Working in harmony - as leaders

Did you peek at the title up there and think to yourself, "This post will have nothing to do with me!" Au contraire! This has to do with each one of us!
Seriously.
We may shy away from leadership. We may not want or have a title that includes it. But we have a Savior Who says, "Lead!" In John 21, Jesus tells Peter to feed and care for His sheep, and as followers of Jesus Christ, we should lead others to know Who He is and also share what He is doing in our lives.
Every believer is a leader, whether we are talking about being at home, with friends, or on the job.  Paul almost wrote a classified ad in Titus, and it applies to all of us. Take a moment and read Titus 1: 6-9 . . . he uses words that we should aspire to: blameless, faithful, not overbearing, not quick-tempered, self-controlled, holy, disciplined. Even being a good parent is mentioned! As individuals, spouses, parents, and friends, we have the responsibility to lead. We may not feel we are leaders. We may even look to the future about a position we wish we had. Instead, God calls us to be responsible for the job we already have -- showing the world Jesus by being like Him.

So, in a nutshell, we are all leaders, whether we feel like it or not! Seems like we should look into the scriptures to see how to lead, eh?
First, leaders don't feel they have to take all the credit. Nehemiah didn't want a huge sign over the main gate, or a bronze plaque that would read: The Nehemiah Memorial Wall. Instead, Nehemiah was committed to building the wall so that God's name would be exalted in Jerusalem, and additionally, so that His people would no longer be in reproach. He didn't need pats on the back, or congratulations. He didn't desire the admiration of others. Nehemiah knew that God would see his efforts. He was working because he wanted to hear "well done" from the Lord.

Remember me with favor, my God. (Nehemiah 13:31b)

Second, a leader needs to motivate people.  The Jews, the covenant people of Jehovah, had been back in the homeland for about ninety years, but the wall had not been built. Nehemiah comes on the scene and gets everybody fired up about the idea! They went to work and put up the wall in record-setting time, even with opposition to the work.
Motivation is key. We've all experienced this. I know a young person who first thought it would be great to have "group projects" in college. She found out that some of the participants were motivated and worked hard, while others were content to slide along on the work the others completed - not really contributing much to the effort. And haven't we all had a project or task that didn't get completed for a long time? We knew it needed to be done. We procrastinated. We made excuses. We were just not motivated. Then something changed. Maybe we suddenly saw the value in having the task done. Perhaps it was a deadline, like "clean the house before everyone arrives for Thanksgiving dinner." (Grin) Maybe it was more like, "I'm tired of seeing all those weeds in the yard, so I'm going to pull them and put down some mulch." Once we are motivated, the project gets finished fairly quickly!

What's difficult about motivating a group of people is that what is inspiring and "fires up" some will turn off others. Look at verse five:

And next to them the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles would not stoop to serve their Lord. (v 5)

Even Nehemiah, with his people skills, couldn't get the nobles (tribal leaders) of Tekoa to join the project! One wise, God-inspired way to motivate many of the people was to assign them to work on the portion of the wall that they had particular interest in: the priests worked on the Sheep Gate, where the people would bring in sacrifices to the temple. Others (verses 20, 23, 28-30) repaired the wall in front of their own homes -- that's a real incentive to do a good job!

When you read chapter three, are you impressed as I am, that Nehemiah had a smooth operation going here? He had done some extensive planning and organizing. Good leaders do that.
Nehemiah had figured out in advance how to go about this huge task. He broke the project down into manageable units. He then assigned the available workers to those units and worked it out so that they coordinated with each other. Everything fit together because of planning and prayer. We saw last week that prayer and planning are not mutually exclusive! As long as we don't rely more on our own plans than on our Father, there's nothing wrong with plans and organization. We should remember to be flexible, though, and adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of the people involved. The body of Christ can be compared to a living organism, and I remember just enough of my college biology to know that living organisms are highly organized (whether the secular world likes it or not, the complex processes of living things point directly at the intelligent design of an awesome Creator!). Planning and organization are tools of good leaders, just like knowing how to motivate people, and not "hogging" all the credit.
We may not "feel" like we are leaders, but as we have noted before, there is always someone who is watching us, and we are leaders to them. We will learn more about leadership skills next time!