WACO—Simultaneously leading two Chicago churches as pastor demands resilience rooted in biblical truth, Charlie Dates told participants at a Baylor University leadership conference.
Dates, senior pastor of both Salem Baptist Church and Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, offered leadership lessons at the “Leadership for the Long Haul Conference,” sponsored by the Program for the Future Church at Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary.
A resilient church leader must be a genuine servant who practices humility, Dates observed.
“I’ve come to see that servanthood has to be my identity, not my strategy,” he said.
The opening verses of the Old Testament book of Joshua identify Moses as “the servant of the Lord” and Joshua as “the servant of Moses,” he noted.
“It’s as if Joshua has to prove his person as a servant before he is called upon to be a leader,” Dates said.
People typically care little about the leadership courses a pastor has taken or the books on leadership he has read, he observed. But they care deeply when he shows up to provide comfort in their times of loss or bereavement.
“I’m learning that you’ve got to take the posture of a servant that kind of lets go of the cultural norms of greatness. … When it’s all said and done, only God is great,” Dates said.
Joshua’s call from God came when Moses died. While the man of God died, the mission of God continued, he noted.
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“One of the pillars that helps us overcome our sense of inadequacy—my sense of inadequacy—is that while one major leader leaves, God has not left, and the work must continue forward,” Dates said.
Need ‘a prevailing commitment to truth’
A resilient leader must have “a prevailing commitment to truth,” he added.
God spoke to Joshua, and Joshua delivered that revealed truth to the people of Israel.
“There’s such a temptation to leave truth these days—to appeal to crowds,” Dates said. “I’m coming to discover that since we have a speaking God, I must speak for God the things God already has spoken.”
The opening chapter of Genesis reveals the power that is unleashed when God speaks, he noted. God spoke into being all of creation.
“There’s never been a moment in your life when God spoke and nothing happened,” Dates said. “When God speaks, things happen.”
When God spoke to Joshua, he offered assurance: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.”
Resilience in pastoral leadership is made possible by “the undying, almost indefatigable realization that God is with me, even when I feel like I am by myself,” Dates said.
“Any leader who has ever been worth her or his salt has done so because God was with them.”
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