The Response of the Leaders
Does change come from the top or the bottom? Leaders say they can only achieve what their followers will allow them to achieve. Change must start with the people. People say that without commitment from the top personal habits will not change and the meagre efforts of those who try will be thwarted.
Clergy reject change on the grounds that their members would not like it. Members say they cannot bring about change because the clergy block their attempts. Bishops and synods say the grassroots either do not want change or are not ready for it. Clergy and ministers complain that co-operation with others is hindered by their denominational structures. So where are we to break in?
Haggai, once again, starts in a different place: not with what the leaders or the people want, fear or positively don’t want, but with what God wants. Start there and the choice is taken out of our hands. What is called for is obedience.
But how were the leaders or the people to know what God wanted? Only when one person (in this case Haggai) put the case in such a way that something burned inside and a little voice said, ‘He’s right, you know’.
Then comes the most difficult bit of all. No recriminations. No forums, discussion groups or arguments. No preaching. No projects, programmes or targets. No compulsion either. The leaders simply went out and got on with the job and when the people saw their commitment they didn’t need to be told twice. Commitment and obedience were infectious. Was that not how it had all begun, when God chose his people, showered all his love on them and waited for a response? From now on they can stop trying to recreate the past and concentrate on re-building for the future on the basis of past experience.
Leaders who hear the word like that are great but the people also have to hear and respond, and the real leader is the one who can see the whole and bring the two together. And that could be you or me — at home, in our street, among our friends or in the workplace. Leadership functions at every level and leaders come in all shapes and sizes.