A Leader of Character (Part 3)

The character and qualities of a mature male or female leader. We have said that one definition of character is the inherent qualities that define our relationship with ourselves and with others. We have said that there are 6 areas of character, which are like families of different qualities into which we have divided this very vast subject of the character of a mature leader. We have divided those sections into personal virtues, relationships with others, the area of self-control, the fourth area, controlling the ego, the fifth area, teamwork, and finally the capacity to be teachable, which also sometimes has to do with accepting criticism.

So these are the areas we have been discussing. We have said that the Bible places great emphasis on the importance of character. The last time we met in session, I read a passage of Scripture that pointed out how important it is for elders and bishops to be people of admirable character, mature character; and, for example, I can give you another reference, this time found in Second Timothy, Chapter 3, beginning with verse 23. In fact, we could even begin with verse 21 of Second Timothy, Chapter 3. It says:

“...Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things...” —speaking of those negative qualities that are so often found in human beings— “...if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be an instrument for honor, sanctified, useful to the Lord, and prepared for every good work....”

You see there that the Christian leader is called to be continually refining, improving, and bettering himself, leaving behind childish things, as the Apostle Paul says—the immaturities and imperfections of character—and moving toward maturity, toward perfection in Christ Jesus. So the Apostle Paul says that if a person can cleanse himself of those things, of those coarser, more difficult imperfections of character, then he will be available to be used by the Lord. The opposite is also true: if a person retains those negative qualities and does not change them, if he does not better himself or make an effort to go further and further and become more like Christ, he will remain stagnant in his Christian growth and also in his leadership performance, and God will not be able to use him as He would like to use us.

So the counsel Paul gives Timothy is: “...flee youthful passions as well, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart....”

There is the positive alternative: leave behind imperfect things, things that are harmful to Christian character, and adopt a mature posture—righteousness, faith, love, and peace. And then the Apostle Paul adds:

“...but reject foolish and senseless controversies, knowing that they breed quarrels....”

In other words, do not get involved in disputes, conflicts, and pointless arguments about flying saucers, whom Cain married, whether he married Eve, or how the other members of the human race came about, and so on. Those are questions that ultimately have no solution because we do not have the answer. Instead, remain focused on the things that—take advantage of the things that lead to a mature life in the Spirit.

So here comes the most important, clearest point about character. Through this short section, I am pointing out the importance that the Scriptures place again and again on the matter of character, and that it is not merely a matter of knowledge, physical strength, academic pedigree, or any of those things we so often look for in leaders. In the Christian life, it is a matter of character, conviction, and an attitude like Christ’s.

So it says: “...because the servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone....”

See? Character. “...Able to teach...” that is, capable of teaching others with patience, love, and gentleness; “...long-suffering...” means patient; “...correcting with gentleness those who oppose him, in the hope that perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth....”

In other words, they have to be patient. If a leader goes around ready to cut off the head of anyone who makes a mistake, criticizes him, or commits an injustice against him or her, that person is not fit to be a leader. You have to have a long fuse; that is where the patience we discussed earlier comes in.

“...And escape from the snare of the devil, in which they are held captive to do his will....”

Do you see? Once again, the importance of character. When Paul writes to Timothy about how he should conduct himself as a pastor and what kind of leaders he should choose for his pastoral, ministerial leadership team, the first thing he points to is the character of those people. That is one of the things we must always understand as leaders. We must say to the Lord, “Father, help me refine myself in the light of the Holy Spirit; help me improve every day and leave behind childish things. Illuminate me,” as we were saying in Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.”

So there is that element of the Christian leader always seeking to better herself, to improve in terms of her character, because this is key to developing healthy and powerful leadership.

So we have discussed the virtues, that first family of a leader’s qualities. We talked about integrity, the importance of integrity. Second, we talked about sobriety. Third, among the virtues, we talked about humility. The fourth characteristic among the virtues is being transparent—transparency. The fifth characteristic is knowing oneself, and all these things, by the way, are on the Internet in case you want to review the previous lessons. Fifth, the person knows himself. The sixth quality, within the category of virtues, within the family of virtues, is observing one’s surroundings, as we have said. Observing the context, the environment in which one is operating.

That capacity to remain attentive to what is happening around you in order to learn and obtain information that helps you behave appropriately within the setting in which you are operating, whether it is the general setting of the ministry in which you serve or a situation in which you are intervening. For example, right now I have to pay attention to you, your expressions, your body language, and other things. They tell me certain things about what is happening, and I then sometimes adapt my presentation to that kind of dynamic. If I see, as I say, one of you fall out of your chair and start snoring on the floor, well, that tells me that I have to do something—dance in front of you, find a hat and do one of those show dances, or whatever it takes to liven things up a little, or bring the class to an early close. The point is to observe one’s surroundings, the sixth quality.

The seventh quality, which we have not discussed and which I am going to address now—the new seventh quality—is, among the virtues, since we are still in the first family, remember that, to be tolerant of imperfection.

Wow, you may wonder why that is important. Well, it is right there in what the Apostle Paul says in Second Timothy, Chapter 3: that he should correct with gentleness those who oppose him, in the hope that perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth. One must have patience with and tolerance for imperfection.

A person who leads groups and people needs that quality because, inevitably, in work environments there will always be things that do not work. There will always be things in ministry that require patience and time so that they can improve.

I always say that one of the qualities a leader must have is a long-term vision—a long-term vision. You have to look at things from a long-range perspective and not become impatient because everything is not right at that moment, but always move toward something better. That is important, as is knowing where you want to go. But between that final destination you want to reach and the present, there is a road that must be traveled, and often the present reality is not as encouraging as the ultimate vision being pursued. That is where you must have a degree of tolerance for imperfection.

For example, in our church there are many things that still need improvement: many financial and administrative areas, our services and things there that could be improved, the various ministries that operate in different ways, and many other things. The children’s ministry, for example—there are many things there that could be improved—as well as the sound ministry and worship.

Now, you know where you want to go, and with the Lord’s help you improve each day, tightening the screw a little more each time, and you know that it is a process, a process that takes time. Now, as I say, there is a distance between that vision of excellence you desire and the present reality, and you have to say, “Well, it will take 2, 3, or 4 years, or however long,” and everything depends on a series of factors that must also be taken into account. You move toward perfection, but in the meantime you also learn to be tolerant. If you become impatient, start throwing a tantrum, cutting off heads left and right, and constantly complaining about people—or there are leaders who are simply incapable of working.

Over the years, I have seen them move from one ministry to another, and they can never stay in a single ministry because they do not know how to deal with imperfection. They have an idea of how things should be done and are very good in their own field when working alone, but when they have to work with people who are decidedly imperfect, they lose their heads and cannot handle it. They end up either in conflict with others, frustrated, or leaving and blaming the people. And if someone wants to assign blame and criticize, brothers and sisters, there is plenty of material in any context. So it is important for a mature leader to be tolerant of imperfection.

And as I say, there will be a tension—there is a tension—between the pursuit of excellence, which should be a quality of every ministry and every leader, and that tolerance. It is not that we say, “Well, ah, that’s fine; this is the way it is, this is how people will always be, and we are not going to try to do anything to improve.” No, there is a tension between those two things; you tighten things little by little. You have to be aware, for example: Okay, what kind of community am I dealing with? If I am dealing with an upper-middle-class community in which 85% of the people are professionals, have attended university, and are already third-generation educated professionals from the middle class, well, of course, you can demand a tremendous number of things and have very high expectations for rapid improvement. And when you delegate, you should expect immediate execution, because you are dealing with people who function and perform at a very high level in their secular, professional, and personal lives.

But if you are dealing with an extremely imperfect community—say, the Latino community, where many people are not educated—we are like those in First Corinthians, Chapter 1 or 2: “My brothers, not many of you are educated or important or this or that, but God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong,” and so forth. That is more like the condition we deal with in the Latino community, where many people are learning how to manage and work in ministry. Even many who are professionals have not had the advantage of growing up in homes where they were taught about discipline, execution, and excellence, and they even have serious deficiencies in their professional formation. So that is where you have to be more patient and tolerant of imperfection. Am I making myself clear about that?

So I have already said that a person in this area has the mindset of a grandfather: tolerant of imperfection and saying, “Ah, all right, many things happen; let’s be patient and look at things from a long-term perspective.” Such a person exercises patience when things do not work according to his tastes or expectations. That is another thing: sometimes things cannot be done the way I want; instead, one must also know how to negotiate and set aside one’s personal preferences so that things can move forward.

This tolerant person pursues excellence but is not a perfectionist. That is the difference. There is a difference between being excellent and pursuing excellence, and being a perfectionist; those are two very different things. I would add here—this is not in your notes—that a person who is tolerant of imperfection looks at an issue in its entirety and seeks practical solutions, not necessarily perfect ones. Such a person looks at the whole picture: Whom am I dealing with? What is the level and capacity of the people I am dealing with? How much authority do I have? If I say everything that is on my mind and half the group leaves, then I will have no one left, and that is even worse. How sensitive are the people I am working with to criticism? If I am paying them, obviously, look, if you do not do it, I will fire you and find someone else whom I will pay. But if it is a volunteer context in which the people working are volunteers, wow, then that changes things too.

So all those aspects must be taken into account. They also have to do with observing one’s surroundings, knowing the context in which I am working, and adjusting expectations to all those elements. So this is the area of being tolerant of imperfections.

Any brief comments or observations about what I have just said on the subject? Speak loudly, please, if you can. Pass it to them so that our friends on the Internet can hear, because sometimes the audio is not very clear.

?: Just one of the things I have realized at this point is that this is where we sometimes fail when it comes to delegating, because obviously ministries grow because people get involved, and when people get involved, they feel that they can take ownership of the ministry, they take ownership of the task. But when there is someone who does not trust us to take ownership of that task, then that is where we have to learn to delegate. And those are some of the biggest things I have come to realize—that there are times, well, in the ministry where I am working, when it is a challenge to have to say, look, I truly have to trust that so-and-so will be able to do this job, and if I do not delegate, so-and-so will not grow; and if he does not grow, my ministry will not grow, and neither will I. So I think that is also something that goes along with it.

That is a very accurate point. Definitely, anyone who is unwilling to tolerate imperfections and shortcomings, and to tolerate things being done in an unexpected way or in a way that was not their preference, should not delegate—and if they do not delegate, they will always have immature leaders. In other words, one must be willing to pay the price of entrusting people with responsibility and trusting that they will do something; and even if it is not one hundred percent right, they will do it better the next time. The alternative is to do everything oneself, all the time. It turns out the way one wants it, but one never develops leaders and always remains stuck in the same situation. So I think that is an excellent observation: anyone who wants to develop leaders absolutely has to learn to tolerate imperfection as that community develops and reaches another level of performance.

So the last quality within that family we call virtues is a little subtle, and it concerns what I call empathic capacity—a fancy word, empathic. Where does that word “empathic” come from? Can anyone tell me? Empathy, which is not the same as sympathy, right? Can anyone tell me what empathy means? And speak loudly so they can hear me. What is empathy? I am going to help you so we do not spend too much time: it is the ability to attune oneself to the feelings or situation of others, the ability to identify with others, to feel what they feel, to see things from their perspective—empathy, in English, empatía. It comes from pathos, which in Greek means passion, feeling, emotion.

Everyone say pathos. Ah, that sounded very good. We already have some Greek experts here. In Buddhism, for example, in the Buddhist religion, they speak of compassion. It is a word that Buddhism emphasizes greatly: the ability to feel the pain of creation, the pain of others. As I say, it describes a person who can put themselves in someone else’s place; an empathetic person sees things from the other person’s perspective. In Galatians, chapter 6, verse 1, the apostle Paul speaks of something similar. He says:

“…my brothers, if anyone is caught in any fault, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you too be tempted…”

In other words, when a person fails, when they fall into some kind of morally compromising situation or whatever it may be, put yourself in their place in a sense, and consider yourself from that person’s perspective—what was happening within that person—and try to examine yourself in light of that experience so that you do not treat them in a harsh, abrasive, judgmental way, but can also identify with their situation. And as you see yourself in their situation, you can show mercy and compassion toward that individual and then restore them in a spirit of gentleness instead of kicking them while they are down because they failed.

So we see something of that here. The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to identify with our pain. He knew what we were going through theoretically, because He is God and understood it, but He had not gone through it; He had not experienced it. The Incarnation is the most outstanding empathic act that has ever taken place in the entire universe, whereby the Lord can now feel what we feel, identify with our pain, our temptations, and our struggles, and intercede for us effectively because He was where we are. In other words, it was an act of extreme empathy.

Now, how do you think that quality of being able to put oneself in another person’s place helps in the exercise of leadership? Does anyone have an idea? How does putting oneself in another person’s place help one exercise effective leadership? Someone who has a brilliant and absolutely amazing contribution. Yes, Sister Alba, please come up to the microphone.

Alba: ……the example of our Lord Jesus as intercessor; He came, then, as the supreme intercessor to show us what the way was and how things were done, and that is what a leader is. A leader does not say, “Do it”; the leader says, “Let’s do it this way,” and sets the example.

Okay, good. That is very good. I think one of the things is that, to me, empathy is an essentially pastoral quality. The pastor has to know, or at least identify with, what the person is going through in order to minister to them effectively. If one of your leaders did not arrive on time for the meeting or to carry out their role within the ministry, and you simply tell them, “You arrived late,” or, “You did not show up, and you will not be able to serve for the next three months; you are under discipline,” or whatever, instead of listening to what is happening with this person and why they could not come—at least identify with them. Do they live far away? Do they have transportation? Perhaps they had a family or marital problem. Perhaps he or she is depressed. What is happening with that person? That is one way, for example, in which the ability to understand quickly what people are going through and to try to see oneself in that person’s place becomes relevant. Or perhaps they had a difficult childhood. Sometimes the person may have a conflict with you, and you ask yourself, “Well, I am the pastor, so why does this person have so much trouble with me?” Well, perhaps I remind him of his father. Many people have had problems with authority in their family, and I know someone here who has told me that he has difficulty with me; and it is clearly because he had very serious difficulties with his father, who abused his mother, and he has problems with authority. My pastoral role causes him ambivalence and tension, and he finds it difficult to relate to leaders in general. And one sees that this person continually has that difficulty.

And so being able to understand those things, tolerate people, and try to work with them is something very, very important that we have to cultivate, because otherwise there will be situations in which we will not be able to pastor the people we are leading. That empathic capacity becomes very, very important in ministry. Otherwise, one will treat people solely according to their actions, according to external things—what one sees and what one experiences in relation to them—but one will not enter into their drama, into their journey of emotional, personal, and spiritual development, and then one cannot minister. What one is doing, then, is using people. If you can give me something and if you can perform, if you can do what I need you to do in the ministry, then that is very good; but if you fail, I am incapable of trying to attune myself to you.

Now, again, there is a tension there. What is the tension? It is that one must also demand things of people, because people need to be pushed. One cannot say, “Ah, I understand everything; it is fine, amen. You arrived late? Okay, do not worry,” and so forth. “You did not come? No problem.” No—again, there is a tension.

?: …whether empathy is related to pity, because in social work, for example, when serving people who require some kind of help, whether emotional or material assistance, empathy operates there together with pity, because many people help out of pity and not necessarily because they truly understand that person’s need.

I think that, again, the tension there lies in how always to respect people—not to pity them, but to have compassion for them, which is different. I think it is compassion, or feeling compassion for the person. I think that when we work with a broken, wounded, and disadvantaged community, one has to combine an understanding of where that community or individual is with a call for them to move into another dimension. So one has to push people. I believe that one has to demand things of people because broken people will often manipulate you and will even lie to you, because that is what they are accustomed to; that is how they have survived. So one must also combine compassion with, I would say, integrity and seriousness, whereby one lets people know, “You are not going to manipulate me, control me, or emotionally blackmail me.”

Now, I am going to understand where you are, and I am going to be compassionate and merciful, but I am also going to make demands of you. I am not going to treat you like garbage, because then I would neither be respecting nor helping you. I am not going to say, “Ah, poor thing, he has no control over his life; he has no power to do anything.” That strips him of his humanity. People must be treated as adults, as human beings, and that means making demands of them and knowing when they are lying and when they are controlling or manipulating you. But at the same time, one must treat them with love and mercy and maintain a balance between those two things. There is a tension there, if I am making myself clear. And it is the same for the Christian leader, whether male or female: they must also let people know, “Look, this is the definition of what a good deacon is, for example, and if you are not meeting it, we are going to apply pressure so that you try to improve more and more each day.” A time may come when one perhaps has to tell the person, “Look, it would be better for you to stop serving,” or whatever may apply in the kind of case we have been discussing here.

In other words, there is a balance. There has to be a balance, but one must definitely be able to put oneself in the situation of others. There is a pastoral element there, and of course, for one to be able to do that, it also presupposes something very important: emotional and spiritual strength on one’s own part. Because if one is as needy as the people one is leading, one will not have the spiritual, emotional, or moral reserves needed to be patient and merciful. Am I making myself clear?

If a person is so emotionally broken, they will react with impatience, criticism, and hurtful words. It is only when one has attained spiritual strength through prayer, reading the Word, a process of personal growth, a regular devotional life, and closeness with God that one acquires the reserves needed to show mercy to others. Otherwise, we will be as needy as they are, and we will react in the same way they would. That is why it is so important that, in order to be empathetic, the leader have a fairly large spiritual reserve, so that one can be—speaking loosely, in a sense—better equipped or stand on higher moral and ethical ground than the person to whom one is ministering. I do not mean being spiritually better than they are, but rather being better equipped than they are; that is important.

Damaris: ……I think that one element I see in ……. is respect, as opposed to pity, which is mixed with superiority. When one is empathetic, one is respectful. When one feels pity, one believes oneself superior, and ……they fail to distinguish between the two. So one knows that you are going to help someone because you want to help them grow, not out of pity, because I feel more important or better than they are. So I think that is an element that one has to

The difference lies in the element of respect. Empathy has respect for the person. Pity, I believe, has no respect; it does not show respect for the person but depersonalizes and dehumanizes them, turning them merely into an object of circumstances.

That empathic capacity is very important. Well, with that we have exhausted—at least in our study—that first family, which I call virtues, and I have pointed out eight different qualities within it.

I am now going to move on to another family, which is the family of self-control. This also encompasses several qualities, but I place them under that category, that area of self-control. And the first quality within that category of self-control is the ability to hold fast to convictions—to operate, minister, and lead according to convictions—and I would add, regardless of the cost, because operating in that mode of convictions and principles, to use another word, has its cost, at least in the short term. In the long term it is always beneficial; it is always the best option. But in the short term one often loses, and one must have the maturity and faith to say, regardless of the cost, “No, I am going to uphold this according to principle and not according to what my lower self tells me.”

So that ability to hold fast to convictions comes, first, from trusting in the long-term power of principles. Again, notice that expression there: “long-term.” The leader is characterized by—and this is something very important—the fact that many of these qualities have to do with the ability to see things over the long term, not to rush into something immediately because it gives me a quick result, but to view it over the long term.

That ability to see things from a long-range perspective, always to look at where we want to go, to be patient with the journey, and to know that many times the journey of life or of the spiritual walk is as important as the final outcome—that is a very important quality in a leader who is truly effective.

The fact that, for example, you come here on a winter night when the week is barely beginning requires a long-term mindset. You have to believe that what you are doing now will bear fruit in the long run and that you will benefit from this investment of time and energy. Because if you let yourself be guided solely by weariness, the cold, and the fact that it gets dark early in the day, you will not make it to something like this. Leaders are precisely high-functioning people, let us put it that way, because that is what a leader is: a high-functioning person. Examine them, and you will always see in them an ability to think long-term and not seek immediate gratification. The more mature you become, the more capable you are of seeing things from a long-term perspective.

Look at God, the highest-functioning person I know. I do not know whether there is another; I do not think so. Look at what the Word says: it says that with God one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. How long has God been waiting since Adam and Eve fell in Eden for the time of humanity’s complete redemption? Thousands of years, because he thinks long-term.

So, that quality—one of the most important things about a person who has self-control is that he trusts in the long-term power of principles and places principles above everything else. That means that if there is a moral, ethical, biblical, or spiritual principle involved in a situation, and respecting that principle means that I have to lose my best friend, or go through a conflict with the group I lead, so be it, as they say in English, so be it, because the principle is more important than the person or the moment.

And that ability to live according to principles is absolutely crucial in a leader, whether a man or a woman. It means saying, no, there is a moral principle involved here, and no matter what happens, I have to remain faithful to that principle.

Now, again, we have to be careful, once again, because everything is a matter of balance and nuance. There will be times when mercy triumphs over judgment, as the Bible says. There are times when, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, a living dog is better than a dead lion. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the wing in order to eat the breast, as the saying goes. Sometimes you have to postpone the fight and wait to fight another day, when you are in better shape.

That is, notice what I am saying: that is part of a leader’s sense of nuance. Do you remember what I said last time, that these principles are, as it were, in dialogue with one another, and sometimes one principle will lead you to qualify another, and the other will qualify the first one a little more? The mature leader, the mature and spiritual person, always has a sort of repertoire of spiritual, biblical principles and concepts that make up his bag of behaviors, and from there he pulls out a little something from here and something else from there.

Who was it that said it—the Lord Jesus Christ—that it is like a person who has new things and old things in his bag? Something along those lines. And that is how it is: the spiritually mature person has a repertoire of moral principles and is always processing them, as it were; and when a situation arises, the computer says, ah, patience, excellence, empathetic capacity, principles, mercy, and then it selects all of that and draws from it: ...here is the solution; this is what I have to do. And it will be a combination of those different qualities working in dialogue with one another. That is why it is important to know these principles, to internalize them, and to learn to handle them like a painter who, when he is going to make a painting, has his watercolors and has different colors: red, black, pure blue, green, orange; and then, when he wants to produce an unusual color, he takes a little of this one, a little of the other, and a little of that one—ah, there is that color which is neither yellow, nor red, nor green, but a color somewhere among all three.

That is what I am talking about here. In other words, yes, we are not going to use this matter of operating by principles like a sword with which to cut people’s heads off. I do not care what you think or who you are, because the principle is more important—boom. No, that also has to be tempered with mercy, love, patience, and prudence. But in one sense, it is important to place principles above everything else.

Another thing is that the person who has that conviction, who operates according to convictions, trusts himself and his perception of things. There has to be conviction. If you are a weather vane in the wind, as we sometimes say, or a leaf tossed by the wind, as the Apostle James says—like the saying, “Where is Vincent going? Wherever everyone else is going”—then you will go along with any trend, any opinion; wherever the culture goes, you go too. No, leaders are characterized by being people who believe something and who, after analyzing things—including analyzing opposing opinions and giving them a fair opportunity to be expressed—adopt their position. And as Martin Luther said when they examined him in the sixteenth century and tried to make him recant his confession, “I can do no other. This is what I believe, and may God have mercy on me.” That is what he told the court, which was composed of very illustrious people, and he knew that he might lose his life. But he said, “I can do no other. What I have confessed, what I have said, is what I believe, and the rest is up to God. If I perish, I perish,” as Esther said.

That ability to believe in oneself is important as well. At the same time, one must indeed be willing to listen to others, but a time comes when one has to be a person of conviction. This is what I believe; this is what I think. I have analyzed it; I am open to correction and to a new perspective on things, but for now this is what I believe, and I am going to venture out in that direction in the name of the Lord, and may God have mercy on me. If I have erred, then he will have to teach me, but I am operating according to my conscience.

He is willing to pay the price—number three, he is willing to pay the price. There is definitely a price for living at that moral level. That price will sometimes be loneliness, opposition from others, attacks and criticism, the breaking of cherished relationships, and sometimes a cooling of friendships or even of relationships with intimate loved ones. But in the long run one says, “You know what? If my perception has been right and I am correct, and God is with me, I am going to pay the price, and the Lord will see me through.” And you know what? The person who operates that way is always blessed, and that is what a true leader is.

The world needs people who live according to what they believe. That is why Martin Luther is called the father of the Reformation: in the sixteenth century, his stance as a simple monk, in one sense, changed the history of humanity.

Martin Luther King Jr., here in the United States, took a firm, clear stand at the risk of his life. Look at how he paid with his life. Martin Luther in the sixteenth century was also a prisoner; he had to flee for his life and remain hidden for several months in the castle of a nobleman who took him in to protect him.

There is definitely a price to pay, but that is the person who stands out in life; that is the person who inspires others; that is the person to whom, in the final analysis, others come for advice, who serves as a point of reference for many people, and who, in moments of haziness and uncertainty within a culture, when moral principles are at risk, is one of those people who shore up a society and keep it from going over the precipice.

But it has its price, without a doubt. That is, I put an illustration here: about fifteen years ago, when God led our church to move away from being a traditionally Baptist church, enter into the move of the Holy Spirit, and change its style of worship, its style of governance, the leaders we placed in positions of influence, the nature of our services, and even other things along those lines, our church entered a period of severe turbulence. Thank God, no one pulled out any knives, and there were no shootings or anything like that; but in a church that had been very harmonious, a rather high level of tension did erupt for a time.

Incidentally, that turbulent process resulted in a church that still exists here in the city of Boston, because a group of brothers and sisters—thank the Lord—left Central Baptist Church, as it was called at that time, through a process that I myself facilitated beforehand so that it would be peaceful. That was around 1993. There was an elderly sister who loved me dearly, with whom I had formed a very beautiful friendship, and who had long told me that when she died, she wanted me to conduct her funeral. She and I were a mutual admiration society. When this happened, she ended her friendship with me because she thought and felt that I had stolen the church from her, that in my new conviction about becoming more open to the Holy Spirit and all of this, I had imposed my will on the congregation and had led the church down the path I wanted it to take.

I lost friendships that were never the same again—several very dear friendships—and colleagues of mine who, looking at the matter from the outside, disagreed with how I handled the situation. And I had to ask myself, hey, do I leave things as they are and continue with the church in the same way it has been, or do I obey what I feel is the voice of God, leading our church into greater openness to the gifts of the Holy Spirit? I was not trying to turn us into a rabidly Pentecostal church or anything like that. I simply wanted to open up a little more to the moving of the Spirit and follow that process along which I felt God was leading my life and leading our congregation.

But it was a time of great spiritual anguish for me, seeing my church turn into a troubled community when, until then, it had been an exceptionally healthy and harmonious church; losing people I loved; worrying about my reputation in the broader ministerial community, which knew what was happening. All of those things almost forced me, or drove me, to say, no, hey, this is too problematic, and who knows whether anything will come of it; it would be better for us to remain exactly as we are. But you know what? When it happened and that separation took place, God’s blessing poured down in torrents upon the life of the church.

Out of that came the call to move to Boston. As for that community of brothers and sisters, many of whom are now here with us—thank the Lord, God healed many of the wounds between us, there has been much reconciliation, and, as with Job, God restored to me much of what I had lost. He did not restore my beloved sister, that elderly woman, to me, because she died during the process; I was even able to attend her funeral and say a few words there.

But what I want to tell you is that after that—look, one year later I facilitated, incidentally, their departure; I invited the brothers and sisters, facilitated the planting of that church, and called the pastor who had founded our congregation. Once again, there is the matter of integrity.

If you do something with integrity, do not worry. I thought, it is going to disappear. Many of the church’s tithers left; the church’s musicians left; a number of key people in the congregation left. You know what? By the end of the year, we had the same number of people we had at the beginning of the year; financially, the church suffered no major setback; new leaders began to come. Excellent musicians came, and the beginnings of what is now a very high-caliber music program here at Lion of Judah arose during that time. And the vision to come to the city of Boston was born—a move that could not have been made with that group of brothers and sisters, I say this with all due respect, whose vision was more of a middle-class vision: to come to Boston, to what was then a neighborhood full of crime, vacant lots, and people of ill repute; to come from Cambridge, where we had a space—many of you may not know where our church used to be, in a beautiful building in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Cambridgeport, near the Charles River—and to come from there to what was then this little hellhole here in Boston.

Now, look at how God has blessed this community and how God changed Lion of Judah’s vision. He even changed our name; he changed our spiritual identity. He made possible everything we have seen during this time. Our church has quadrupled or more—perhaps quintupled—in attendance and in so many other ways, financially and ministerially. But a price had to be paid.

I assure you that those months were very difficult months for me, for my family, and for many other people in the church. Much was lost, but there was a principle involved: do we obey what God is telling us, or do we yield to feelings, fears, and losses?

And so I see this: in the short term, you generally lose when you do not live according to principles, but in the long term you always gain if you are doing the Lord’s will. So that area is very important.

I would add something else here: the person who operates according to convictions does not look for shortcuts or easy solutions. I am not going to develop that because there is a lot there. They pay the price that has to be paid. 3) They do not yield to internal or external pressure. This kind of attitude requires faith that principles work, that spiritual principles work; if you apply them no matter what happens, hold on tight, fasten your seat belt, and when the airplane is going through turbulence and it looks as though it is going to break into twenty thousand pieces, say, “The principle says that it is all right, that this is going to work, and that I am going to make it through.” Hold on tight, and even if your emotions are screaming at you, “Jump as soon as possible, throw yourself out with a parachute, stop, or go in another direction,” stand firm, because God will bring you through.

Another thing is that, over time, you begin to see that operating and living in this manner works. And then the next time it becomes a little easier, because you have already seen what happened before; now, this time, it is easier. And then you have seen what happened the last two times, so the third time is easier. The fourth time, you have seen what happened the previous three times, and it becomes easier, until a moment comes when you have learned to live according to principles and convictions, because you realize that it works. It is always the same process: you pay the price in the short term and lose some things, but in the long term you gain, with dividends.

Let me tell you, if there is one important principle for a mature male or female leader, it is this: the ability to think long-term.

And I also say here that it requires confidence in oneself and in God. Another thing, in fact, is that such a person does not allow themselves to be ruled by emotions, fears, wounds, or appetites—the four enemies of the mature woman or man.

Emotions, fears, wounds, or appetites. I would even add one more: complexes—inferiority complexes and other kinds of complexes that also afflict us in that respect—phobias and all those kinds of things.

All of that concerns operating according to convictions. We are under the category of self-control. I am moving ahead and am not spending much time on it because I want to finish at nine o’clock, and I want to cover as much material as possible.

Within that category of self-control, a second quality is that the self-controlled person—the mature leader, as regards self-control—is careful in speech. Here are some thoughts associated with that idea: they do not exaggerate; their statements are precise and trustworthy. Brothers and sisters, this relates to another quality I mentioned earlier: sobriety.

Many leaders discredit themselves because they always use what I call evangelistic numbers. You are already at a disadvantage, for example, when a pastor is asked, “Your congregation—how many members does it have?” “Oh, 1,600,” and someone says, “Subtract 80 percent.” We pastors, you know—a cat moved, and it is a member too, so we include it in the count. The baby who is still in the mother’s womb is also a member, and we count that baby right away; with the mother, there are two there.

So I believe that a person who is a mature leader in that respect learns to watch their words. The Bible says to let your yes be yes and your no be no. The idea is this: look, it is better to understate reality than to overstate it. Be known for saying less rather than more.

For example, people ask me, “How many people come to your…?” Look, on Sundays such-and-such a number come, because I do not even tell them, “I have this many people.” I say, “To me, the people I have are the ones who came last Sunday,” and I say, “And this many children,” and I always try to remain—or to qualify things and express them by saying, “Look, on Sundays we have approximately eight hundred and something people, but we think there are around 1,200 to 1,500 people who are associated with León de Judá, for whom it is their church and who regard it as their congregation. When there is a need, when they are going to attend on Easter Sunday, or when there is a death in their family or a crisis, León de Judá is their church.” And that is what I measure, because nowadays, to say “member”… There are churches that say, “We have 3,000 members,” but go and see how many attend on Sunday.

But I believe that is only one area. I am using one area, one specific illustration, but there can be many things in which one has to learn, brothers and sisters, to be measured in speech, not to exaggerate too much, not to be embellishing, as they say in English—beautifying and adorning things. One has to be clear: if this happened, it happened; if it did not happen, it did not happen; and if it happened, it happened in this way and that way—it was not that way, it was this way. We have to add nuances in life. That quality of not exaggerating, of speaking soberly about things, is very important. One does not have that need to impress people; rather, one lets the facts speak for themselves and lets our record and our actions cumulatively establish our image. We do not have to go around exaggerating to people, telling them, “I am this, I do that, I had this, I went there, I come from that place.” Be sober; be measured in your speech.

Your yes is yes and your no is no. 4) Speak precisely, avoiding ambiguity; that is very important. There are people whose words, as I call them, are like a haze; it is like the focus of a projection. Their words are a little foggy, somewhat blurry. Sometimes you do not know whether they are telling you it is black or brown, because they never speak clearly to you, and sometimes you do not know whether you can completely trust their words. And I believe that God’s leader must be characterized by words that are crisp, well defined, finely honed, measured seven times, as they say, rocked seven times, with every word carrying weight.

I like people whose words I can take to the bank. How good it is when a leader speaks to a congregation and tells them things clearly: “Look, brothers and sisters, this is the way it is: this, this, and this.” Then people know how to evaluate what that person is saying. And that is why one of a leader’s most valuable possessions is their words.

One has to make sure that one’s words have value, because people will either die for a leader or not, depending on their trust in what that leader is telling them. And if that male or female leader has established a record of telling the truth, stating things clearly, and speaking with precision, that will make their words and their requests very compelling. In moments of crisis, people will be willing to give that leader a second chance or to follow them even when there is a danger of disaster, because they think, “Look, this person has spoken to me and, up to this point, has never lied to me, has never exaggerated, and has always explained things as best they could.” And that is tremendous. But when you lose that capital, it becomes very difficult to influence people, especially when things are hazy and not everything is certain.

That is why you have to speak with the long term in mind, because over the years people will gradually form an image of you and your words, and they will treat you according to that quality. Perhaps they love you and believe that you are a great leader, but they say, “Still, I am not going to risk my savings, my life, whatever it may be, or my spiritual health, because unfortunately this brother falters a little in that area.”

Question: ………… Central American especially, always speaking indirectly, they go off on a tangent, they go all the way around…. Everything just to get to ……..

Certainly.

Question: so, not necessarily, …….. but the

That is true. Sometimes it is cultural; sometimes I believe it comes from Asians. In Asia—since Central American culture also has that Asian dimension—it comes to us through our racial heritage. Asians are like that: very careful, very cautious about what they say, very courteous, and very indirect about things. It is not that they are malicious; sometimes it is actually more a matter of being considerate. They do not tell you no, but they say, “Well, we will see what happens, and I will call you later,” and they have already told you; you already know where it is going.

But it is true; that is part of it, which is why we have to overcome it. Caribbean people go to the other extreme. Sometimes Caribbean people say things bluntly and leave you there flat on your back and bleeding, with no nuance whatsoever. It is the other extreme of the matter.

So I believe that this is why we, as mature people, have to go beyond our culture. That is where the matter of principle comes in: living according to convictions and principles. We have to overcome and transcend our culture, our family background, and our tendencies of character or temperament, and say, “No, look, in this case I have to tell this person, ‘I cannot,’ or, ‘I will not be able to make it,’ or, ‘I do not have the money,’” instead of saying, “I will see, and I will call you in three days,” and then not calling them during those three days because you hope that your silence will do the talking.

Again, that is where, on principle, one says, “You know what? No, I have to say what I have to say. I have to speak with this person and tell them how I feel, and I have to do it properly and think it through carefully.” And although inside you are getting the jitters, as we Caribbean people say, and you feel that you do not want to say what you have to say, you say it because it is right and it is what must be done. That is, one goes precisely beyond appetites, fears, wounds, complexes, culture, temperament, and family background, and one says what needs to be said in a concrete, clear, and precise way because it is right. That is how one speaks, then. It is very important. One speaks precisely, avoiding ambiguity, vagueness, and double meanings.

The fifth point here is that we do not manipulate with words. Words are precious; words are noble; they are sublime. They were not made to manipulate people; they were not made to lead people into doing what you want them to do, or to deceive and blind them so that they go where you want them to go. No, words are a very beautiful weapon that must be used in a very, very measured way and with a great sense of responsibility. That is important.

I will add some other things. Carefulness in speech is a sibling of sobriety; remember that these things add nuance to one another. Sobriety has something to do with this.

They resist the pressure to impress or dazzle. You know, many times it is as though people who do not have command of words like to speak extremely highly of others: “That man is the most admirable person known in the entire history of humanity,” or, “That person is a spiritual man unlike any other; he spends seventeen hours a day in prayer.” And it is as though the person wants to provoke a reaction of amazement, to impress others, and so they speak that way in order to impress, to produce an effect. But one has to speak clearly. You do not have to go around impressing people; you do not have to dazzle others with your report of what happened.

“Oh, that service was something else—angels literally came down; you could see the little feathers in the air.” No, you do not have to say so much. Say, “The Lord manifested Himself; it was a precious time; there was a beautiful time of prayer; there was a lovely presence of the Lord, and we felt that God spoke to us.” But do not say that the Holy Spirit spoke in an audible voice and things of that sort.

There are people who say, “I had a vision,” when, once you look into it, what they had was a daydream. To me, a vision is something like what John had, or something like that—a vision. So we have to speak; we have to say things as they are. “Oh, this person…” How many times has someone said that a man was healed of who knows what, and the next day you see that same man still using his cane? That has happened. I say, “Look, it is not that I have little faith, but let me wait and see what happens.” God has no problem with that. And sometimes, because of our desire to please God, dazzle others, or do the Lord a favor, what we actually do is bring the Gospel into disrepute. It is better to speak only about what you have the ability and the right to speak about.

For a leader, the most important truth—or rather, truth is more important than impressing people or obtaining the desired result. Speaking the truth is more important, even if you do not obtain the admiration, respect, or amazement you wanted. No, the truth is more important. Say what happened; say what you have; say what you are; indeed, report less than the reality. Let people discover that there is far more to you than there appeared to be, rather than creating the impression that you are the last Coca-Cola in the desert and then having them discover that you are not. As people said of Paul, “His letters are incredible and impressive, but his presence is not so impressive.”

I believe it is better, as the Lord Jesus Christ says, for people to tell you, “Come up here,” so that you may go up there, rather than for them to tell you, “You know what? You have to move down, because there is another person we need there in that position.” I believe one should always underreport and underimpress, and let what is truly there become evident over time, rather than the reverse, which is what often happens.

So it is important: over time, a negative or positive image of the leader is created, depending on how that person speaks or uses words.

Another thing: a leader’s credibility is essential, because it indicates whether or not people can expect reliable judgments from him or her. I repeat that: a leader’s credibility is essential, because it indicates whether or not people can expect reliable judgments from him or her. In other words, what happens when there is a crisis—for example, this financial situation and so forth that we are experiencing now in the United States? You need leaders who will tell you the truth, so that you know how to proceed. Whether you are sure of your leaders, whether they are going to tell you the truth or not, or what advice will come out of their mouths, whether it will be reliable or not, will depend in part on how that person has behaved in the past, how sober and fair their judgments have been in the past, and how prudently they have used words in the past.

I say something else here. I say that speech is like currency: if it is too readily available and is everywhere, its value goes down. What happens when the government puts too much money into circulation? Well, the value of the currency goes down because it is everywhere. When a person talks too much and their words are loose and imprecise, they lose value; the person loses influence.

I believe that a leader’s influence is often inversely proportional to the availability of their words and to how many words they speak. Now, be careful about using silence to manipulate as well; some people do that. But that is another dimension.

Continuing with this matter of speaking, I added a few things, some comments I had made, but in the other chart I say that the leader does not commit to more than they can do. That goes along with speaking. I believe I pointed that out in the past: words. Do not say more than you.... And I continually sin in that regard. I often commit to far more than I can fulfill, and afterward I am sweating bullets over it and apologizing to people. You have to know how to say what you can do and what you cannot do. Be firm about that; be clear.

Another thing: be silent more than you speak, even if it is only one passage in Proverbs 7:17 where it says... “Come, let us drink our fill until morning.” I do not think there is necessarily much sobriety there. Let us go to James, which is safer. Brothers, let us go to James, please. I do not know what happened there; I’ll get back to you. 1:19—let us see if it is here. Yes:

“...Therefore, my beloved brothers, let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger...”

Okay? Quick to hear and slow to speak. That is, that is the idea, and it is important. And Proverbs says something similar, but we will find it eventually. I know that everyone is now searching through blessed Proverbs to see whether they can find it. 17:7—it seems I had a dyslexic moment there—17:7.

Omar, please, what does Proverbs 17:7 say?

Omar: “...Eloquent speech does not befit a fool; much less do lying lips befit a prince. A bribe is a precious stone to the one who practices it; wherever he turns, he prospers...”

So there you have something to meditate on.

Omar: ....

Yes, a little more in line with what we are talking about. Okay, then number 8 says, regarding this matter of being careful in speech, that one depends on creating an image more through actions—again, blessed long-term thinking; here it comes up again, long-term—than through words.

In other words, the mature male or female leader allows time to create an image of who they are instead of trying to rush and accelerate things with words, saying what they are, what they have, what they know, what they did, what they received, where they have been, how many achievements they have had, how many giants they have killed, and so forth.

Actions will speak; excellence establishes itself sooner or later over time, so you have to be patient and allow things to fall into place. People are wiser than you think and more observant than you believe, both negatively and positively. And over time, if there is something there—if the fig tree truly has fruit and not merely leaves—people will discover it. Let the fruit become evident sooner or later; do not try to accelerate things through words.

And lastly, I also say that being careful in speech includes guarding against gossip. A leader cannot be a gossip, whether female or male; they cannot violate confidences, undermine people, or criticize other leaders or other people, because sooner or later they lose credibility, lose gravitas, lose weight, and lose influence.

All it takes is for a person to violate two or three confidences and for it to become known in the community, and that leader’s effectiveness is shut down. Or for people to realize that this person is always talking about others, criticizing them, or violating confidences concerning something they know about someone. All of that diminishes a leader’s image. A male or female leader has to protect their image, not in order to manipulate, but because their image is very important if they are to exercise the positive influence they need to exercise.

I am going to speed up here, then. Another element, a third quality within self-control: I have spoken about the ability to maintain convictions. Number 2, I have said that you must be careful in speech; and a third quality within that—which I place within the family of self-control—is this matter of lucidity, which I have already discussed in two ways.

Remember that the leader knows himself, knows his weaknesses, his past, and his deformities; that has to do with lucidity. What is lucidity? Light. It is the ability to see oneself objectively. It is like stepping outside yourself and seeing yourself from a corner of the room, as I have said before, while you are speaking. The mind can do that. A mature person is someone who can, as it were, see himself; he never loses that capacity for lucidity. He does not become so immersed in what he is doing that he loses the ability to examine himself while doing it.

Do you know what I mean? Most human beings, when they are doing something, they cannot multitask; they cannot simultaneously see themselves doing something. You have to ask the Lord to help you cultivate that ability never to lose your lucidity. Some of us suffer from too much lucidity, but we need to seek at least some of it, because it is important in leadership.

So, I place this here in this area. Again, lucidity also means seeing the environment you are in, examining everything else; while you are speaking, reserve a tiny bit of energy to notice the signals others are sending you.

And here is a third manifestation of that dimension when I speak of lucidity: you do not lose awareness of yourself; that is what I am saying. You are always watchful of what is happening within you and around you.

Number 2: the leader can observe himself while acting and analyze his interactions in light of principles. In other words, if the conversation is becoming very heated and you are already losing your patience and all that, while you are saying those things you have to try to control yourself and say, “Wait—is what I am saying something I am going to regret? Am I entering the zone where I will no longer be able to take back the words I am saying? Am I breaking a relationship? Am I closing doors? Am I damaging the leadership? Am I damaging the ministry?”

That is, it is the ability, even while you are doing things, to be thinking about principles, sobriety, patience, long-term vision, and empathy regarding what they are telling you. That is another thing. For example, sometimes people are telling you something and you would like to rip their little head off because of what they are saying, but you tell yourself, “Wait, let me think carefully. Why is this person saying this? I have to put myself in their position. How are they seeing things?” All of that waters down your soup a little, so that you do not act too impulsively or say something you will later have to regret. Because once you have said it—wow—now you have to pick up the rubble. No, that is part of it.

The leader can observe himself while acting and participating and analyze his interactions in light of spiritual principles and principles of maturity.

And thirdly, the leader restrains his character deformities while participating. The key here is this matter of character deformities, because we all have character flaws. Some of us do not like to be criticized; others are impulsive in our speech; others have a bad temper and are prone to anger; others are very animated in our reactions. There are countless things. Others have a wounded child inside us who is easily offended. Ha! Twenty thousand things affect the way we act and handle conflict.

And you have to know, as it were, what those flaws of yours are. Remember what I called them—how did I put it?—the resident demons, or something like that. You have to know which little demons are there, which have their place in our lives, which we are always fighting, and know how to manage them. Many times in our lives, we will not be able to eliminate them one hundred percent, because unfortunately they will be there with us until we die; that is true. But we have to know how to manage them, how to put them in their cage when they try to get out, and how to keep them under control.

And for that, there is a quality we already pointed out earlier in the area of virtues: knowing yourself, knowing what your weak spot is and what your flaws are. If situations in your family were resolved by throwing plates and pulling one another’s hair, that is what you will want to do in human relationships as well, and in your leadership. You have to know your family history, how it affects you, how it predisposes you to react in a certain way in given situations, and then take two aspirins as soon as the moment comes when you want to do that very thing, so that you can restrain yourself. And while the situation is unfolding, you have to be thinking about that.

This is part, I say here, of observing one’s environment. And it is also part of knowing oneself—our insecurities and tendencies. I add here in my own notes: this is an extremely important skill. It concerns the ability to step outside oneself and detach from oneself; that is what I am talking about here. It is almost a kind of schizophrenic ability: you separate and divide yourself, and you can observe yourself while participating.

And finally, I add that we cannot achieve this completely. No one will be able to be one hundred percent lucid and perfectly capable of seeing themselves, but one can improve greatly. It requires practice and an awareness that doing this is important.

Okay, wow, there are many left, so I am going to remain faithful to my intention to finish. I am going to exercise self-control, lucidity, awareness of my environment, awareness of my tendency to talk too much, empathy as well, and a whole host of things we have already talked about, and I am going to end here.