In Judges Chapter five we have the song of Deborah and Barak. They sang it after the Canaanites had been defeated and Sisera had been killed by Jael with a tent-peg, awesome I know! The other awesome thing is how they began their song of rejoicing. I have included it below for reference.
Judges 5:1-5 (NASB)
1Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying,
2“That the leaders led in Israel, That the people volunteered, Bless the LORD!
3“Hear, O kings; give ear, O rulers! I–to the LORD, I will sing,
I will sing praise to the LORD, the God of Israel.
4“LORD, when You went out from Seir, When You marched from the field of Edom,
The earth quaked, the heavens also dripped,Even the clouds dripped water.
5“The mountains quaked at the presence of the LORD,
This Sinai, at the presence of the LORD, the God of Israel.
It would seem that the three things that excited Deborah and Barak the most was; the Leaders led, the people volunteered, and God Moved.
Today the people of this world need strong leaders who can not only lead, but do so with firm direction and integrity. Leading is not an easy task, you are often out in front where it is the most lonely, any decision you make will surely have its complainers, and it is the responsibility of the leader to navigate in the direction that is best. For the Christian leader this should always mean the way that God is leading us. God has already lead us into the truth by giving us the Bible. This word should be the firm direction on which we base our decisions. It is not always popular to stand on the word of God for truth and many leaders are standing on pop-psychology or sociological trends to find direction for their churches, but this attempt is wrong-headed. Gods word was, is, and always will be the only true guide for the way to lead.
The next thing was that the people volunteered. I read an article a while ago that said in todays American Church 20% of the people in any given congregation do 100% of the work. In my experiences this has been rather accurate. You always see the same people each time the doors are open doing way more tasks than they should be doing because there are not enough people volunteering to cover all that needs to be done. If each person would volunteer there is so much more that could be done, or rather the things we do could be done way better. There is another aspect to this whole people volunteering here. I think it also means that they voluntarily submitted themselves to the leaders who were leading. It is tough to lead if the people dont follow, and it is tough to follow if you dont submit to the leadership that you are supposed to be following. I am not saying that we should blindly follow anyones leadership, but we at all levels must submit to someones authority, if any thing is to be done. As God’s people we need to volunteer our time, money, resources, energy, abilities, and submission.
When we have a combination of leaders leading, and people volunteering, amazing things happen, like for instance, we get to see God move. God goes ahead of us and prepares the way for us as the church to do great things. I think much of what God wants to do for us is not done because of the lack of leadership, and the lack of service by the people. God has told us that he will strongly support the people whose hearts are fully his. As the church today, we can have reason to sing if only we will stand firm on the direction that God has given, and be willing to submit our whole selves to follow that leadership.
