The Kind Of Leader I Want To Be

I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately and what kind of leader I want to be. Honestly, I'm a behind the scenes kind of a girl who is always behind the camera or back in the sound-room instead of on the stage. And I'm happy there but sometimes the life that I am living thrusts me into a leadership role and when that happens, I want to be a good leader. Whenever I think of good leadership, a certain memory comes to mind.

In 2002, I was a summer intern with Amor Ministries. A couple of the other interns and I decided that we wanted to read through the book of Acts together as well as daily readings from Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost For His Highest." We would meet every morning at 6am on the edge of the rock quarry where the Amor camp was and start our days in the Word. As interns, we were somewhat oblivious of the Amor staff. We knew there was a huge staff support making everything happen but we didn't have much contact with them. And when we did, we didn't blame them for staying away from us. Weeks of living in a tent on a rock quarry, with holes for toilets and bucket showers (which we could have used more often), left us smelling pretty bad so we kept to ourselves! :) We also knew about Scott and Gayla Congdon who started the ministry but they were a bit like superstars to us. One morning, I was sitting on a rock waiting for my fellow interns to join me when the 'famous Scott Congdon' walked up and sat down on a rock next to me. He asked if he could join us for our devotion time, which he did and then he spent some time in prayer with us. Afterwards, he told us all to have a good day and then he got in his truck and drove away.

This probably doesn't sound like a big deal to you but it was huge for me. That occurrence was a prime example of leadership to me. The bible always talks about Jesus being among the people during his ministry but so many leaders now-a-days stay hidden in their offices and never get their hands dirty. Scott was not one of those leaders, instead he followed the example of Jesus and worked amongst the people. I started paying more attention after that morning and I lost count of how many times I saw him 'getting his hands dirty' helping build houses or spending time with the families receiving houses.

This was one of the many reasons I applied to work full time with Amor and spent the following three and half years doing so. Soon after that morning on the rock quarry, I realized that Amor was full of leaders including Gayla Congdon, Wendy Johnson, Alon Banks, LaDonna Barron and so many more.

To this day when I think of leadership, I remember the morning when Scott Congdon joined a few very stinky interns on a rock quarry for a morning bible study. That is the kind of leader that I want to be.