I’m just finishing up a few days of meetings for ScholarLeaders International, the global leadership initiative that I’ve been working with for over twenty years. ScholarLeaders (SL) identifies and invests in the best and brightest leaders from the Majority World church. We are particularly interested in those who will teach, lead and write at the national level. It’s been a very encouraging few days. We were able to attend to all of the requisite board matters – strategy, budgets, committee reports, etc. – and also spend time with the SL students who are studying at Fuller, which includes our first from Vietnam.
I often come away from these gatherings with a renewed energy for the Kingdom of God. This meeting was no exception. There were some sad moments – e.g., we said goodbye to Gwyn Hoyt, who is retiring after nearly ten years as our west coast development director and we desperately missed Brian Prinn, who chaired the board for four of the years I served as president. Brian died suddenly a few months ago. He was one of the most gifted leaders I have ever known. There will be no replacing his wisdom, energy or insight. But there were some “expanding, positively-disruptive” moments as well. One of them was a comment made by Mark Labberton at dinner last night. Mark – who co-founded ScholarLeaders twenty-nine years ago, who has been a friend and mentor to me for over twenty years, and who was just appointed the new President of Fuller – reminded me that one of the reasons he founded ScholarLeaders was to help “keep big things big.”
Mark grew up in an irreligious home because his father felt that religion made “big things small.” He came to faith in college after studying the Gospels and realizing that Jesus did the opposite – he kept big things big. He was drawn to the preaching and writing of John Stott because John was keeping big things big. Finally, Mark got involved with ScholarLeaders because being involved with talented leaders from the Majority World pulled him out of the smallness of the American church.
I completely get that. The local church – and those who lead it! – can be small-minded. That is not our calling. Religion makes big things little. It boxes in God. It tries to control things. Jesus keeps big things big, and those of us who follow him cannot afford to do otherwise.