Leadership 5 -
Investment into People
3min Script for UCB
One day, a little boy was being driven by his Mother along a
motorway. In front of them was a large
lorry filled with rubbish, it was obviously not going very far as lying
spread-eagled across the tarpaulin sheet used to cover the rubbish, was a man. At a guess he was doing this to save the time
and trouble it would have taken to rope the tarpaulin to the sides of the
lorry, instead the man lay on top of it to stop it from flying away as they
drove along.
The little boy studied the lorry and the man spread out on
top of the rubbish, he was puzzled by the almost lifeless form of the driver’s
mate, suddenly a gust of wind lifted one corner of the tarpaulin causing the
man to react quickly to bring the large sail under control by throwing his arm
over the offending, flapping corner. The
little boy turned to his Mum and said in a horrified voice, ‘look mummy,
somebody has thrown away a perfectly good man!’
Leaders must never throw away perfectly good people. Scripture reports that Jesus said, ‘I will
not quench a smoking flax nor break a bruised reed.’ What exactly does that mean? I reckon it means that Jesus will not put on
one side even the weakest or most damaged person, rather he will use them; they
too are leadership material.
Sadly many are tempted to throw people away because they’re
not clever enough or too clever by half, the wrong colour, the wrong culture,
funny, silly awkward or just plain weird.
Leaders work with people and need
to get them motivated, activated, committed and following us because we are
following Jesus and of course helping them to develop into leaders themselves.
If we, even in our thoughts, dismiss people, mentally throw them away then that
is completely opposite to the Jesus style of leadership. Scripture is full of success stories about
people whom others had thrown away. If you want to lead Jesus style then you
will want to discover people whom others have thrown away that, if taken and
carefully nurtured and polished, will turn into diamonds whose bright light
will dazzle you. These people, you will
find by careful handling, will not only become useful kingdom seekers but also
powerful leaders, kings, prophets, priests.
We must learn to love others, be
good at directing people, never deriding them, there to help in whatever way
possible. Jesus came, we need to
remember, to lift people up not to push them down.
We actually need to make people,
other people, our offering of worship to God.
God has great things in store for all of us, we are called to be his
leaders, his prophets, his priests, he kings.
All of us! God has put great
value on us. He seems to know the value of every person and he is never willing
to discard them, he will never throw them away.
The only way they can be thrown away is if they throw themselves away.
Jesus never throws people away, he died for people, all people and we should
never forget that.
For UCB 3 Min Script
Adrian Hawkes
Editor A Brookes
W. 550
