The Plight of Wanderers
Jun 02
“You’re either a leader or you’re a follower.” I don’t think that’s a true statement. I think it’s possible to be neither: that makes you a wanderer.
Part of the frustration of leading others is trying to lead them, but they refuse to follow along. As a leader, you are always aware that you could be doing a better job leading. So when others don’t follow, it often confirms that you should be doing a better job. “If only I was a better leader, then I would see better results.”
I think there’s a lot of truth to that. After all, in my “profession,” there are many pastors who I perceive to be much better leaders than myself, and in all cases, they are able to develop maturer (is that a word?) disciples of Christ than I see myself doing. I have a lot to learn about how to lead people along in their walk with Christ.
But on the flip side of the coin, I don’t think it’s always the fault of the leader that others won’t follow. It doesn’t only require a great leader, but willing followers. And sometimes, a leader cannot do anything more to help followers who refuse to follow.
And if followers refuse to follow, can they even claim to be followers? That is the question for those of us who call ourselves Christians–followers of Jesus. Are we following Jesus? If not, not only can we not call ourselves leaders, we can’t even call ourselves followers! We are wanderers.
Churches feel obligated to have some sort of follow-up plan in place when people make decisions for Christ. Yet, I stumbled across these words from the late Keith Green a few days ago:
In my studies of the life of Jesus, it has amazed me that He never had “a follow-up program.” It was usually His habit to let people “follow Him up.” He never had to go door to door, looking for that fellow who He healed last week, wanting to share another parable or two. He always seemed to have the attitude of, “If they want life, then they’ll have to come and follow Me.”
What if we had more of that approach in churches? This puts more of the responsibility on the follower than the leader. Should it be the leader’s job to try to get people to go a certain direction? Sometimes I feel this is a futile cause. If someone wants to follow, they will. If they don’t, they won’t.
My fear is this: if we took this approach, how many would follow? It seems to me that so many people need leaders to not only hold their hands, but also pull them along. Otherwise, very few people will get involved or move ahead. I don’t think there are many followers out there–most of us are wanderers.
I even look at my own life with Jesus: I feel like I wander more than I follow.
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, O take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.”
Is it worth the energy to try to get people to move forward in their faith when it seems like it takes so much just to see them budge a little? Or should we take more of a hands-off approach like Jesus did with the crowds that “followed” Him?
What’s a leader to do with wanderers?
Hmm. Are you writing from actual experience or purely hypothetically? What is it that you are actually looking for your “followers” to do? Are you communicating it clearly? How would you determine whether or not they are actually “following?” Are you considering absolutely everything Jesus might ask them to do in their lives? What would the initiative you’d want them to take look like? I have to admit I haven’t really seen discipleship modeled a lot, so I’m not very confident that whatever assumptions I have about it are correct.
Another thought is that after Jesus spent three years with his disciples, by the end of it, there isn’t much indication that they really grew a lot. They were asking the same dumb questions even after He rose from the dead. Might have looked very discouraging. But yet it all clicked at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit showed up. How do you really know even if you aren’t seeing visible fruit that there isn’t any?
From personal experience, of course! This is true no matter where one goes. I have seen it in youth ministry and in church ministry at large. There are quite a few people who regularly choose not to follow. It doesn’t matter what the church offers or discerns, many people simply will not go there. Of course, there are also always those who do. My question is what to do about those who don’t. It’s my natural inclination to worry about how to get them “onboard,” but my gut tells me it is better to expend one’s energy on those who are willing to follow and not worry so much about the others. That seems to me to be the way Jesus operated. I think you are right about the Holy Spirit being the difference-changer in all of this.
I get what you’re saying now, and you raise a really good point. My experience in various types of Christian ministry has often been that because I’m stable and don’t cause trouble–not argumentative or regularly having a major crisis–I’m the one no one needs to worry about. Instead, a lot of the ministry energy and attention have gone towards either appeasing those who do argue/complain as well as helping those in crisis, including a few who seemed to chronically be in crisis and drained everyone’s resources. I’d never really questioned that mode other than at times struggled with resentment over it.
A major notable exception to that experience took place while I was a teenager. A youth motivational speaker came and spoke at my high school and actually spoke about God being real and all that (took flack from the local newspaper over it too). He had a follow up talk at a local church which I attended. After the speech I got talking to someone in the back who invited me to add my name and phone number to the list (in case I was hurting and needed to talk to someone).
I got a call a few days later from a guy named Dan. I quickly explained that I’d been a Christian my entire life and didn’t have any major problems–good family, all that, but that I wanted to know more about how to stand up for my faith in my public high school. I was totally expecting Dan to figure out that I wasn’t a “hurting teen” and end the conversation and move on to someone who really needed to be ministered to. Instead Dan got very excited, told me it was very encouraging to hear that I am already following God, that he had some ideas about how I could stand up for Jesus in my high school and could he and his friend Jeanne come over to my house?
They did and talked to me and my parents about how they really wanted to start a Bible study group in my school but needed a student to actually initiate and lead it. Would I be interested? They would provide me with whatever training I needed and support the effort.
I was interested and they worked with me and the other interested students. I said I didn’t have much experience with discipleship, but actually Dan and Jeanne, and later Barry the youth pastor who was hired at their church, did exactly what a disciplemaker should do. They took an interest in my life, prayed with me, taught me how to better study and apply Scripture, taught me how to be a leader at my school, and were there for me every step of the way (I could call any of them any time). Jeanne especially became someone I confided in about my walk with God and whatever personal issues were going on in my life. The Bible study lasted in my school for several years after I graduated (and I even trained some of the leaders who took my place).
I know that Dan, Jeanne and Barry did also spend time with teenagers who were in serious trouble and hurting, but looking back I realize how incredibly right it was that they made such an investment in me as a teen who was solid, stable, and on fire for Jesus. I think we were all able to reach more people as a result of establishing a Christian presence in the school than the adults would have if they’d just focused on the obviously needy.
So yes, I see what you are saying about maybe not expending so much energy in those who are sitting on the fence, unsure, or even opposed to the direction you feel God is leading. It’s not like you’re doing anything to them (judging, or excommunicating). It’s more that you’re going to be there when/if they’re ready, but not divert too much energy to forcing anything, and instead expend your energy into raising up those who are already on board. That sounds very wise.
I think it depends on the particular leader, the particular follower, and the particular path the Holy Spirit is leading the leader down.
Different leaders have different gifts and emphases. Paul had more of a “follow me” bent, while Barnabus went out of his way to pursue the unlikely candidates (including Paul, come to think of it). Keith Green is right that Jesus had no followup “program”, but he certainly did follow up in quite a few instances. He first asked Peter for help, and only in a followup conversation asked him to follow and become a fisher of men; He stopped in a crowd to find out who had touched him; He sought out a man he’d healed who had been born blind to warn him to stop sinning; and he went out of his way to interact with Zaccheus.
While Scripture doesn’t say that Jesus sought out crowds at the beginning, it does say he went and preached in synagogues and cities, where the people were. He didn’t just sit on a random rock and wait for crowds to gather. Later, of course, he could hardly get elbow room; however, that would happen to any leader who was regularly healing the sick and multiplying bread and fish. He wasn’t especially impressed with those “followers” seeking him out, when their main goal was to fill their bellies.
Then there are the particular followers. Just as we don’t expect a baby to imitate adults in the same way a teenager would, we don’t expect baby Christians to follow the leader in any but the most basic ways. Indeed, different giftings may cause them to part ways for a time, like Paul and Barnabus.
Finally, the particular path the Holy Spirit leads you down may be one that only a very few of your compatriots may even understand. It takes discernment to know with whom to share what, and accurate discernment only comes from the Holy Spirit.
So I guess my answer to your question about what to do with wanderers is “pray about it.” Which is probably the same answer I give to an awful lot of spiritual questions, and an approach I’ve still got a lot to learn about. Open mouth, spew assumptions is still my general approach. Listening first to the Holy Spirit is not one of my strong points.