All around us, people are looking for leaders. We are looking for leaders in the church. We know instinctively that we need leadership in all areas of our life. But where do leaders come from? How do we recognize them? How is authority and responsibility given to them?

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Most of us have been conditioned to think about leadership in a certain way. Most of us probably wouldn’t detect any difference between how we discuss leadership in the church versus leadership in any business. What happens when we decide to search the Scripture to find out leadership is different in God's Kingdom, and if so, how different? All around us, people are looking for leaders. We are looking for leaders in the church. We know instinctively that we need leadership in all areas of our life. But where do leaders come from? How do we recognize them? How is authority and responsibility given to them? Vision is important in the leadership we seek for the church today. As John C. Maxwell tells us in his book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, vision is one of the most important qualities of a leader. Vision leads the leader. “Vision is a waking dream”, says Warren Bennis. And the leader has the high calling to “transform the vision into reality.” Has God called you to lead? To be in ministry in the church? Though all Christians are to serve the cause of Christ, God calls certain persons to serve the Church as pastors and other ministers. Writing to young Timothy, the Apostle Paul confirmed that if a man aspires to be a pastor, “it is a fine work he aspires to do.” [I Timothy 3:1, NASB] Likewise, it is a high honor to be called of God into the ministry of the Church. How do you know if God is calling you? Charles Spurgeon identified the first sign of God’s call to the ministry as “an intense, all-absorbing desire for the work.” Those called by God sense a growing compulsion to preach and teach the Word, and to minister to the people of God. As you study our Lord's visit to Jerusalem, that last climactic and fatal week of his life we see the Lord in confrontation with various authorities of the area. But with this intense and all absorbing desire for the work he has been called to do we see He is dealing with the central issue of all time, the basic question of everyone's life. What is the final authority of life? Should I obey the state, or should I obey my conscience? Which is higher, the church or the secular government? What about my opinion? Should I walk by reason or by faith? Should I follow science or religion? These are questions every one of us must face, and we are helped greatly by the words of our Lord in this account. Looking at this together, we see our Lord in the midst of his second cleansing of the temple. He overturned the tables of the money-changers, and swept out all the commercialized traffic. Then he did an amazing thing even by today’s standards. Something, which only Mark records: He stopped the offerings and sacrifices of the Mosaic system. Mark says, "He would not allow any one to carry anything through the temple." This meant that he stopped the traffic of the priests, as they were carrying out their normal duties connected with the sacrifices, and he would not allow them to continue. So they come to him with the ultimate question, "Who gave you the authority to do this? Who told you that you could act like this?" That question is behind all human behavior. It is the ultimate question of leadership. When you refine it all down to its essentials, what you have left is the whole issue of authority in life and ministry leadership. Why do you act the way you do? How do you justify what you say and do? No one ever is their own ultimate authority. We all refer to something other than ourselves, something that compels us, or something we feel is important. That governs our decisions, or should. If the leadership of the church is on the right mission, then it must answer the question: “By whose authority have you come to fulfill it? J. Faraja Kafela