Leaders of the local church do not direct people in what they do insomuch as they continue to uplift the vision of what the church must be. They do not create programs, opportunities or ministries. They keep God’s people focused on God.

The failure of national Israel ought to teach us that people can have tremendous spiritual experiences (Plagues, Pillar of Cloud and Pillar of Fire, Exodus, Law) and fall away almost immediately when the experiences wane.

Churches today run from experience to experience, often needing to create better and more elaborate experiences, more and more hype, needing to invent new ways to drive the emotions, create new passions, or to stimulate some change for the consumers who demand the programs and the show.

Leaders in Scripture that are most praised (Joseph, Joshua, David, Daniel, and their kin) are not so much successful in terms of conquest or even in numbers of those influenced by them, as much as it was that they exemplified what men who know God must do and how men who love God should live. They worshiped God and they finished well because they kept the vision of God in the center of their affections and in the heart of all they do.

The leadership of today’s churches too often seem concerned about impact, draw, growth, and money. But the leaders in Scripture seemed to be overwhelmed by God.

Paul teaches in 1 Thessalonians 2:4 that we have been “entrusted with the Gospel.” This trust is a matter of faith on God’s part (the Greek here is the very same word for “believe” as in John 3:16, and it makes it difficult to translate this verse into English). God, it would seem, believes in us to hold the treasure of the Gospel, to live the Gospel, and to be the means by which the Gospel spreads to others and itself flourishes and creates new life and purpose in those who believe it. We believe, God believes and trusts us, and the Gospel works in and through us.

Leaders receive from God the trust — the faith-gift of the Gospel. They uphold the vision of the Glorious God. They direct the people to live for God as they themselves are living for him. And so we see by this measure that, by and large, most of the programs, activities, structures, methods, and all the rest that consumes our lives in the contemporary church, are completely disconnected from this glorious work and they would appear to have no direct connection with it except as people who have faith interact with others. But the programs and structures themselves, are completely unnecessary.

Focusing on the glorious nature of God and his Gospel requires all the leaders’ energy. The people may want them to melt their gold into a Great Calf, or to hide the treasure of the Word of God in a Wall. They may desire another king to rule them. They may refuse to trust in God as little children or never desire to love God’s will with all their hearts. They may struggle all their lives to desire God more than they cherish their own lives.

People will fight their leaders all the way until some come to see with the same eyes of faith and grasp with the same joy and hope the glory that God is sharing with his people. And a few of them, too, will become protectors of that vision of glory. And little by little, the church will shine with the very glory of God himself, and his people will be illuminated by his glory, and it will be that glory that others will experience working in their lives.

Godly leaders must only be filled with a vision of God. It is that vision that they offer to their people. It is all they have to give them. That is all the leaders have. And it is all they and their people need.