Building Safe Communities
based on John 10:11-18
by Rev. Frank Schaefer

Let’s talk about Leadership

Simon Sinek*, a motivational speaker in the business world, asks the question: “Why do good leaders make you feel safe?” His answer: Because they are willing to make sacrifices for their people rather than sacrifice any of their people for the good of the company. To illustrate his point he tells the story of Bob Chapman who runs a large manufacturing company in the Midwest called Barry-Wehmiller. In the 2008 recession, the company was hit hard and lost 30% of their orders overnight. They needed to save 10 million dollars, so like so many companies today the board got together and discussed layoffs and … Bob refused. So instead of laying workers off, they came up with a furlough program. Every employee, from secretary to CEO, was required to take four weeks of unpaid vacation per year.

But it was how Bob announced the program that shows how good leadership creates a sense of safety and trust. He said: “it's better that we should all suffer a little than any of us should have to suffer a lot.” And morale went up and the result was that the company saved twenty million dollars, rather than the 10 million they needed to save. *

And isn’t that so much like the kind of leadership Jesus is talking about in our passage from John 10? Jesus makes it clear that he is willing to lay down his life for his followers, and we believe it because he actually did!

You could say that Jesus was 2000 years ahead of his time in terms of his organizational model. Businesses today could learn from his approach! “The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd.” “I lay my life down for my sheep.”

And then, Jesus says something that’s puzzling. He talks about other sheep elsewhere he must bring into the fold. I wonder if Jesus made this statement to indicate that he would be gone soon. But as any good leader would do, Jesus prepared his disciples about his absence. I believe that when he talks about the kind of leader that he is, he is teaching his followers a leadership model. Jesus is saying: one day soon I will be gone and that means that you’re going to be in charge. And I want you to be that kind of caring and committed leader that you have seen in me. I want you to lay down your life for my sheep, for my people.

I believe that Jesus’ model of leadership is not only the most effective leadership style, it is the ONLY one. If you’re not that kind of selfless leader that Jesus role-modeled for us, you’re not a leader at all.

Many people at the top level of organizations are absolutely not leaders. They are authorities, and we do what they say because they have authority over us but we would not follow them. And there are people who are the bottom of organizations who have no authority and they are absolute leaders and it is because they have chosen to look after the person to the left and right of them.

Let’s talk about God’s Flock

Jesus likened himself to a sheep-herder, which insinuates that we are God’s flock. Sheep actually rely on the safety of the flock, there is strength in numbers, but sheep also need leaders for protection. A community of sheep is a social organization not unlike a human community.

If you go back 50,000 years to the Paleolithic era, to the early days of Homo Sapiens, what we find is that the world was filled with danger. All of these forces working very very hard to kill us. Nothing personal. Just the nature of the Paleolithic world: whether it was the weather, lack of resources, maybe a saber-toothed tiger, all of these things threatened the safety of human beings. That’s why we started to form social groups where we live together and work together in a circle of safety inside the tribe. There we ideally feel a sense of belonging and safety. And the benefits are great: I can fall asleep at night and trust that someone from my tribe will watch out for everybody’s safety.*

The modern world is not unlike the Paleolithic world. It is still filled with dangers; things that are threatening our lives and happiness. Threats of economic crises loom large, whether on a large scale or in our personal lives, there is the uncertainty of the work place, the uncertainty of finding a good job with the education you are obtaining. The list goes on.

In order to be in a safe place, a place that will protect us from these dangers, we need to be in community- just as our Paleolithic friends 50,000 years ago, and just as the flock of sheep that Jesus is talking about.

What does all this mean for the Church?

The bottom line is that the church can only be this safe place when there is good leadership, and I’m not just talking about the pastors of a church. It takes many leaders in a church to work together to provide the kind of safe, supportive and caring environment we all yearn for.

Are we willing to follow Jesus’ teaching and become leaders willing to make personal sacrifices to ensure the safety and well-being of those to the right and left of us? I honestly think that we have those leadership instincts here at UMeIV. I see them in many, if not all, of us. But I think it’s one thing to have those instincts and another to actually act on these instincts.

The problem is that we often don’t understand ourselves to be leaders. We, like the rest of the world, confuse authority with leadership. The truth is that you are a leader if you are willing to look out for those at your right and at your left.

And just becoming aware of the fact that you are a leader can make such a difference in what you are able to do. But we struggle because we think that we have not been given authority to “help” others. Fact is, that we don’t need any human authority to become leaders in God’s community. As followers of Christ we are called to be leaders, and it takes all of us to make this community safe, supportive and caring for every person who walks through these doors, whether they come here for the worship experience or a town hall meeting or study hall. We are called to be true leaders that make all these people feel welcome in the name of Christ our supreme leader!

And I think the people that come to study in our study hall ministry really sense that. I can’t even tell you how many times these students tell me that they feel safe and homey here. That they feel cared for, and not just because we feed them. And it’s not just one kind of people. People from all walks feel at home in our study hall. They feel they belong here, they feel their part of the flock. Take Sandesh who was raised Hindi, or Mohamed, whose family is from Palestine, or Eden and Mecaah who are from Israel. Obi and Celene from France, Anna and Saskia from Britain, Amalie, Anja, and Astrid who are from Denmark, Jesper from Sweden, and, of course, all of our American kids too. They all feel safe and supported and cared for to a point where they don’t experience the tension and turmoil that may exist between their people of origin. That’s out there in the world; in here, they are part of our flock; they belong to the same community, they belong to each other.

That’s what Christ is teaching us this morning, to be his kind of self-less, compassionate leader and you will be part of building an incredible community. God’s community! Amen.

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*Partialy quoted and/or adapted from Simon Sinek, "Why good leaders make you feel safe" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyZMtPVodo