A Pastor reflects on compassionate leadership and the difficulties of ministry.
By Jack Miller
To a missionary in Ireland.
December, 1994
Dear Matt,
Greetings in the love of Jesus! It’s early in the morning here in Spain, very quiet, not even the sound of a bird. I’ve been praying for you this morning; actually I’ve been praying for you for over two weeks, and this morning I’m including your family. It’s such a privilege to have all of you as part of our World Harvest team, and I have enjoyed interceding for all of you. Thank you for putting yourself at God’s disposal!
I have meant to write to you earlier, but regrettably my good intentions were wiped out by character weaknesses. I managed to get so overscheduled in the fall that time and energy were pretty much eaten up by constant speaking. It’s now clear to me that my zeal for making Christ known must be tempered by a humble willingness to recognize my limits as a weak person who constantly falls into the temptation of thinking that he can do the work of the Holy Spirit.
Rose Marie and I arrived at the Arrow Leadership Seminar so tired that we just leaned on each other as we prayed for strength. I apologized to Rose Marie for my letting the schedule get out of control, and she forgave me. It was very humbling to be so exposed, both in my proud assumption I could handle speaking around thirty times in a month and in my obvious foolishness in not saying no to some requests to speak.
Still, looking back, I can see how the Holy Spirit used this set of circumstances to teach some basic lessons to my heart. I’d like to share some of them with you. The first one concerns an ongoing discussion that James [a pastor and board member of WHM] and I have been having about the crucial importance of humility in the life of a Christian leader. James has been urging on me the value of meditating on the life of Brownlow North, a major evangelist in northern England, Scotland, and Ireland during 1858 and afterwards. North was the great torchbearer of the revival, mainly because he set himself the goal to practice constant humility. One way he did this was in his preaching. He self-consciously labored to speak from a heart knowledge that he was chief of sinners.
North began his ministry with the burden of a dreadful reputation. Who would listen to a man whose character was infamous? When he first attempted to enter the ministry, someone sent the church authorities information detailing all of North’s public sins. In shame he withdrew. But then Christ did a powerful work of conversion in his life. He came once again to the church, this time to preach. Before he preached, he received another letter detailing all of his sins. He was denounced in it as “such a vile sinner.”
North took the letter into the pulpit and read it for all to hear. He said, “I am the man described here.” He then used the letter’s indictment of his character to exalt pure sovereign grace. He exulted, “It is a correct picture of the vile sinner I once was; and oh how wonderful must the grace be that could quicken and raise me up from such a death and trespass in sins, and make me what I appear before you tonight, a vessel of mercy, one who knows that all his past sins have been cleansed away through the atoning blood of the Lamb of God,” The very thing that Satan hoped to use to destroy North became a powerful evangelistic weapon in his daring hands. He did not go from place to place reading this letter, but he frequently “took his hearers into his confidence” concerning the man he had been. His deep grief over his past, and his use of his own example as a demonstration of the awesome power of grace, were used to bring many people to Christ.
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