Followership Is Harder to Teach than Leadership

In our Wednesday morning Bible study, we were in Judges 4-5 this week.  Deborah is the main character while Jael comes up with a surprising supporting role with that nailpeg-to-his-temple gig at the end of the story.  Pretty powerful reading not for the faint at heart!

The biggest challenge I face as a parent is not teaching leadership, but followership.  Leadership is a gift of God. I believe it is a gift bestowed on certain individuals.  Taught correctly, these men and women learn to use their gift to empower, inspire and act in bold ways.  This is a challenge because your own child's natural humility, coupled with the enemy's voices of self-doubt, keep leaders from leading effectively.  Also, when a leader misuses his/her leadership gift, they will simply micro-manage or worse, lord their leadership over their followers.  Leaders who don't use their gift at all or those who abuse it are both tragically more evident in this world than we'd like to see.  But often times then "leaders" rise up because the followers won't do their part.  Or worse, those leaders never really learned to be good followers.

Followership is more than just some sort of mindless activity of "follow the leader" because that's what we're supposed to do.  Followership is also seen abused when followers decide that following their leader is purely a matter of their opinion and often that line of thinking is situational ("I'll decide tomorrow whether I think I'll do what she says.")  So when teaching children, young recruits, or newly converted, followers have to be taught how to do it right. 

• Even Jesus was a Follower - Deborah follows the Lord, speaking a word over Barak.  Yes, Barak is a follower, but Deborah clearly understands she is positioned to do God's work.  Deborah is a great leader of Barak because she first follows God. 
• Followers need Leaders - Barak offers this wimpy sounding excuse that is laughed at by every man reading this passage.  In talking to this woman who has challenged him to step out to fight the enemy, Barak limps to the plate, saying, "I'll go if you go with me.  But if you don't go, I ain't going."  We chuckle and declare how we'd never do that, but in fact, Barak does step out and go because Deborah steps forward.  Followers aren't leaders, so don't expect them to be.  Followers expect to follow.  But even then, followers need a push.
• Followership is not guaranteed the end of the story - this is the classic reason we have all slouched back and refused to obey God's call to something hard.  When asked to do something challenging, our first question is wondering how it's going to turn out at the end.  This expectation ("I'll follow if I know how it'll turn out") is a perversion and has to be corrected.  Followers who follow well follow based on faith in God.  Deborah points Barak in the right direction:  "has not the Lord gone ahead of you?"  As followers we need to be reminded that while the storyline is unclear, we clearly can trust God's gone before us.
• Followers need to be told to "GO" - Followers are naturally lazy, skeptical, disobedient and have to be pushed.  When a follower understands the command echoed throughout Scripture, action is expected.  But the church often does little to help, because we seem to encourage "STAYING" (or just coming and "attending church").  
• Followers are sometimes the Future Leaders - I don't think every follower is a leader, but if we are going to pass the baton to future generations, your next gen leader is among your group of followers right now.  Are you looking for them?  Are you training them already?  Don't wait to train your leader when your end is in sight.  Start looking for your replacement now.  Continuity and succession planning is intentional.  Start developing leaders today. 

image source: clker.com