Leadership in Repentance

What makes a leader in the church a 'Christian' leader?  We can learn a lot about leadership from secular leaders and thinkers.  There are thousands of books on leadership, there are leadership seminars, there are even leadership retreats.  However, none of these sources can help us be a distinctively 'Christian' leader.

Leadership in repentance is one distinctive of a Christian leader.  A Christian leader must lead in obedience, however a Christian leader is not someone who is able to be a 'successful' Christian and then teach that life to others.  Anytime we try to obey we always fail end up failing.  This is true for leaders and non-leaders, everyone fails at obedience.  Christian leaders still sin.  So Christian leaders, must lead in repentance. Repentance is obedience.  This keeps Christian leaders humble, because we will continually realize our need of the gospel.  This is sort of Henri Nouwen's idea of the wounded healer.  Only when we are open about our brokenness can we try to lead other broken people.  May we lead them to Christ and not to ourselves.  See Matthew 18:1-4.