Leading with a Limp

…one of the books I have on the go at the moment. I remember Spike Milligan describing some unfortunate fellow like this: "he walked with a pronounced limp, l - i - m - p, pronounced 'limp'." It was the title, I had to get it. Here's what the leadership limp is: 

Here is God's leadership model: he chooses fools to live foolishly in order to reveal the economy of heaven, which reverses and inverts the wisdom of this world. He calls us to brokenness, not performance; to relationships, not commotion; to grace, not success. (Dan B Allender, Leading with a Limp: Take Full Advantage of Your Most Powerful Weakness (Waterbrook Press, 2006) p55) 

I have to confess that I thought I should be a non-limping, successful, church-growing leader when I was ordained. Almost twenty years on I find that, rather than a "Paul-ish" transformational leader kind of guy, I'm more like one of the guys he left behind to look after things in one of those places we never hear of. I'm more the "quiet man who lives in tents" (Gen 25.27), than I am the hairier, nail-'em-and-bring-'em-in kind of guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. 

There's been a fair amount of "limpidity" in my leading, methinks.