Exodus -- Leadership

Exodus 17 and 18 (two of today's readings for Christ Church Amherst) give two excellent examples of leadership:

The first is Moses, Aaron and Hur on the hilltop while the Israelites fight the Amalekites. While Moses lifts his hands (and the staff of God) in prayer the Israelites prevail when he wearies and his arms begin to fall the Amalekites prevail. Aaron and Hur put a rock under Moses to sit and one of them holds up his right arm and the other holds up his left arm and Israel prevails. Leaders, who is holding you up? Leaders need to recognize that they need to build support around themselves -- we cannot do this alone.

The Second example is in 18 when Moses Father-in-law, Jethro, comes to visit. Jethro observes that Moses is deciding every little detail of everyone's problems, conflicts and struggles. Jethro suggests to Moses that he appoint other leaders -- over 1000's, 100's and 10's to see to the minor issues and the day to day matters only sending Moses the critical matters (or the really tough questions). This allows Moses to survive and the people to thrive. Principle two is that leadership is also lived out in community. We cannot go it alone and need faithful, focused and competent partners in all that we do.

Leaders make the biggest difference when they build support (especially prayer support) for themselves and train and deploy and supervise others in the work we are called to do.