Leader Motives

Last week, while returning from State College, I listened to “Holy Discontent,” a message by Bill Hybels presented at the Willow Creek Association Global Leadership Summit a few years ago (I need to listen to it a few more times!). Hybels wrote a book by the same title, which I reviewed in 2008.

I love listening to Bill Hybels. As I tweeted afterward, “Hearing @billhybels always makes me wanna charge hell w/ a water pistol!”

In the message, Hybels talks about how witnessing the beating of an Israelite by an Egyptian soldier wrecked Moses (it changed his life forever). When God went looking for someone he could use to deliver the Israelites, he looked for someone whose heart was wrecked like his own. Hybels talks about the importance of knowing the one thing that wrecks your heart.

As I reflected on the message, I wondered how many of us are motivated by wrong, or at least, lesser, things. Perhaps we’re leaders because we want to be great leaders, or we want to lead growing churches, etc. We may couch it in spiritual language (we want to build God’s kingdom, etc.), but I wonder how much of it is personal ambition.

But, what would it look like, if we were driven to be (God-called) leaders because something had so wrecked our hearts that we couldn’t do anything else?

Hybels asks, Do you know what wrecks your heart?

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