LEADING WITH A TENDER OR A HARD HEART...

If you are a pastor or a ministry leader, you will always be accused of being either too hard with people or being too soft with them.  

My pastor Sam Smucker once told me, “People will accuse you of either being too hard or of being too soft; I would rather be accused of being too soft, than be accused of being too hard”.  

There is great wisdom in those words. In the work of the ministry, the situations that I hate the most are when I as a leader have to rebuke or discipline people. I know the situations when it HAS TO BE done and that I as the leader am the one who has to do it: Still, I hate such situations, and it always feels like I die a thousand deaths before I sit down with the person who needs the rebuke. I feel this way because I remember all the times that I myself have failed and how God has always given me a second, a third and a fourth chance and even more.  

If God could still love me, believe in me and repeatedly give me multiple chances, should I not then extend the same grace to others? So, by the time I get to the person who I have to rebuke, I feel so broken that becomes difficult for me to deal with them. Through all this I know that no matter how I feel, I have to do it.  

There are certain things that I cannot be soft towards, and they are the traits of arrogance, disrespect and insubordination. These are the three things that I have a total aversion against.  

The worst thing about leadership is this feeling of having power over the lives of our fellow human beings. I personally hate it, but there are those leaders who actually relish and enjoy such power over other people, and they actually enjoy confrontation rebuking, and humiliating other people. These are the worst kind of "leaders" there are and they should NEVER be allowed to lead, rebuke or to correct anybody. 

Hardness of heart is a scourge in the body of Christ; it is actually a hardened heart hiding behind a religious disguise of pure self-righteousness. God wants us instead to have the tender heart of Jesus, about whom it is written, “A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench…” (Matthew 12:20).  

God wants leaders who minister out of brokenness, whose discipline is not punitive, but restorative, who would rather err on the side of gentleness of spirit instead of err on the side of harshness of spirit. 

Originally posted on Facebook by Pastor Christopher Alam