Yesterday (December 11) Began for me at the Wake Forest Coffee Company, the warm little office-away-from-my-office just down the street from our seminary campus. I ordered my normal medium sized coffee, medium strength, with a shot of hazelnut., and the bagel I get on early mornings there.
I met a student named Morocco (not his real name, but as he grew up in Morocco where his family lives he has inherited that moniker). I taught his dad years ago and am spending time with him these days. Plus, I made him drive some on our trip that day. We headed north to Liberty University, that rapidly expanding school in the middle of Virginia, the school that Falwell built.
I have taught classes as a guest lecturer at Liberty many times and have many friends there, both among students and faculty. But this day I did not go to teach. I went to serve, but in a different way.
You see, years ago as a brand new professor at a small Baptist school in Texas (Houston Baptist University), Dr. Elmer Towns of Liberty University contacted me. Seems he was working on an encyclopedia of evangelism and church growth, and he asked me to help edit the work. I of course said yes. Elmer Towns at that time had become quite famous in the circles in which I ran, as he had researched and authored some of the most significant books on church growth and the megachurch phenomenon. His book The Ten Largest Sunday Schools set him apart, and set the course for much of his future as one of the ten churches happened to be led by Jerry Falwell, Falwell would bring Elmer to Lynchburg, Virginia, to help build the school that is today Liberty University.
When I met Dr. Towns the same year he asked me to help him edit that book, I asked him why on earth he would ask some young PhD grad now teaching at a little Texas school to help him on such a project? I was a nobody; the others he utilized were all well-known leaders. He told me something I have never forgotten. He said he had always been on the lookout for young men who seemed to have potential to become key leaders for the church, and (somehow) he believed I was one such young man. To this day I have no idea how he could have come to such a notion. But I have never forgotten his generosity to me.
So yesterday Morocco and I went to Lynchburg. Dr. Towns took me on a tour to see things I had not yet observed:
Liberty Mountain and their own ski slope—he is 77 yet asked me if I wanted to ski with him (I declined);
The new buildings and other construction I had never seen;
Both the new facility and the historic site of the Thomas Road Baptist Church;
Dr. Falwell’s office, kept just as it was the day he died.
I took Elmer to lunch as a tiny token of my gratitude for his investment in my life, and assured him I sought to invest in young men the same as a professor today.
Elmer Towns became a critical leader in the church decades ago the way one became leaders then—he built institutions and he wrote books. And God still uses those methods today. His influence has been global and lasting.
But then last night Michelle and I sat down to watch a movie together, a movie that illustrates how leaders today can make a remarkable impact even if they never write THE book or found an institution. This movie actually illustrated the changing face of leadership. The movie may surprise you, as it was a chick flick: Julie and Julia. The movie intertwines the stories of famed cook and cookbook author Julia Child and the more recent story of blogger Julie Powell. Child revolutionized cooking and institutionalized the American attitude toward cooking, paving the way in no small way for everything from innovative tools to the Food Network on cable. Like Towns, she utilized the means of her time to lead a movement.
Julie Powell, on the other hand, simply took Child’s famous first book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and cooked all the recipes in it in one year. As she did so she wrote a blog. At the time she worked a temp job in NYC. Her simple little venture would likely have gone unnoticed had she not decided also to blog about it. But blog she did from her tiny apartment, leading her to fame and fortune, including a book about her adventure and the aforementioned movie.
What on earth does this have to do with a leader in church growth like Elmer Towns? Today, a young church planter who blogs about the things he is learning can influence a host of other planters. He need not be an iconic figure or widely known. He may not influence as many, but he can influence significantly in his specific area of focus. And, the possibility of his ideas going viral exists in an unprecedented way.
An unrecognized thinker who nevertheless thinks carefully about theology can help many others to think more carefully about Scripture. A passionate personal witness can create a means to share the gospel that helps many even if he cannot himself lead a class to teach others if his website does it instead. In other words, as Seth Godin would put it in his book Tribes, a thoughtful leader with an ability to communicate can lead a tribe and make a significant impact for the Kingdom of God.
From the day Dr. Elmer Towns called me until today the world has changed. The internet and social networking have not changed truth. But they have radically changed the way we communicate truth to help others in a quest to live lives that matter for the One Who truly matters. So I am thankful for the legacy of Elmer Towns on my life. And I am thankful for a movie Michelle picked for us to watch. Both have much to say about our world, a world in desperate need of truth.
Lead.
Do not wait for someone to confer on you a title or position. Lead. If your ideas are foolish, enough people will recognize that and pass you by. But if your ideas matter, share them, and others may well join your movement.
We could see a movement of God in our time that starts and spreads not from a pulpit but from a keyboard. But such a movement will require courage, faith, and a solid understand of both God’s Word and His world.
Thank you Elmer, for believing in me, and in your way of involving me as a leader. Now I challenge you, the reader, to lead as well.
Thank you Dr. Reid for writing and posting this article! It’s refreshing and atypical to read or hear anyone say one need not be titled or well known (either personally or through writing books) in order to make an impact for the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The important thing is to demonstrate servant-leadership in, and for, the cause of Christ. Sometimes only our Redeemer knows the ultimate impact that person will have for His Kingdom. Take care and God bless you always!
Welcome Michael. We have come thru the era of the professional, with the unintended consequence of the church giving too much over to ministers and practically giving parents an excuse not to raise gospel-loving children (let the pros at the church do it, etc). We will always need leaders with expertise. But we will never need only them. A humble pastor may discover how to teach and release the people he leads into the culture for the gospel better than a denominational agency cities away. And, a layperson may as well! We who lead should spend more time giving tools to those we lead to learn for themselves then simply dispensing information. Life transformation, risk, faith, are better.
Dr. Reid, you are so right. Too often we place leadership into the position or title category.We wait too much for that position or title to be placed on us. Leadership is influcence. Leadership is example. Thank you for that post.