During the summer of 2021, we decided that our sweet Claire needed a playmate. For those who don’t know, Claire is our perfect Labradoodle/Goldendoodle mix. She has worked with my wife at her counseling office for several years and is loved by all. In fact, when we leave town, people fight over keeping her. However, that can’t be said of the playmate we got for Claire.
First of all, we went to a local breeder with the intention of getting a Schnoodle. They are sweet and kind. We also thought this new dog would be a future helper at my wife’s office. However, what we ended up with was a character. Claude is cute. There is no denying that. He is black but has markings on his feet and eyebrows. However, he is not a Schnoodle. It turns out, we ended up with a half Havanese, half Poodle. Havanese are fun dogs with a few quirky characteristics. They love paper. Claude eats paper towels and toilet paper like they are fine delicacies. He also loves to be on my shoulders and lick my ears. He is a weirdo. While Claude may have looked like a Schnoodle on the outside, he definitely had a different personality than we thought he would have.
In addition to the breed mix-up, we picked him because of how cute his little markings were. Let me share an important truth — don’t do that. If you want to pick out the best dog for you or your family, look at the breed’s defining characteristics. Think about who they are on the inside, not just how cute they are. My little demon dog is adorable, but he drives us crazy by eating things he shouldn’t and being a little too extra.
It is easy to get caught in this trap of looking on the outward rather than the inward. When we look for our next youth pastor, we want that man to look a certain way — fun, athletic, etc. Sometimes, the outward can dominate the conversation. The same can be said about picking student leaders in our groups. We might think a student is leadership material because they appear to have it together. Some of our strongest leaders are not the ones you might expect.
It reminds me of the children of Israel and how they chose their first king. They selected Saul, who looked like a king. However, when the next king was anointed, God chose a shepherd boy who wasn’t even considered leadership material by his own family.
The issue of leadership must be constantly addressed in our churches. We need to train the next wave of leaders so they are ready to step into roles, but the need to help our leaders develop character is even more important. Our student ministries and churches must look to the inward man when selecting leaders and not obsess over the outward. The saying is “character over competency.”
What are some of the traits we want to look for? The easiest thing for me to do is to point you to I Tim. 3:1-13. Verses 2-3 give us pause as we seek leaders or want to be leaders ourselves. The Bible says when approaching the qualifications of a pastor, “Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.” These are inward traits that highlight character.
Let me put it very simply — ignore character, and you may end up with a “Claude.” People think he is cute, but he drives us a little batty. Stress character with your students. Stress character with your congregation. We don’t want to be a church that looks great on the outside but is rotten on the inside. Claude isn’t completely rotten on the inside, but I should have considered more than his looks when picking him out. May we all take time to evaluate potential leaders by what is going on under the surface rather than the stuff that is easy to see with our eyes.
