THINGS WONDERFUL AND EXCITING

Years ago I had received a call to another church. It was an exciting time in my life as all new ventures are. It was also a little frightening as all new ventures are. We may know what we are in for but we really do not know all that we are in for. The job maybe the same; our responsibilities may be the same even if enlarged; but the people we will be working with are not the same. One never knows. All we can do is hope for the best and do our best.

While in that transition mode from moving to my present position to the next one, I received a copy of the newsletter from the parish I had been called to serve. The Associate Rector, who himself was moving, wrote a piece where he said that while he was getting in place in his new parish, the parish I was coming to would, in his words, “be breaking in a new Rector who will bring new things, things wonderful and exciting. Things neither you nor I could imagine or hope for will be yours.”

When I read those words, I almost choked, or rather wanted to choke him. But since he was there where I was going and I was still in place where I was, I picked up the phone and asked him what he was doing, setting me up, making me out to be a miracle worker: new and wonderful and exciting things! He merely laughed and laughed. Whether any or all of that was accomplished while I served as Rector is not for me to decide.

However, if, in fact, new and wonderful and exciting things happened while I served as Rector, it was not because of me. It was because of the people of the parish. They are the ones who made and continue to make things happen. One can be the best leader ever; but if there are no followers, nothing gets done. It is the followers, those who follow the leader, who make wonderful and exciting things happen.

That is true everywhere. Read the Bible: God chose wonderful leaders. But the success of the leaders depended not on their abilities alone but mostly on the willingness of those they were called to lead to, in fact, follow. When the people did, wonderful and exciting things happened. When they did not, disaster usually followed. The leader could do only so much.

We are all leaders and we are all followers. We all have responsibility over others if only to lead by example. When we are in a position of called leadership, we must do the best we can so that those who are to follow us will do so and so that wonderful and exciting things happen. And when we are in a position to follow that leader, we must do all we can to help make wonderful and exciting things happen. It is a joint venture.

Life is a joint venture. God call us to be leaders and followers. It does not matter which one we are in the present moment: leader or follower. If we do the best we can, use our God-given gifts as best we can, new and wonderful and exciting things will happen.