Leadership: do they love you?

‘A leader always touches a heart before he asks for a hand’
John C. Maxwell

I once went into a meeting with a bunch of youth group leaders at a previous church I was at, I was the student minister responsible for running the youth group and I had a brand new vision that was going revolutionize the way we did the youth ministry. In fact, because of this strategy, so many people were going to come to youth group that we would have to hire a fulltime youth minister!! That is how good the plan was.

I gave my spiel and then asked them what they thought.

‘I think its crap!’
‘What’s wrong with the way we do it now?’
‘Dude, you are only here for a year, what do you care anyway?’

I am not sure how good the strategy was (I don’t even remember it), but that was the day I learnt that no one would follow me just because I had a title. The biggest reason people were going to follow me is if they loved me. If I wanted people to buy into a vision they must first buy into me. They must first love me and trust me.

Have you got a vision?

Do you think people will buy into your vision?

Firstly have they bought into you?

The minister at my home church is a great example of the buy in. From what I was told, when he got there he did not make any grand plans or sweeping strategies.

He loved them.

He ate with them, he cried with them, he laughed with them, opened the bible with them, helped them with anything he could, opened his house to them, etc.

Now my friends at my home church will follow him almost anywhere, because they have bought into him.

Have your people bought into you? Have you wept, listened to, apologized to, laughed, ate, drank, played, sat, read, helped, sung, danced, xboxed, warcrafted, footballed, watched movies, went to bands etc. with them?

Have you shown by your time that you love them

Do they love you?

‘People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care’
John C. Maxwell