“He’s a Pinball Leader….”

Terry Buster


I remember cruising the streets in the days of 8 tracks and sideburns turning up the volume when “Pinball Wizard” was playing. (Yes, I’m a child of the 60’s & 70’s.) Dragging Main, we sang along with The Who, “That deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.”

Now some 40 years later, I’m wondering if there are pinball wizards in the church-world. You know the type, leaders who bounce from one idea to the next hoping that the bright shiny bells and lights of the game catch a lot of attention so that people will want to play along. Pinball leadership philosophy is pretty simple. Bounce into the right bumpers, keep moving fast and furious and you get a lot of points along the way. And, if you get too far from ‘God’s will,’ He will use the flippers to get you back in the game.

Godly leadership calls for something more than bouncing around and making a lot of noise. Robert Murray McCheynne wrote, “What my people need most is my personal holiness.” Before Christian leaders can guide others in the way of the Lord, we have to follow Him personally. How could any faithful leader hope to lead people in the way of the Lord if he is not walking closely with Christ on a daily basis?

Here are some serious questions that we as God called leaders must ask ourselves if we would be more than pinball leaders.

How much time did I spend in prayer so that God could bring personal growth into my life today? Or to state this question in another light, What reason did I give God for shutting Him out of an intimate, focused, one-on-one time today? Do I use my good intentions as a lame excuse for not being with the Heavenly Father? Truth is, all the ‘work’ I do in organizing, researching, thinking, surveying, meeting, etc. cannot compensate for personal time with Lord in prayer. “Drive by” prayers won’t cut it. Jesus considered His time with the Father so necessary and important that He carved out time to get alone with the Father. What makes me think that I am so much better than Jesus that I don’t need to do what He did?

How much time did I spend today in seeking God in His Word? I’ve heard people say that if they had to choose between time in prayer and time in the Bible, they would choose time in prayer. Sounds to me like saying, “If I had to choose between having lungs and having air to breathe, I’d choose lungs.”

How much time did I spend seeking God’s leadership in my ministry in waiting upon the Lord until I have clarity of direction today? Do I really think that I can be indifferent regarding my personal walk with the Lord while attempting to lead others to follow the Him?

Pinball leadership makes a lot of noise, is bright and flashy, and entertains the folks. In the end, it’s just a game going nowhere. Jesus Christ did not die on Calvary’s Cross saving us from our sins just so we could play games. First step in Godly leadership…..grow in your walk with the Lord.

Today in Blogworld 03.25.14

Mike Leake 2 Comments

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There are so many ways that this article can be applied, don’t get sidetracked by the very specific example.

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It’s really the day to day things that shapes our kids.

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This begs the question, with such a hairstyle how has no one ever heard of Hannah More?

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This is encouraging.

I don’t know why this is so amazing. But it is:

31 Days of Purity: Day Twenty-Five

Mike Leake

Day Twenty-Five: Healing Our Wounds

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)

Brothers, we are wounded. We are all wounded. I know this because you and I live in a fallen, broken world. Some of our wounds are self-inflicted. Some wounds are a result of the sin of other people. Some wounds are just a result of living in and blundering through a fallen world. Regardless of their source, we can have confidence that God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

If you are in Christ, your identity is not that of a victim. No matter how deep the wounds or how far-reaching the scars, your defining identity is not that of a wounded man. You have been washed. You have been cleaned. You have been healed. Yes, you might still carry around scars, but scars are no longer seeping wounds, instead they are testimonies of healing and grace. Whatever wounds or scars you bear, pray today that the Lord would give you ultimate healing. No wound is too deep for Christ to fill up with His goodness and mercy.

Father, I am grateful that you heal the brokenhearted and bind up our wounds. I’m a wounded man. Some of these wounds are from my own sinful and foolish choices. Other wounds are caused by the hand of another. Lord, I want these to be healed. I know that praying for healing might mean that you will have to reopen wounds to give redemption in these areas. Heal the places in my heart that are broken. Bind up my wounds. Overwhelm me with your grace and mercy. Where there were once ashes, replace them with your beauty. Amen.

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Mike Leake is associate pastor of First Baptist Church of Jasper, IN. He and his wife, Nikki have 2 children (Isaiah and Hannah). Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and regularly blogs at mikeleake.net.

Hiding Behind Poorly Drawn Battle Scars

Mike Leake

In 2003, Miami Hurricane Kellen Winslow, Jr. received a good amount of attention in the media. In a game against Tennessee, Winslow injured an opposing player with a powerful block and then stood over him. When asked about the play after the game Winslow referred to himself as a *expletive* soldier. He talked about the war of the football game and killing someone before they kill him.

He was, quite correctly, called out for the idiocy of his statement. Football is a game. It isn’t war. It isn’t really a battle. And the odds are quite favorable that an opposing player will not give you a date with a hearse. It makes one wonder if Winslow even knows what doing battle and being a solider actually means.

My thoughts went back to that Winslow moment the other day as I thought about how we Christians tend to use words. Particularly the word “battle”. I think we know that so long as we use this word in relationship to our sin that people won’t be too hard on us.

Hiding Behind Poorly Drawn Battle Scars

If I confess to a friend my anger, resentment, and bitterness I’ll get a different response if I say, “I’m battling anger, resentment, and bitterness”. Saying that I’m battling something gives the idea that I’m fighting hard, I’m going to gain victory, and I still have some modicum of respect and control in the situation.

You don’t discipline a guy that’s battling sin. But you might discipline a guy who has given up and doesn’t really care much that he’s indulging in sin. We are crafty sinners that are madly in love with our own filthy rags of self-righteousness. And so we use tough words–like battle–to make ourselves look better than we really are and to keep people from really prying into the uglies.

But I just have to wonder, am I really battling? Am I really waging war on sin or am I just getting knocked down and back up again? If so, that’s not a battle. That’s a beating.

I can’t say that I’m battling an anger problem if I spend all my time on blogs that I know will stir me up, and if I don’t start digging for the roots of my anger.

I can’t say that I’m battling lust if I spend my afternoons at the beach, watch Cinemax at 11:30, don’t pursue accountability, and use an unfiltered computer.

I can’t say that I’m battling gluttony if I buy season tickets to Golden Corral, sleep next to a bag of Cheetos, and watch a streaming loop of food commercials on YouTube.

Our sin problem goes so deep and it’s so treacherous. We like to give off the aura of doing battle without actually having to do battle. We’re like a guy that proudly wears a Purple Heart for being injured in combat, when in reality he just so happened to be wearing uniform when he drunkenly cut off his finger with a can-opener.

That’s us.

Thankfully that is not Jesus. And thankfully, Jesus who has truly done battle, is radically dedicated to His relationship with posers like you and I. Our rescue isn’t won because of our efforts in battle. Our rescue is secure because of what Christ has done and will continue to do on our behalf.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t repent of our foolish display of an unearned purple heart. Nor does it mean that we don’t actually do battle and not just talk like we do. But it does mean that as we continue to dwell in this body of death we give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ who has delivered us from this body of death. We battle—actual bloody knuckles battle—because Christ has secured our victory and he calls us to obediently follow Him in waging war against sin.