The Making of a Leader, Second Edition: Recognizing the Lessons and Stages of Leadership Development by Robert Clinton

Author:Robert Clinton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-30T04:49:00+00:00

From God's perspective, what He does to move us forward in this upward development pattern is essential. He has a long-term goal in mind. It may not seem so essential to us, especially as it is happening. Further, that process most likely (from our perspective) will require much time.

ISOLATION

During the tremendous financial pressures that arose in China during World War II, Watchman Nee did an uncharacteristic thing. He began to devote some of his time to a commercial venture involving the manufacture and distribution of synthetic medical supplies. His brother was a trained chemist and provided the technical expertise. Watchman provided the business know-how. Nee trained his "apostles" (and at this time there were quite a few who were involved in evangelism and churchplanting activities) as sales representatives of the company. Today they would be called bi-vocational workers.

There is some controversy over why Nee did this. There were rumors that he was collaborating with the enemy. He was accused of being bored with his ministry. He was accused of setting his hand to the plow and then turning back. He was seen as having violated his "faith" principles, that is, to trust God to supply for His work. At the height of this conflict and controversy, the main leaders in the mother church at which Nee preached and taught asked him to discontinue his preaching and teaching ministry at the church. Believers were shocked at this action and supposed that there were probably more serious reasons than had been given. Nee's testimony was tarnished. The elders did not clarify the issue. Nor did Nee.

He did not feel released from the burden of supporting workers. The company took more and more of his time. It became a successful company. During this time, Nee's giving to kingdom work was substantial, but he was set aside from ministry. He never defended his action nor sought to straighten out erroneous rumors. Several years later the elders came to Nee and apologized for their action. He was reinstated. But in the years that the processing went on, Nee was deeply tried as to his character.

As I studied Amy Carmichael's life with Reid and Van Dalen's analysis of it, I saw that isolation processing was a significant factor that deeply affected her leadership ability. Reid and Van Dalen identified several different kinds of isolation in her life, including one incident of isolation by self-choice, an experience forced by the missionary community, and one brought on by an accident.

Isolation by self-choice5 is the least threatening of all isolation experiences. The person perceives some control over the situation. In 1890, Robert Wilson invited Amy to come to live with him in Broughton Grange where his estate was. He had been first a divine contact, then a mentor for her, and had quite an influence on her spiritual formation. He was quite old at this time and had only a relatively short time to live.

At the time, Amy was in the throes of her first ministry, with factory girls.

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