The Art of Leadership By Dag Heward-Mills
Every leader will fight many battles. In his many battles as a leader, he must know within himself that he will have some losses. A good leader knows that there will be losses on his road to the overall victory. Do not be sad about some of the losses you have experienced as you have endeavoured to follow the Lord all the way. Ultimately, God will give you the victory and when you sum up the gains and the losses, you can see the increase of the Lord.
Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
John 6:70
Jesus Christ obviously knew all along that one of His disciples was not going to do the right thing. He was well prepared to lose one of His favourite disciples, even though it was not what He had wished for him.
Jesus knew he had done everything to save the soul of Judas Iscariot. In any war, there are casualties! The casualties must not confuse the leader. A leader must go into war, fully aware that he may have some losses! Your victory can be defined as a summary of your gains and losses.
When you put everything together, you must have gained far more than you lost.
Remember, a sower went out to sow! The sower had very little response from his seeds. Only twenty-five per cent of the people responded. Out of the twenty-five percent which responded, only a third responded completely. In other words, the sower lost 92.5 per cent of his seeds. That is the nature of ministry!
A good leader knows that he will have losses in spite of all that he does. Some people are going to fall to immorality, no matter what you do or say. The kingdom of God is going to have some losses in this battle. Some marriages will be lost no matter the amount of marriage counseling that is done. No matter how much you preach on loyalty and faithfulness, some people will be disloyal. No matter how good your leadership style is, some people will attack you and accuse you of being a bad leader.
No matter how kind and loving you are to some people, there will always be ungrateful and forgetful people. I have experienced all these losses as I have tried to build the church. There are sons and daughters I weep over today. How I wish they were with me! But there are losses in every campaign and you just have to accept them.
John Wesley founded the Methodist Church. It is a great testimony that the Methodist Church is still alive today in many countries, after more than two hundred and fifty years. Through his strong leadership, a great movement was released into the earth.
But this was not without losses along the way.
John Wesley’s Losses – Thomas Marxfield
John Wesley had many faithful followers but some people broke away. One such painful loss was Thomas Marxfield. He was one of the first ever lay preachers and he worked with John Wesley for over twenty years. When John Wesley corrected him on his extremism with regard to perfectionism, he did not listen or submit to John Wesley’s authority. Perhaps, he was too big and too familiar after twenty years of working with John Wesley. Thomas Marxfield broke away from the church with about two hundred members.
John Wesley’s Losses – William Fletcher
Another terrible loss came to John Wesley through death of his appointed successor.
John Wesley chose a man called William Fletcher. In 1757 Fletcher was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England. In addition to this he sometimes preached with John Wesley and assisted him with clerical duties in Wesley’s London chapels. John Fletcher believed greatly in the Methodist movement and he was the best choice that John Wesley had. But then he died suddenly and John Wesley was left without a successor.
In spite of all these losses John Wesley chalked significant advances for the kingdom of God and built the foundation for the Methodist Church. Today, we hardly know about any of the terrible losses that John Wesley experienced as he fought the good fight. We just see the Methodist Church still standing in countries around the world.
A good leader is fully aware that he may have to take some personal losses but he presses on for the ultimate victory. Personal losses are part of a good leader’s life.
Jesus said, “He that loses his life will gain it and he that saves his life will lose it.”
Expect to have some personal losses as you follow the Lord!
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