“That was one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard.” These words were delivered to me by a young man after one of our services last year. As a young preacher in my 20s, these are the words I dreamt of hearing.
Complete with tears in his eyes and a hug that said more than his words, I knew this guy was genuinely moved. I immediately began rehearsing which parts of the sermon would have resonated with him.
When I asked what made him say that it was partly because I wanted to continue to engage in the spiritual moment that was clearly unfolding in his life, but also because I was curious if it was my insightful cultural diagnosis, or one of my labored-over-one-liners that I thought would stick perfectly in their hearts.
It was neither of those things.
It was actually something I hadn’t given much thought to at all.
Talking off the cuff
It was a moment in my sermon when I was away from my notes, talking off the cuff about a porn addiction Jesus had delivered me from.
He said, “when you confessed your sin, I realized that God could save someone like me.” I was thankful for his honesty, but slightly disappointed it wasn’t one of the points I had worked so hard on.
In fact, it was probably the part of my sermon that I had put the least thought into. And it was the part where I was unsure if my vulnerability would be welcome in the pulpit or not.
But here was this conversation with this young man telling me that the most compelling part of my sermon was when I looked weak and vulnerable. And then it hit me.
The power of 2 Corinthians 12:9–11 washed over me like a tidal wave and something broke inside of me.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Greatest joys
My wife and I, along with 40 other people, came to Ann Arbor, Michigan, two years ago to plant Treeline Church. In the throes of church planting, moving venues every week, caring for our launch team, and welcoming new people into our community, I didn’t realize the single narrative that was dominating my thought life:
You need to be strong.
You need to be a strong leader for this young church. You need to be well-read for the educated people of Ann Arbor. You need to be a clear and compelling communicator. You need to have no needs.
But here’s the voice I really needed in my life: You need to be weak and dependent on Jesus.
In all my efforts to be strong and inviting for our church, I missed one of the greatest joys of being a follower of Jesus: it’s okay to be weak.
I had spent so much of our first-year planting Treeline Church trying to be strong for our launch team and impressive for new people. And every second I spent doing that, I was neglecting those words of the apostle Paul that said just the opposite.
People will be impressed with your strengths, but they will identify with your weaknesses.
The most compelling sermon he had ever heard me give was the one where my people saw my need for the gospel and not just their own. I have come to realize that one of the things people need the most is not a bunch of leaders who preach the gospel, but a bunch of leaders who need the gospel for themselves.
This has been one of the single greatest lessons the Lord has been teaching me over the last year. That when I’m honest about weaknesses is when he can look strong. Instead of trying to cover the gaps in our church and ministry with my strengths and effort, to look to him.
And above all, not to rob the people closest to me the opportunity to see my neediness for Christ. I have seen tremendous fruit in ministry and friendships from this shift in paradigm. I’ve had friendships with people in the church that only ever felt like people I was leading before, and the weaker I acknowledge I am, the more it seems that people want to follow.
It feels like an anti-growth and anti-leadership strategy: but I’ve truly found vulnerability as a leader to be the most compelling thing for people to latch onto.
May we all learn the secret of what it means to intentionally and publicly be weak: so that Jesus might be made great in our homes and churches.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Andrew Hager and originally published by the Baptist Beacon.
