Learning To Be A Spiritual Grandfather 

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

2 Corinthians 4:7

 

In 1994/95 I made a decision. With the initiation of SCP and what is now called the global fellowship, I made this commitment to myself: to never start another organization. Instead I asked God for three things. 

 

One, to bring me in contact with 1,000 multinational men and women on whose shoulders HE would build the evangelization of their nation and beyond. 

 

Two, to grow me in the theological convictions necessary to see these people expand, grow and multiply the congregations of Jesus. So that no person on earth was out of geographical distance from a Jesus follower 

 

Three, to give me the emotional fortitude to release any type of organizational “control” of people. 

 

I desired to build this effort on two things. A deep seated conviction that God the Spirit had people everywhere He wanted us to envision and plant the seed. And, He would lead us to those indigenous people. 

 

What has happened?

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1. God has given me the privilege to have influenced many more than the 1,000 l had prayed for 

2. He has been faithful to drive me daily into His word and record what seems to me to be the most important elements to being the body of Christ distributed through out the world. Along the way, He helped me discipline my mind and my time to learn how to record these maturing convictions. 

3. To the best of my maturing abilities, I have daily fought the urges to be in control of something. As a result, the concept of a global fellowship of likeminded leaders that I first recorded in the late 90’s has come into being. It represents more than 60 nations and fosters regular dialogue, strategizing and reciprocally sharing resources. All without the central control of a western organization. 

 

What have I learned?

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1. My best role in the world is most effective through other people who are indigenous to their place. 

2. My best contribution is to record as faithfully as possible, biblical thinking about the most important issues these people face in fulfilling the design of God for His church. 

3. My part in this is most evident to me when I hear about people in these indigenous places who I have never met but have been moved by the Holy Spirit and God’s word to embrace their envisioning and empowering role in their own context. And, a few other places well beyond their local or regional context. 

 

In the beginning I referred to myself as a father to other leaders. Preparation, writing, meeting, challenging and affirming. In most cases, we were in relationship on a regular basis, and I would do some of the talking to others. 

 

Today, nearer to the end of my life, I would call myself a grandfather. The relationships and the writing are still there. But, my role as observed by many, is so unobserved as to be apparently not existent. 

 

That is at is should be:

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1. God did the work and I was only a small piece of the pie. 

2. Others have clearly heard the voice of God in His word, the nature of their own faithfulness, and, have obeyed His sovereign place over and through them. 

3. The vision that God has for His people in His world, is going to pass from generation to generation. 

 

How do I feel about this?

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1. Ultimately that is irrelevant. If I am a graciously redeemed slave under the lordship of Jesus, I simply played a part in God’s sovereign designs. 

2. Early in the process, my “need to be matured naiveté,” could see how it could be achieved. Through the middle years it became more abundantly clear that none of us easily cooperates with God’s designs. As a result, what “could” be rarely turns out to be that easy. Today, I have a resurgent hope that those early desires to see the glory of God planted in the midst of every small geography of people, will happen. I will probably not be alive to see that happen. But, indigenous others whom we have been privileged to inspire and set upon the journey, will be used by God to finish what He has designed. 

 

What might this mean for you? 

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1. No matter what your role in the church, in life for that matter, it is best accomplished with and through other people. Our present dilemma with “lead” pastors and senior leadership concepts might be ok for the world, but it does not foster the priesthood concepts birthed in us who have been born again in Jesus Christ. Paul’s words to the Colossians is inspiring in this regard, “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” Colossians 1:28. Their maturity is our concern 

2. How well people whom you influence grow in all of God’s designs for them, both individually and corporately, is an appropriate measurement of our role with others. 

3. Working to get oneself out of the limelight is an important measure of one’s understanding of the words of Jesus. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

4. To spiritually father other people is to take an active relational role in helping them mature in God’s designs for the followers of Jesus. 

5. To spiritually grandfather other people is to purposefully take another step away from roles where people, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, are dependent upon us. The fullness of Jesus who is their lord, and, the comfort of the enabling presence of the Holy Spirit, has been supplanted by dependency upon someone else….us. 

 

The journey to grandfathering is not an easy one. All of our own needs for significance get in the way. While we readily understand the true nature of our significance in Jesus, for everything, learning to say no to the most natural self defining sense in us, takes a life time of daily embracing our significant insignificance. 

 

Much more on this important topic for the church and leadership, can be found in my book: Alone At the Top!