Goals in leadership

I was recently telling one of my friends (you know who you are!) about the awesome things that God is doing here in Santiago. We were talking about how amazing it is that God provided all these things in my life, especially this church plant. That He brought me to this group who are excited for me to be a part of what they are doing here in the city. That my gifts and talents, and seminary training, can all be put to use here. And logically, she commented that I should be the women’s pastor. It makes sense on the outside. But my pastor, while very excited to get me involved, on a leadership level, hasn’t mentioned anything of the sorts. And I have a feeling that a title like that isn’t really something we’ll be doing in our church. It doesn’t feel organic enough. I was thinking about this whole debacle today as I ate breakfast. I would love the title women’s pastor. Part of that is that I would love to have the work of a women’s pastor. To care for the women in the church. To pour my energy into pastoring them. That’s great. That desire is from the Lord and by His grace, I am doing that even now. But there is definitely part of my desire for the title so I can have my own glory. I want to be called the women’s pastor because I want to be praised and admired.
When I realized the pathetic motives of my heart in this, it reminded me of something that we learned in seminary. One of the goals of a leader is to make his or her job obsolete. To raise up new leaders who can take over. We aren’t here to make people dependent on us. We are here to raise up new leaders who can take our work from us. So I was thinking about the women in our little church. These are women I want to serve, but not in a way that they become dependent. I want to raise them up, help them grow strong so that they can lead other women. At least, this is what I should want.
Alas, leading is hard. It’s not just the outside forces that you have to fight against. You also have to work against your own desires. Lord, be our fierce leader. Be our wisdom and our strength.