dangerous traps a leader can fall into is to allow their emotion to determine their devotion. And so…when we ride the enthusiasm roller coaster, we seek the emotional high rather than the truth of God’s Word and the reality of an empty tomb to anchor us down!
R = “Remember When” – it is a dangerous thing when leaders begin to talk about the “good ol’ days” so much that they fail to realize that their BEST DAYS are the ones that are ahead of them, not behind them!
