Henry Nowan on Christian Leadership - In Jesus Name

This is an excerpt from his book "In Jesus Name" - it comes shortly after he move in to live with a group of handicapped people. It is so moving and compelling.

The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking of disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction. My considerable ecumenical experience proved event less valuable.

When I offered some meat to one of the assistants during dinner, one of the handicapped men said to me, "Don't give him meat. He doesn't eat meat. He's a Presbyterian."

Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. I was suddenly faced with my naked self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting life all over again. Relationships, connections, reputations could no longer be counted on.

This experience was and in many ways, is still the most important experience of my new life, because it forced me to rediscover my true identity. These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self - the self that could do things, show tings, prove things, build things - and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.

I am telling you this because I am deeply convinced that the Christian Leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God's love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God's Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.