Being Led Before Leading-

My husband is the true teacher in our relationship – really gifted in retaining knowledge, delivering truths, and teaching in his job, at church, and at home. As we served as volunteers in our former church, he longed for the leaders of the children’s ministry to be able to just sit and worship and be nourished under the preached Word as often as possible. So, we would teach children’s church often to try and provide that time for the leaders. The importance for those in charge to be spiritually filled up, making time for sanctification through worship and personal time with the Lord really became clear to us many years ago, before we were even good ol’ Presbyterians.

Then, I became a children’s ministry leader at our current church, and I felt the push, the pull, the tug, and the weight of the responsibilities that fall on church staff. As leaders, serving is our hearts desire; but in leading, there is a continual struggle to delegate responsibilities. We can teach, by God’s grace, and we can schedule ourselves until exhaustion. But if we aren’t prioritizing quiet times with the Lord throughout the week and participating in the worship service on most Sundays of the month, our hearts, souls, and minds can become weary and exhausted. While it is beneficial for us to hear and read truth for the sake of planning to teach and lead, it is paramount to engage in corporate worship as a child of God, an heir to the King, and a worshipper of our Savior.

As Children’s Ministry Directors, we are leaders, whether we see ourselves as such or not. There are paid workers, faithful volunteers, and precious children looking to us for vision, guidance, and direction. But we are not in this alone or without a precedent to follow. How can one be a faithful leader and walk humbly before the Lord? Well, we’ve got one place to look: Jesus is the true example! Look how He led, look how He walked humbly, and look how He loved.

The story of Jesus visiting Mary and Martha in their home is a wake-up call for me. As a doer, sitting and stopping are difficult for me. The God-given faith Mary had to recognize the need to sit at Jesus’s feet is a beautiful picture of stopping and having our cups filled and hearts restored by spending time with God.

Luke 10:38-42 says, “Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’”

Sometimes even the doing can have pride at its root. I will catch myself thinking, “I am doing this, and I am doing that; others aren’t doing anything.” And, “This event, Sunday, or lesson won’t work unless I do X, Y, and Z.” And, then I go to the Lord in repentance.

Don Carson said, “Humility, gratitude, dependence on Christ, contrition—these are the characteristic attitudes of the truly converted, the matrix out of which Christians experience joy and love. When the gospel truly does its work, ‘proud Christian’ is an unthinkable oxymoron.”

Praise the Lord, we cannot lead our children’s ministries alone. At the forefront, we need Christ. By the wonderful mercies and miracles of God, He can help us to humble ourselves before Him and be led by Him daily. Being led equals sitting at Jesus’s feet in prayer, feasting on His Word in the quiet watches of the morning or evening, and submitting to His authority in every nook and cranny of our lives. We leaders aren’t just on staff at our church. We are wives, some of us are moms, many of us are sisters and daughters, and all of us are friends. To lead, we must sit and tether ourselves to Jesus to rightly and effectively serve in every capacity of our lives.

John 15:4-5 says, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Abide. Sit. Revel. Marvel. Worship. It takes a large dose of humility and laying down of my pride to see the significance of being led first before jumping into my role as leader. We need Jesus, and we want Jesus. Fight for time with Him. We can do nothing apart from His work in our hearts and His presence with us.