On leadership as sacrifice, the most important thing about us, demonstrating the gospel & unreached people groups

Dear friends,

This is the third edition of my weekly newsletter of personal writing and content curation about mission, discipleship and spiritual renewal.

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Here are your weekly bullets:

On Leadership as sacrifice:

I recently finished Patrick Lencioni’s book “The Motive”. In it, he explores two motives and mindsets that drive people to become leaders.

One reason people choose the path of leadership is the desire to be rewarded. In this view leadership is the prize for years of hard work. The natural consequence of a tireless ambition with its privileges to be enjoyed: attention, status, power, and money.

Lencioni’s biopsy is that these kinds of leaders are not just in it for the wrong reasons, they also unconsciously sabotage themselves and the organizations they are supposed to be serving. A reward-centered leader will do everything to avoid the uncomfortable, unpleasant, and sometimes painful experiences that leadership requires. For these kinds of leaders, convenience and leisure characterize their role.

At the most fundamental level, it’s leadership without sacrifice.

The other motive that drives leadership is the desire to serve others and make a positive impact. Lencioni calls this responsibility-centered leadership. It's the belief that being a leader is a responsibility. Leadership is then not a reward for hard work, but a chance to give oneself even more to the service of others.

While reward-centered leaders enjoy their comforts and privileges, responsibility-centered leaders intentionally live outside their comfort zones for the sake of others. They have the hard conversations nobody wants to have and do what is best for the people they serve, even if this means being politically incorrect or doing what's unpopular.

Instead of avoiding pain, these kinds of leaders are on a path that drives them even deeper into it.

From a spiritual and biblical perspective, this is what J. Oswald Sanders calls the "suffering principle of spiritual leadership".

When the sons of Zebedee ask Jesus for a position of prestige and power in His coming kingdom, His answer is a stark reminder of the reality of spiritual leadership:

"You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

James and John had a different view of and possibly, a different motive for leadership than Jesus. Interestingly, Jesus does not deny their ambition but reorients it.

The path of leadership is not a path of glory and privileges, but one of renunciation and dying to self. And while Jesus’ leadership ultimately led him to physical suffering, humiliation, and the sacrifice of Himself, the principle applies.

There’s a sense in which all true spiritual leadership is sacrificial and costly.

These kinds of leaders are priestly figures offering up the spiritual sacrifice of their bodies, minds, hearts, and resources for the sake of the people they are called to.

How about you? This could be a great litmus test for your motives around leadership.

How do you view your leadership? Do you see it as a reward or a responsibility, and even more as a sacrifice for others?

On demonstrating the power of the Gospel:

“The world is not waiting for a new definition of the Gospel, but for a new demonstration of the power of the Gospel.“

— Leonard Ravenhill, Why revival tarries

On the most important thing about us:

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

— A.W. Tozer, The knowledge of the Holy

On unreached peoples groups:

Fifty years ago, at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization convened by Billy Graham and John Stott, Dr. Ralph Winter catalyzed what we now know as the “Unreached Peoples Groups” movements in global mission.

Ralph Winter spoke to 2,700 evangelical global leaders about the “Highest priority: Cross-cultural Evangelism”.

In his address, he rightly pointed out that the Great Commission found in the Gospel of Matthew is to “make disciples of all ethne (peoples)”.

It is therefore not enough to have a church within every nation — God wants a strong church within every people or ethnolinguistic, sociocultural, and affinity group.

Today, mission strategy is forever impacted by this insight and the Unreached Peoples Groups concept (UPGs).

While there are some variations of what defines a people group as unreached, these are two critical points:

• Unreached people groups don’t know Jesus (with some having never heard of Him).

• Unreached people groups don’t have a church presence around them.

Fifty years later, according to Joshua Project, 42.5 percent of the world’s population belongs to an Unreached People Group. Furthermore, 25 percent ( more than two 2 billion) have almost ZERO chance of hearing about Jesus from someone in their own people group.

For disciples of Jesus this ought to be heartbreaking and unacceptable.

These are not mere numbers or statistics.

These are humans made in the image of God, with faces and names, stories and dreams, heartbeats and aches. They are spiritually lost in sin, but greatly loved; they are those for whom the Son of Man came.

And most importantly, Jesus is worthy of praise and glory from these unreached peoples groups.

It is ultimately about His fame and worth, more than it is about lostness.

It is the Revelation 7 vision of a great multitude that no one can count from every nation, tribe, people and language standing in worship before the beautiful Lamb of God.

It is the ambition of the apostle Paul to make Jesus known where Christ has not yet been named:

“It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.’” - Romans 15:19-21

Fifty years later, the task is still unfinished. But more than ever we are seeing a great mobilization to go to the unreached. This gives me great hope that we are truly about to see a great harvest.

Let this move you to pray to the Lord of the harvest, who loves the harvest, gave Himself for the harvest and sends workers into the harvest.

PS: I’ve been selected to go to the Lausanne movement world congress in Seoul, South Korea, September 18-30.

I will be going as a specialized volunteer to pastorally care for the congress volunteers.

This is an amazing opportunity to participate in a historical gathering of 5,000 evangelical leaders who will gather to accelerate collaborative action toward fulfilling Jesus’ Great Commission.

Would you pray with me for this opportunity?

It has been great to receive your thoughts and engagement with the content.

As always, I would love to know which content resonated with you and what you would like to see more of. You can let me know by replying to this email.

Much love and until next week,

Timo