14 Apr Sustaining Leadership

Leadership is influence, nothing more nothing less – John C Maxwell.

I. LEADERSHIP:
In UESI terms, leadership is impacting. Our mission statement comprises of soul winning, discipling and impacting the campus, church and the society. We can impact co students as long as we are students and impact colleagues in work places as graduates. We all have a small sphere of influence. Every student will have a close circle of two or three bench mates, room mates, class mates or friends in their neighborhood on whom he will have his influence. We can impact our peers with a smile in difficult circumstances and also difficult people. A graduate, senior student and two junior students will have their own influence among the micro cell members.

In the context of UESI, leadership is shared; not a one man show, not individual brilliance but team performance. Servant leadership; no bossing over. Successive leadership; no gaps in leadership. Successful leadership; God-intended success. Success is not becoming what we want to become, not doing what we want to do. Real success is doing what our Lord wants us to do and becoming what He wants us to become – in our personal life or ministry. It is not we doing the ministry, but He doing it through us. He will not work through us till we permit Him to work in us. Success without a successor is a failure. If the ministry is going on as long as we are there, it is our ministry, not the Lord’s ministry. If it is the Lord’s ministry, whether we are present or not, the ministry will continue through our successors. Joshua succeeded Moses, Elisha succeeded Elijah, Timothy succeeded Paul. 660 EUs have the same story of successive leadership. Our constituency displayed phenomenal resilience not only in retaining the existing taskforce during the Covid crisis but also in regaining the lost ground after the crisis. We work among college and university students who are constantly on the move. They will be with us for one or two years only, after accepting the Lord. By the time we see some maturity in a student, he moves out of the college and our reach. We need God’s help during this transition from accepting the Lord to be added to the fellowship and also in the transition from EU to EGF.

II. SUSTAINING IT:
Sustaining shared, servant, successive and successful leadership for generations especially among the cream of the society, college and university students, is definitely a spiritual warfare. The Bible frequently uses the images of war to depict the Christian life. Leading a victorious life itself is a battle. According to the biblical leadership specialist Apostle Paul, we need to do three things – Know our enemy,
Use the full armour provided by God and
Depend on the energy that God provides – to stand and fight against the evil one. Eph. 6:10,11. Take a stand, Stand firm, Fight a good fight!

1. Knowledge of our enemy: Eph 6:12,13
We need to know the enemy and his strategies and tactics so that we can fight him intelligently. He will use health issues for our children, financial crunches, failures, unreasonable boss, conflicts in family etc. to discourage and divert us from the God-given task. People in the leadership – may be at the board level or at the Micro Prayer Cell level, are in the frontline and susceptible to his attack. We are fighting against the rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world and spiritual forces of evil, Eph 6: 12. Our enemy is stronger than us but our Lord is stronger and greater than our enemy, I Jn 4:4. Let us not be frightened by seeing the one before us, but get strengthened by seeing the One behind us. His presence is with us to protect us and to provide the needed resources.

2. Wearing the full armour of God:
‘The finest armour is wasted on the soldier who has no will to fight’ – Geoffrey Wilson. Our Lord has provided the full armour for our defense and also for offense. It is vital that we wear all the pieces of the armour God has given us and not just some. If we don’t use the whole equipment, then Satan will attack us at some unguarded place. Great men of God fell in the areas of their greatest strength. Ex: the meekest man on the face of the earth, Moses, lost his temper.

The Girdle of Truth: It represents a life and mind that is pulled together and ready to serve for the glory of God. Speak the truth in love in order to become like Christ, Eph 4:21

The Breastplate of Righteousness: One of Satan’s greatest weapon is false accusation. Whether these accusations are coming from other people, from our circumstances or from within ourselves, we need to remember that Satan has instigated them and that we have the breastplate of righteousness to defend ourselves against his attacks.

Shoes of the Gospel of Peace: Christians need the firm footing that comes from standing on the gospel of peace in order to keep their balance as they fight Satan.
The Shield of Faith: Our enemy fires a round of problems at us (sickness, financial loss, broken relationships) and he hits with his emotional darts of anger, fear, doubt, depression or self-pity. But the Lord has given us a shield to ward off these flaming arrows.

The Helmet of Salvation: The enemy is continually using his weapons of division, deception, doubt and discouragement against us, using our mind. When we believe God’s truth, the devil can’t deceive us. One day we will have the privilege of trading in our helmet for a crown – Warren Wiersbe.
Sword of the Spirit – Word of God: It is one of our choicest weapons in defeating Satan. We must use the sword of the Spirit in conjunction with the other provisions the Lord has given us for victory. Unless we are wearing the whole armour, the sword will not be effective.

3. RELIANCE on GOD:
Pray in the Spirit on all occasions. . . all kinds of prayers. . . always. . . for all the Lord’s people, Eph- 6:18. ‘Trust in Me. . . Do what I say. . . You will succeed,’ Josh 1:1-9. Dependence. . . Obedience. . . Success. If we are obedient to the Will of God revealed in the Word of God and depend on the Spirit of God, we will be successful – in God’s terms, Neh. 2:20. Ours is a God-initiated, God-ordained, God-dependent and God-enabled movement. Our forefathers and forerunners were dependent on God alone (Ps 62:1) and God always (Ps 62:8) for their victorious life and ministry. Our confidence and competence comes from God, II Cor. 3:4,5. There is a faithful remnant who still depend on God alone and always for everything. But we seldom see such a thing in the recent times. Our strength is not the number of students or graduates attending ICEU Bible study or EGF Bible study, but the number attending monthly prayer meets and the intensity with which we pray. If the number of people attending local dawn prayers, every first Saturday stewards prayers, every Wednesday Evangelism cell prayers for all students, every last Friday FAD prayer for finances is the criteria for our dependence on God, it is alarming. UESI is developed on the knees of our fore fathers like Enochs, Sterrettes, Chandapillas, Sathkeerthis and many more. Can we be today’s Enochs and Sterretts building UESI by spending our precious time in the presence of God kneeling for our movement? May the Lord help us not only to recognize the importance of prayer but also to become prayer warriors like our forefathers and fore runners who utilized the armour provided by God in sustaining the leadership and brought glory to God!

Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power, Eph 6:10.

John Victor Nehru, is a retired Bank Manager of Syndicate Bank. He lives in Kurnool Town of Andhra Pradesh. He has been associated with EU & EGF ministry for the last 48 Years. He was an EU Student at Bapatla & Varanasi and presently an active member at the EGF, Kurnool. He is married to Sandhya Grace and they are blessed with daughter Dr. Jane and son-in-law Dr. Kamalakar and they are active graduates of Kotagiri EGF.