Leadership in the Wilderness

In the final months of the 1990s, I was a freshly minted student at Calvin Theological Seminary. I had recently become engaged to a Christian Reformed woman and joined the CRCNA. With a head brimming with energy, excitement, and Reformed theology pouring out my ears, I was unleashed on unsuspecting CRC congregations with my “license to exhort.” And exhort I did—grateful for the preaching opportunities that helped pay my bills.

Yet there was something missing in those early years. It wasn’t experience—though certainly I needed more hands-on learning. It wasn’t theory—I had already digested a massive amount of theology and was conjugating Greek and Hebrew verbs in my sleep. What I lacked was formation, specifically the leadership formation that happens in the wilderness.

I used to think that leadership was like an escalator. You get on at the ground floor and, if you do it right, you move steadily up, up, and up. What I didn’t understand was that the formation sustaining fruitful leadership requires the escalator to stop and sometimes even slip backward.

Robert Clinton, one of the most influential leadership authors of the past 50 years, writes extensively about the “wilderness experience” of leaders. Scripture is full of them: Moses’ banishment from Egypt, Elijah’s flight to Mount Horeb, and Paul’s years in Arabia. Even Jesus was driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days.

In his book The Making of a Leader, Clinton refers to these wilderness experiences as “isolation processes.” Whether brought on by illness, loss of job, conflict, or emotional upheaval, these experiences should not be understood as failure and tragedy.

Rather, wilderness experiences are the formative crucibles God uses to move leaders to their next stage of ministry. By cooperating with the Spirit during these dry seasons, leaders develop the character, spiritual depth, and moral authority to lead. Clinton provides many examples of how the “wilderness experiences” prepared significant Christian leaders to be used by God in a remarkable way.

It would be convenient if I could say, “I wish someone had told that young, aspiring seminary student about the formative power of the wilderness.” The truth is, they did. In fact, one of my seminary classes assigned me to read The Making of a Leader. But as a young leader, I just didn’t get it. Maybe I couldn’t. Maybe some things can only be lived, not taught.

I eventually encountered the formative power of the wilderness the old-fashioned way. Several years into my ministry in Haiti with Christian Reformed World Missions (now Resonate Global Mission), I hit a metaphorical wall. Immersed in conflict, frustrated by my failure to make an impact, and suffering with an illness, I found myself in the desert. Or rather, God found me in the desert—and he used that experience to transform me. I’ve been in many wildernesses since, and I can tell you God has been present in every one.

What does this mean for developing leaders for our churches? We live in a time when many recognize the deep challenges of Christian leadership. Sometimes friends, parents, siblings, and even pastors try to talk prospective leaders out of ministry service, whether lay or ordained. Ministry is a privilege and joy, but the wilderness will come. Let’s challenge ourselves to see the desert not as tragedy, but as formation—part of the profound gospel pattern of dying and rising that ultimately sustains Christian leadership and life.