The Weight of No

One of the first books I finished this year In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri Nouwen, and while it is a short book, it may be one of the most impactful I have read in years around leadership. This is something that should not have surprised me consider who Nouwen was, when he was still walking this world. A man born in the Netherlands, became a Roman Catholic priest, taught at Notre Dame, Harvard, and Yale for over twenty years, but walked away from the prestige to serve at L’Arche’s Daybreak Community in Ontario.

In this book he writes about the shared life, humility, and importance of walking the downward path in leadership. Now, I am not a fan of leadership books, and I have been through my share of programs that seem to be a one size fits all. But this book, in the less than 120 pages, packs more moments where I have sat back in silence than all other leadership books I have read combined. His entire life was rewritten during his time at L’Arche, and this book is one of the the results of that transformation.

What I consider the incredibly important parts of this book, are broken up into a three sections. I phrase it like that because of course there is a conclusion, and while it is helpful to read, you could stop there. The three sections are as follows:

1. From Relevance to Prayer
2. From Popularity to Ministry
3. From Leading to Be Led

All of these sections are obviously impacted by the previous one, but what is so interesting about how Nouwen sees the world and this type of leadership, is how it should be pulling us downward, and not in a bad way. My concept of leadership in the church has been tainted by the evangelical money making house of cards it has always been. So to say leadership can be a motion downwards, feels antithetical to what it means to be a good leader. But what Nouwen latches on to, is that relevance for the sake of relevance, and the idea of entrepreneurship or silo ministry, this chasing of saying yes to what is happening now could be pushing us further from the presence of God in our midst.

The weight and power of saying no in ministry is not something that should be overlooked. We live in a society right now where the news cycle changes almost hour by hour, and the fears that are ratcheted up continue to find no ceiling. This can create an environment where we must say yes to everything, in order to not get lost in the shuffle, but Nouwen in this book invites us to a deeper sense of knowing. Not just knowing who we are in the family of God, but who God is calling us to be in our context and strength.

It wasn’t until the end of this book where I felt Nouwen succinctly formed his argument about not going alone, and standing where your call is at in order to lead people into the next age. He writes:

Christian leaders have the arduous task of responding to personal struggles, family conflicts, national calamities and international tensions with an articulate faith in God’s real presence.

They have to say no to every form of fatalism, defeatism, accidentalism, or incidentalism that makes people believe that statistics are telling us the truth.

They have to say no to every form of despair which human life is seen as pure matter of good or bad luck.

They have to say no to sentimental attempts to make people develop a spirit of resignation, of stoic indifference in the face of the unavoidability of pain, suffering, and death.

To say no in the face of fatalism, defeatism, accidentalism, incidentalism, despair, luck, resignation, indifference, pain, suffering, and even death pushes us to a radical limit.

To say no to how the world would normally respond is to say yes to hope. What I am not saying is that we should ignore the pain, consequences, etc. that come from these instances. I am not saying that at all, recognize and hold it.

To say no to it is to reject the acceptance of it, it is to say yes to the accountability of the people around you, and to seek justice for those who have been harmed.

To say no is to hold fast to Jesus teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, and to elevate ourselves past what is popular, and plant ourselves into what is everlasting.

To say no is to shake off the burden of societal expectations, and to say yes to a deeper way of being.

Grace and peace my friends.