Video Transcript: Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership

Well, I'm glad you stuck with me after that last session, a little bit humbling there. And  hopefully you've had a chance to be with God enough so that you can sense that dark side  where it is in you, and start building the the defenses against it. That's really what I want to  talk about today, you'll notice the title of this session is overcoming the dark side, you see,  you won't be able to accomplish your calling as a leader, if the dark side wins out. Now, thank God, I didn't say this last time, but I should say it again, you know, if there's anything about  God that we know is that he's a God of grace. And he's a God of goodness, and he wants good for you. He wants good for me. And so we find people in Scripture who failed and gave into  the dark side at various times, and yet, God continued to use them. You got Moses, who was a murderer, who murdered the Egyptian and cold blood, or you've got David who was an  adulterer, and yet he's restored to kingship. And he's held up as a model of what it means to  be a king. These kind of people, Abraham lying about his sister, or his wife, saying, you know,  she's my sister, all those kind of people in Scripture are flawed human beings, because every  human being is flawed. And yet God through His grace continued to love them, continue to  use them as leaders in his kingdom. And so whatever your dark side situation, you know, that  God can continue to use you. But what I want to talk about in this session is just some keys or steps in that really steps but some keys to overcoming it. How do you overcome that dark  side? What are or in other words, what do you do about it? Well, the first thing to do about it, I guess, is acknowledge that you have one. Denial is a very important part of who we are in our dark side, we can we can push it away, we can pretend it's not there. And what happens then  is we you we get into this pretending mode, and that pretending mode can even infect  churches. And one of the most impactful books that I've read in my life is by a man named  John Fisher, who is a musician back in the 70s, became a church leader and author of several  different books, but he wrote a book called 12 Steps For The Recovering Pharisee. And then in parentheses, like me. And in that introduction, he says, you know, the church is full of  Pharisees. And what he says by that, he says, you know, it's the only organization that if you  want to become part of the church, you will have to admit that you're a sinner. I am a sinner, I have failed to live the way God has directed me to live, you got to admit that to become part  of the church, he says, but if you are part of the typical church in the United States, at least,  once you make that step, and you admit that and you say, I've received Jesus Christ  forgiveness for my sins, you go into this pretend Mode, that you never sin again, so much. So  he says in the book says that when sin does crop up in a church, when somebody is  acknowledged to have done a public sin, that people are aghast by how horrible can this be?  And so he says, step number one, and the 12 Steps of Overcoming the Pharisee. And as he  says, is to acknowledge that we like to judge people, we like to judge people, if we can judge  people, put people below us, in some sense, then we can feel better about ourselves. And as  a result, we get into this denial thing of well, we wouldn't do that. We're not like that. And so  the first step of overcoming the dark side in your life is acknowledging that you have it maybe even defining where it is and where it manifests itself in you. You know, are you somebody  who is addicted to drugs? How did that begin? Are you somebody who's hooked on  pornography? Are you willing to admit that to yourself beginning to God, certainly he already  knows all of that. Where does your dark side manifest itself? Are you greedy? Are you a liar?  You know that you tend to tend to take stories and blow them up even bigger when they  make you look good? And then, you know, tread on that line of what's truth or what's untruth? Where is your dark side, acknowledge that you have one? Then honestly, examine your past.  Your family of origin, has a lot to do with how you developed your dark side. Again, we all  have one, but your family of origin can contribute to making it worse or something making it  better by God's grace. Last time, I showed you the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And so where in that area did you lack something? Was it in the physiological, you know, some people who  are very, very successful in our world today, were made so because they became driven  people for the wrong reasons. They were poor. And they resolved that they were not going to  live that way as as as an adult. And so they are driving themselves, even become  workaholics, because they don't want to ever go back to that point. It's a hole in their life at  the physiological level. Many years ago, the advice of a counselor I read a book called We Are  Driven. And there's three reasons why somebody is driven to succeed in life, at least 

materially. And number one is that you you lived in poverty, or you lived a deprived life. And  so you decided you're driven not to have that, again, another driven type is where you had  very successful parents. And as a result, you're always trying to, to live up to that  expectation, or you're trying to exceed what they did. And so you become driven, or that  there was a special need within the family, like a sick person, that was somebody that the  whole family had to kind of rally around, that became an identity that can create a driven  person, where, are those things that drive you, in this pyramid, like you say, it could be driven to material success, because of a physiological situation, you could be driven to material  success, because of security, there's something missing in that area of love and belonging,  where you know, that you have been unconditionally loved, and then launched into the world, as somebody who's been unconditionally loved that's going to leave a gap in you, and you're  going to seek to fulfill that gap and or will be tempted to fulfill that gap in inappropriate ways. So is there a gap there for you? And what about the self esteem? Have you experienced some level of success in your life? And And as you've been launched as a as a student, where your  where your works as a student praised when you did something? Well? Or was it always  criticism that was given you? When you did something in your home? Was it praise that you  received? Or was it always criticism? Was it always the cut down? Is that an area where you  are lacking? Or is in the self actualization area that you've tried things and you failed, and you failed, and you failed, and you failed? You've been fired from jobs and, and as a result, you're  just that acceptance of others, and respect of others is lacking. So where is it where in this,  examine your past, look at your past, honestly, and try to identify where those holes are now,  you may need you may need the help of a counselor to do that. Well, I thank God for a couple  of them in my life. The men who were able to help me look at myself in ways I've never  looked at myself before, and understand how I became who I became, as I sought to  understand what had happened to me, and also build into my life appropriate ways of  experiencing acceptance. And so I thank God for men today, who are in my life, who provide  some of those areas where I've got a gap, a hole, and they are able to help me see that and  help me fill that because I know that I am loved by these men, they tell me that and they tell  me that, uh, regularly. So where is it for you, if you need a counselor, get one, it will be well  worth the the investment you make in that regard. And you know, many churches have a  practice and many organizations have a practice where they will help pay for that. And so I  just want to encourage that. But take an honest look at your past and how it may have  affected you. Resist the poison of unrealistic expectations. Now, you know studies on clergy in the United States have indicated that many of us are people pleasers. I'm not the only one.  Many of us need the approval of people. And so we go into ministry for approval, and then we  find that the expectations are just huge. And we begin to realize we can't meet them. I'm  reading from a survey that was recently done, extensive survey of pastors in the United  States. 72% of pastors in the United States report working between 55 to 75 hours per week.  Can you imagine 84% of pastors feel they're on call. 24/7 65% of pastors feel their family lives in a glass house and fear they are not good enough to meet other people's expectations 65%  78% of pastors report having their vacation and personal time interrupted with ministry duties or expectations. In other words, you're you're on vacation and you get a call that somebody in the church died and you've got to come home right away. 65% of pastors feel they have not  taken enough vacation time with their family over the last five years. You can't go away  because you're so needed you can't take that break. 28% of pastors report having good  feelings of guilt for taking personal time off and not telling the church 35% of pastors report  the demands of church denies them from spending time with their family. 66% of church  members expect a minister and family to live at a higher moral standard than themselves.  That's always a fascinating one as far as expectations. 75% of pastors report significant stress related crises at least once in their ministry. 52% of pastors feel overworked and cannot meet  their church's unrealistic expectations. 54% of pastors find the role of Pastor overwhelming  35% of pastors battled depression, or fear of inadequacy. 81% of pastors have been tempted  to have inappropriate sexual thoughts or behavior with someone in the church but have  resisted, and wow. And here's just a couple more 30% of churches have no documentation  clearly outlining what the church expects of the pastor. And so it's anybody, anybody who 

wants to it's a legitimate request. And then the last one, one out of every 10 pastors will  actually retire as a pastor in the United States, one out of 10. I see that my graduating class  from the seminary many years ago, people are dropping out of ministry. And those kind of  stresses are the reasons why. And so we have to resist the poison of unrealistic expectation,  we have to realize that everybody else's crisis crisis doesn't have to be ours. You know, I had  to learn that that just because somebody called me and their family was in an uproar over  this at another hand doesn't mean that that was my crisis that I believe what my family was  doing. At that time. It meant that I had to practice carefully and and faithfully. What Peter  Wagner said was once was a daily diversion, I've got to have been diverted from my  responsibilities daily, a weekly withdrawal, that there are a time I spend away, and then an  annual abandonment where I spend enough time away that I get away from Ministry enough  to be renewed and refreshed. How do you do this? Well, this passage has become one of my  favorites, Paul's writing here to Corinth. Now if you know the background to Paul's letter to the two letters to the Corinthians, you know that he did not have the greatest relationship with  the people in Corinth. He started the church there things were going great. And then people  began to criticize him as not an apostle others came in said, they should be following a  different path and what Paul and set out for them. And he writes, defending himself, but this  passage here is one that catches my attention when it comes to unrealistic expectation. He  says this, then is how you ought to regard us first as servants of Christ. That's a good image  to have for yourself in fact the word servant. Here is an interesting one. In the original  language of the New Testament, the language of Greek, there are different words that can be  translated as servant into English. The most common one is doulos which describes you know, somebody who's like a slave in your house. This one is a little different than that. It's only  used one other time in the New Testament, and they're used in the book of Acts. When Paul  and Barnabas take off on their missionary journey they take John Mark relative of Barnabas  along and it says that John Mark is this person now it's not often translate in Acts as servant  but he's a servant to them. In other words, he's there to take care of you know, making sure  lodging at the next city is taken care of, he's made sure that the boat tickets are in place, he's he was taking care of the details to serve a Paul and Barnabas the, the picture that helps me  in this is the basic meaning of the word, it can mean under rower. Now, in order to understand that you have to get in your mind the picture of a ship back then maybe a ship that was ready to go to war, right? And you remember that they've got these various levels, but the bottom  level of the ship is this set of oars that go to row the ship. And if you went down into that, if  you've seen movies by like Ben Hur, and that sort of thing. If you go down into the bowels of  the ship, here are these different people, usually slaves who have an oar that they hold, and  they are responsible for pulling on that oar. And they don't decide whether they're going to  you know, do a turn or they're going this direction or that direction that's made higher than  them that's made by the captain of the ship? They don't decide when they have to go fast or  when they have to go slow. They are the ones who are obeying orders or following the  leadership of those above them. Well, it's that kind of picture that's in this word of being  under rower, that my role in the leadership that God has given me is that I am an under  rower. I'm, I'm not God. I'm the one who's down there, taking my oar and rowing. And so I  understand that this is my responsibility. And I asked other people to regard me that way. And  what this means is I can't compare myself to somebody else. You know, that's a that's a great  thing. In among ministries, and ministers, and clergy, and church staff, and people who lead  various nonprofit organizations, and, and even in corporations, there'll be this comparison, the thing that happens when people meet, and the comparison is kind of like establishing a  pecking order. You know, that, that? If you put 10 chickens together in a pen, pretty soon,  they'll have a pecking order by pecking each other decide who's who's on the top here. And  who's next? Who's next? Who's next? Who's next? And who's on the bottom, the person who  gets pecked the chicken that gets pecked by everybody? Well, there's something like that  happens in public meetings where people start comparing each other. And so you know, what, well, how big is your church? How many people are attending? You know, what's your what's  your budget? How much money do you deal with? Those kinds of things have compared Well,  I can't compare myself to anybody else. Because I've, I've got my oar. That's the one that I 

employ, somebody else is got a different oar. And my job is not to say, Well, my oars more  important than yours, because it's all under the leadership of the captain. And so I get this  image of myself, that says, when it comes to people's expectation that I'm doing the oaring  the rowing that I have to do, and I'm going to define that, what is my, my calling my mission,  that's why I had you look at your mission, a couple of sessions ago. So first of all, we are to  look at ourselves as servants as the under rower of Jesus Christ. And as those entrusted with  the mysteries God has revealed. Now mysteries is a wonderful word in English. It draws to  mind a mystery novels, I love to read mystery novels, one of my favorites years ago was  Agatha Christie, and, you know, Murder on The River on the River Nile, or the Orient Express  what happens in chapter one is one of the people a group of people are on this train or on this boat, and one of them is dead at the end of chapter one. And you think you know who it is  because there have been a few clues. But then at the end of chapter two, the person you  thought of did the murder is murdered themselves. And so eventually, there are a group of  clues that build until finally the mystery is revealed at the end, who the murderer was? Well,  that's one way to think of mystery. And then you would say, Well, you know, Paul's dealing out these little facts, that someday hopefully, they'll come to understanding Well, that's not  what's going on is what he's talking about here. As far as how you view yourself. You're a  steward of the mysteries, this is more like a lodge. You know, my understanding, I'm not a  Mason, but my understanding is that Masons have secrets. And you don't know those secrets.  Those of us who are outside are not given insight into those secrets until you join. And once  you joined, and you've made the commitment, then you are given all the secrets. Well, that's  the way Paul is using it here. He says, I'm a servant, but I've been entrusted with this great  mystery. He defines it elsewhere, as the God building a church of building an amazingly with  Jews and Gentiles together. And this incredible story of grace, that is not how you perform  that makes God loves you. But it's simply the gift of His grace and His mercy to you that that  create his love in you. That's an incredible mystery. And he says that what's required that  those that have been given a trust must prove faithful. In other words, he's seeking to prove  faithful as he rose, as he's a steward of this mystery. He's been given this message to give out to other people. And he's been given this charge to build churches, various places. But then  he says, I care very little, if I'm judged by you, or by any human court. Indeed, I do not even  judge myself. That's where I think we've got to try to strive for that we don't judge ourselves  by other people's expectations. And we don't always try to meet those expectations. Now we  have to determine which expectations are legitimate, and which aren't. I can't solve  everybody's problem, especially as the church grows or a ministry grows or organization  grows, you as a leader are going to be able to solve fewer and fewer problems than we did  and eventually go just where I find that with Moses. Right. We looked at Moses as a leader  way back early on in the series of classes. And that wonderful time with Jethro his father in  law comes along and says, you know, you're not doing good. Moses was listening to every  case, every complaint, every problem said you got to divide this up and and ship it out to  other people. And Moses created a wonderful organization that allowed the people to move  forward effectively toward the promised land. So you've got to fight this unrealistic  expectations. Resist the poison of it. It's going to come after you, especially if you're a people  pleaser resist it. Fourthly, develop spiritual disciplines in your life. Prayer is important. A  prayer can be a real weakness for pastors. Interestingly enough. In a study that was done of  pastor's several years ago now, they found that pastors pray on the average seven minutes  per day. Now we're so busy, right? And we get up in the morning and we're running and we  get a telephone call in the middle of night, we're just sometimes too busy to pray. too busy to  take the time out to connect with the captain, the one who's our leader, the one is the  shepherd who we shepherds follow. A prayer is an important discipline to develop Bible study, important discipline not so you can make sermons. But so that you can hear yourself, I  developed in one stage of my life and trying to increase my spiritual disciplines, I've  developed a process identified several preachers that I like to listen to, because they were so  much unlike me, I wasn't going to use their stuff in sermons, but I would listen to them  because it would feed my soul. And so I would spend time in silence and solitude. It's another  spiritual discipline, I spend a day where I would go out to a monastery right near where, 

where I live here. And I'd spend a morning or a day, just alone, just spending time with God.  And part of that day, I would set aside just to listen to a message or two and reflect on what it means for me, recently had the wonderful gift of spending a week by myself. Just spending  the days out hiking in the woods, walking by the river, just spending time letting my soul be  restored spiritual disciplines. Now there are others journaling, meditation, spending time to  actually think through things under God's guidance and, and learning what Christian  meditation is, it's gotten a bad, bad rap because of Eastern religions and their form of  meditation. But meditation is a is a scriptural principle. We read enough about Isaac in the Old Testament in the book of Genesis that He went out to the field in the evening to meditate, to  think through things to think through his relationship with God, the more of these that you  practice, the more effective you're going to be in overcoming the dark side. Now, silence and  solitude, I have one man who is my accountability partner, and he knows every, every weak  part of my soul. I share with him almost everything. He is my spiritual partner. And that's  another step to have one or two, maybe three people with whom you're honest, maybe a  group of people, some people are doing it in accountability groups now, where they come  together, and they share and they pray for each other. But he's my partner, I was talking to  him at one point about silence and solitude, because that's a difficult thing for me, I tend to  be more on the extroverted side of the scale, as I shared before, and so I like to be around  people, and I process things verbally. And so I like to talk with people and so to spend time in  silence and solitude can be a challenge for me. But my good friend, one time, as we were  talking about his discipline in that was saying, you know, except every good idea I've had  over the last 10 years, and he's a powerful leader said came out of a time of silence and  solitude where he took one day per month, just to go out and spend six to eight hours a  walking with the Bible with maybe a good book to read, but that he was withdrawing from the tension and the stress of his job in the world, in order to listen to God again. So, so disciplines, but partners. Book of James says that right? Chapter Five, confess your sins to one another,  that you may be healed. You know, we can become the spiritual Pharisees in your church and  in mine, where we, we believe or pretend that nobody has problems with sin. And there's  something about sharing it, taking it out of the darkness and bring it to the light with  somebody else. That takes away the power of sin. And so developing some spiritual partners,  people with whom you can share yourself, share the things you are struggling with people  with whom you develop a trust level to know that they're going to love you, and they're going  to help fill some of those need things in your life. But but you can tell them anything and that  you can have them praying for you about areas where you want to be held accountable, that  you can identify areas where you want to be held accountable. The miracle of Alcoholics  Anonymous is that it took people bonding together, the the founders of Alcoholics  Anonymous, recognize that reality that on their own, they weren't able to conquer this thing  in their life. When they together, bonded to each other, help each other, we're available to  each other in a moment of need. miraculous things happen as far as their recovery. And they  began to share that now spread all over the world. It all begins with this idea, there are some  people who are for you, they're in your corner, you can share with them, and you know that  they will receive you, they won't judge you, but will continue to hold you accountable, where  you need to be held accountable, and will encourage you in the good thing. So spiritual  partners, an important part of overcoming the dark side. And then aim in your life for  humility, transparency, truth telling, humility, first of all, when people want to praise you to be able to say, hey, you know, To God be the glory. pedestals are tough for church leaders and in  the world. Because the bigger the pedestal, the higher you people put you, and people will  want to put you on a pedestal, because we have a need for heroes somehow in our in our  world. And we do that with movie stars, we do it with musicians, and we do it with church  leaders, too. We've put them on these huge pedestals as if they are better than we are that  they don't have a dark side that they are these marvelous, effective people. And, you know, I  know from some experience, that falling off a pedestal is very painful, and very difficult. And  so one of the things I'm aiming for in my life is a humility that acknowledges that, you know,  I'm a sinner saved by grace, I, I am somebody who is nobody, without Jesus Christ in my life,  transparency. I don't hide that I'm a sinner anymore. I'm willing to tell you part of my story. 

Just because I, apart from the grace of God, I'm nothing. And to get to transparency, to be  able to tell some people to be open to people and not let them put you on the pedestal and  tell the truth to other people, and yourself. Yeah, dark side is a tough thing. This closing  passage from I Corinthians 10. Paul is talking about temptation, obviously, he says, so if you  think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. No temptation has overtaken you  except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted  beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that  you can endure it. The center of that passage is when you are tempted. He's going to provide  the way out. Now you have to take the way and you can build in your life. Marvelous  protections that allow you to go on and serve God powerfully. Even if you fail. It takes time to  restore trust in people that takes time to restore. The levels of leadership that will allow  people will allow you to take in authority will allow you to take, there will be setbacks at  times. But overall, I has you conquer the dark side, you'll become a much more effective  leader. Oh, friend of mine is an alcoholic. And was that for many years, he came to Christ  because He was one day in a snowstorm his car died. And he was homeless at the time. His  wife had kicked him out. He had nothing. And he ended up walking the snow to a little tiny  town that was just off the freeway where his car broken down. And he ended up at the post  office knocked on the door. And a woman came out and said, Well, you look terrible. And he  said, Well, I need to call somebody to get my car I am trying to get to is trying to get to a  mission in a nearby town. And this woman said, you know, I think you need this and gave him  a little book that was just the promises of God. And that started him on a path toward  conquering alcoholism, he says, never conquered there every day. But he faces it every day.  And he has become a leader in the church and in the business world where he's thriving.It can happen. It can happen that we become people who don't pretend anymore, but are willing to  call God's people to transparency with each other. And so that we're not Pharisees, but we're  all growing together as people who are all broken somewhere. Some Where we're all broken.  But by God's grace, he's taking us. And he's instating us in places where the kingdom can  grow and needs, our gifts, and our learning and our ability. And so I want to encourage you, I  want to encourage you. As we're going to be moving on now to culture, I want to encourage  you to get connected to your dark side in a way that you understand it. And you put these  kinds of things into practice. So that doesn't do you in. There's a principle in warfare, as long  back as the Civil War became obvious, but it was noticed before that, and that is, if you're  going to be an effective of a battler, what you should do when you're got your army over here and their army is over here is you don't just shoot indiscriminately, you're trying to shoot at  the leaders, the officers on the other side, in the civil war in the United States, that became  very obvious. And so officers often, you know, ride back and forth on horses, and these  became target practice for some of these people on the other side, because, you know, they,  they knew that if you could shoot the officers, the leaders, you would have a greater impact  that would lead to victory. Because these people, then the soldiers, the general run of the mill soldier would be leaderless so they wouldn't know where they were going or how they would  get there. And as a result, you had a greater chance of victory. Well know that the enemy  desires to take down leaders because it will have a greater impact for victory for his side. And  so calling on the name of Jesus Christ, to know him well, and to know yourself well, so that  you are victorious. And the glory will be to God one day for what he does in you and through  you