man down the street was always pleasant. When my lawnmower broke, he came over and cut my grass.”
Typically, they will add: “At some point we just started talking.” So yes, words are important. But nearly always the seed is planted when someone notices that a lay Catholic person, couple, or family seems to be endowed with something that makes them a little happier or considerate. Their lives seem more purposeful or satisfying.
It’s what we do that matters most. In fact, it’s what we do that prompts others to inquire about what we have to say. Only when our lives reflect a Christian dimension do our words have the power to attract instead of to repel.
As we consider our individual and collective purpose as Christians today — and our impact on the world — we have to ask ourselves several questions:
• Is love still Christianity’s primary “brand” today?
• If not, why not?
• Is our love the first thing that others notice about us as Christians?
• Or are there other things in our behavior that brand us in other ways? (Gandhi once observed: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. If Christians really lived according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.” At another time, he was reputedly asked if he would ever consider being a Christian. He said he would if he could find one.)
• What can I do to make that brand — how Christians love one another — the hallmark of my faith as people see me living it?
When we talk about being Christian but then don’t live consistently with our profession of faith, we drive people away from Christianity. It turns out that some people leave the Church for much the same reason that other people come to the Church: the behavior of Church members.
I served for many years as a Church spokesman in the media, so I am publicly associated with Christianity. That role provided me with many opportunities to meet people who have abandoned church participation. I’m always willing to listen to their stories, and in nearly every case it turns out that they don’t go to church at least in part because of someone who does. That tells us Christians that how we act shapes the brand that Christianity has in people’s hearts and minds today.
This is a particular burden for clergy because they can almost never escape being associated with the Church. Everything they are seen doing and saying reflects on people’s view of Christianity, and often people expect them to be perfect. But it is a burden for the rest of us, too. Whenever anyone knows we are Christian, whatever we do and whatever we fail to do can reflect on all Christians and on Christianity itself. Perhaps that’s why many of us are happy to leave all talk of religion outside of the public arena, especially outside our place of work, and why some of us even drift away from religious practice. If no one knows we’re Christian, at least we can’t be accused of giving Christianity a bad name.
But Jesus set the bar higher than that. He says our role is to live in such a way that we help the Gospel take root everywhere. Catholic bishops in the United States affirmed Jesus’ teaching in their 1998 pastoral letter Everyday Christianity: To Hunger and Thirst for Justice:
Followers of the Lord Jesus live their discipleship as spouses and parents, single adults and youth, employers and employees, consumers and investors, citizens and neighbors. We renew the warning of the Second Vatican Council that the “split between the faith which many profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.” By our Baptism and Confirmation every member of our community is called to live his or her faith in the world.
Many of us hunger to integrate our faith with our everyday lives. We want to avoid the unfortunate split between faith and life mentioned by the council fathers and the nation’s bishops. Fortunately, we are given a good place to start with the opportunity to learn to lead like Jesus.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
• Does my everyday behavior contribute to my purpose as a Christian to sanctify the world?
• Where and where not?
• Why or why not?
• What might I do in one of my relationships or in one of my roles to help sanctify the world?
David consulted with the commanders of the thousands and of the hundreds, with every leader. David said to the whole assembly of Israel, “If it seems good to you, and if it is the will of the Lord our God, let us send abroad to our kindred who remain in all the land of Israel, including the priests and Levites in the cities that have pasture lands, that they may come together to us. Then let us bring again the ark of our God to us; for we did not turn to it in the days of Saul.” The whole assembly agreed to do so, for the thing pleased all the people.
1 Chronicles 13:1-4
“From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.”
Luke 12:48
“Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
George Bernard Shaw
Chapter Three
Who Is a Leader?
Everyone is a leader. It’s a role no one can completely escape. As my colleagues Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges say in Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Role Model of All Time, “Leadership is a process of influence.”10 Whenever you seek to influence another person, you are taking on the role of a leader.
In fact, sometimes you are leading when you are not even aware of it. A famous athlete once insisted that he was not a role model for children; he was just a basketball player. Commentators scoffed. They told him, “It’s not your call.” When someone observes your behavior and imitates it, you are a leader whether you like it or not. If children decide to imitate someone, that person is serving in a leadership role even if he or she isn’t aware of it. That’s true for athletes, entertainers, and other prominent people. But it’s even truer for parents and other family members, family friends, local community figures, and teachers. If you doubt this, take the quiz featured in the “In the Community” section on the next page.
Children imitate the adults around them — especially their parents — without even thinking about it. If parents try to do their best, their children benefit from their modeling as much as from their nurturing. But if parents don’t care how their behavior influences their children, then the odds decline that their children will benefit from how the parents behave. Of course, parents aren’t the only models we find in life.
