Is it a sin to be average

One mistake I think a lot of pastors and church leaders make is they think all people are supposed to be leaders. All their sermons are about making and developing leaders in the church; all their time is spent on leadership development; all their accolades go to those who grow and excel in those areas. The problem is... the church is made up of a lot of non-leaders too. And it's not a sin to not be a leader (unless you're supposed to be, but that's not my call).

Anyway, awhile ago Tom shared a nice article with me by Larry Osborne entitled, Is It A Sin To Be Average, and it brightened my day. In the first paragraph he says,

As a young pastor I had the idea that God calls every Christian to do great things. My faith heroes were all mountain-moving, charge-the-hill spiritual warriors. I assumed full submission to Jesus would transform anyone into a spiritual Braveheart; kicking-butt for Jesus and marshalling a battalion of others to do the same.

It sounded good. It was motivational. It was pure baloney.

Worse, it was spiritually dangerous. Not just for me, but for my flock. It filled me and the rest of our leaders with pride. It overwhelmed my congregation and non-leader types with unrealistic and unreachable standards of spirituality. And, I'm pretty sure, it ticked God off.

It's a good article, and I recommend you read the whole thing. He still seems to distinguish a bit between leaders and laypeople though, and I'm not sure what he would say about me - I don't think all leaders are the same. At least I hope not. Maybe we need some weak links like myself to hold things together - you know, like when all the great and mighty leaders are at a conference in California or off saving some poverty-stricken land or something. I wish I were like them. But I'm not. I am what I am. And I'm glad God doesn't expect me to be anybody else.