Paradigm 7 God's Work Must be Done in God's Way.

God's way is always through prayer. Prayer should be the top priority of a leader's life. Prayer is should undergird any project a leader undertakes (cf.1:5-11).  Why is prayer important for any successful leadership? When we pray we admit our dependence on God. Prayer recognises God as the source of power. It is tapping into God's infinite resources. In prayer we ask God to do what we can’t. In other words, it is saying to God "I can't but You can." George MacDonald's reminds us, "In whatever a man does without God, he must fail miserably or succeed more miserably."

The self-sufficient do not pray; they merely talk to themselves. The self-satisfied will not pray; they have no knowledge of their need. The self-righteous cannot pray ; they have no basis on which to approach God. (Barber 1976:22-23).

A leader’s prayer accomplishes 4 things: 

• Prayer internalizes the burden, deepening ownership of a need
• Prayer insists our quiet hearts and wait, slowing us down to receive from God
• Prayer infuses the vision, enabling us to see what God wants to do
• Prayer initiates the vision’s fulfillment, acting as a catalyst for us to act  

God's work must be done God's way. More importantly, prayer is the method God has chosen to work with.

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Paradigm 8  Balanced Leadership is Needed and Necessary in Doing God's Work.

Life is all about balance - the "ying and the yang". The vertical and horizontal factors are both important in Christian leadership. All leaders need to be BBL (biblically balanced leaders). Faith and works are two sides of a coin. Vertically, we need prayer (God's hand) and horizontally we need co-operation from the people and perseverance (attitude and competence). The tendency to go to either extremes is detrimental to the success of our leadership. 

Nehemiah did not see the dichotomise between being and doing, relationships and task,    nor people and projects. Transformational leaders do not separate the two but rather balance the two elements. Nehemiah was people as well as project oriented. "Because Nehemiah was committed to both the people and the project, he made adjustments in the way the project  was being managed to care for the people, which facilitated motivation for the people for the task (see Nehemiah 4:7-23)."

Nehemiah was a spiritual as well as a practical leader. He prayed as well as planned. As a spiritual leader, he demonstrated his dependence on God by praying when he encountered problems — external threats, internal strife and difficult situations.  

As a practical leader, when faced with opposition from Sanballat, Gesham and Tobiah and the possibility of a military intervention, he did something about it. He posted guards, established communication network when enemies threatened to intimidate them in their rebuilding. With a unified workforce he assigned an area of the wall to different people.  Some he prepared to continue working and others he armed them ready to fight (cf. 4:9). With the establishment of rapid deployment post, reinforcement could be called upon readily to defend certain section of the walls. 

He was also tough-minded and tender-heated. When confronting the enemies, he was tough-minded.  But he was tender-hearted when he heard the plight of the poor people.

In sum, he was heavenly minded but of earthly use. He was both project-oriented as well as people oriented. He showed a balance between work and prayer; people and project,  assertion and patience. All these were not mutually exclusive.

The leadership of Nehemiah demonstrated a balanced between old and new, word^[1] and prayer, vision and knowledge, leading and serving, building and guarding^[2] and burdens and blessings (Warren Wiersbe 2010: 155-169).

Do we pray and then plan? Or, do we plan and then pray? There is a need to pray and plan, agonise and organise, and become people and project oriented. Nehemiah prayed as though everything depended on God and worked as though  everything depended on him.  Let this be our prayer:

O Lord, make us intensely spiritual, but keep us perfectly natural and thoroughly practical (Samuel Chadwick).^[3]

Paradigm 9 Expect Some Kind of Opposition When Doing God's Work.

Opposition in terms of criticism is to be expected when we seek to do the work of God. It is inevitable and unavoidable. Opposition can come in different forms like destructive criticism, gossips, rumours, discouragement, etc and also from different sources - friends and foes. Different people do it for different reasons. There is another source of opposition that Paul reminds us, "For our struggles is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark age against the superhuman forces of evil  in the heavenly realms " (Eph 6:12).     

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When saints say 'Arise and build the enemy says, Let us arise and oppose.' No opportunity without opposition. No triumph without trouble (Sidlow Baxter).

When you begin to act on your vision, it will stir up both those who want to help you and those who want to hinder you...Opposition often proves you are doing something significant with your life (Robert Munroe).

Courage, conviction and confidence in God are three powerful weapons to overcome opposition, obstacles and setbacks. Sometimes, your so called "enemies" will seek to raise doubts in you by pointing at past failures. That may discourage you even from using your gifts, deter you from doing your best. Hence, you become worried and lack the courage to move forward. You may think it is not the time yet to fulfil your destiny. Or, you may  give up before the task is done.

Just move on because it is God who decides your future and not others.  God allows opposition to happen to humble and test you.  

When the Lord calls us to do a job, he usually gives us enough challenges to excite us, enough problems to humble us and enough promises to keep us trusting and working (Wiersbe 2010: 162).

Paradigm 10 The Antidote to Discouragement in Leadership is  having "the joy of the Lord". 

It is the "joy of the Lord" (Neh 8:10) that will give you the strength to persevere in you leadership when difficult situations arise. There is power in having the "joy of the Lord". Do you have the "joy of the Lord" in your ministry?

The joy of the Lord is my strength,

The joy of the Lord is my strength,

The joy of the Lord is my strength,

And the joy of the Lord is my strength.

He heals the broken hearted and they cry no more,

He heals the broken hearted and they cry no more.

He heals the broken hearted and they cry no more,

And the joy of the Lord is my strength.

He gives me living water and I thirst no more,

He gives me living water and I thirst  no more.

He gives me living water and I thirst no more,

And the joy of the Lord is my strength.^[4]

Paradigm 11 Cooperation from the People is Important for the Successful Beginning and Completion of any Project.

Different people and groups were involved in the rebuilding project of Nehemiah. We see different family relationships, professional groups, different age groups, thirty-eight men, eight vocations, six cities, seven rulers, and a man and his daughters (cf. 3:29-32). To do God’s work requires commitment, good organization, coordination, cooperation and giving credit where credit is due (3:1-32). People need to be informed and challenged in doing God' work (2:17-20).  

People are our "appreciable assets". Sometimes leaders tend to forget that we are where we are because of the people. However great a leader is, without the cooperation of the people, nothing can be accomplished.  There is power of the "we"  more than "I". We are in the People business. We need to be reminded time and again that "people will forget what we have preached, taught or said. But they will never forget how we've treated them."

To put it in another way, there must be leadership resonance between leaders and those whom they lead in order to accomplish anything successfully.  

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Paradigm 12 No Leader is Indispensable in God's work.

All leaders need to have humility. God uses leaders who are humble in his work (cf. Matt 23:12, James 4:10 and 1 Pet 5:6). When our work is finished, God will bury his workers, but his work still continues on.   

Nehemiah was successful in implementation of his strategy in the rebuilding project because he possessed certain critical leadership attributes and attitudes which are required in the area of people engagement and influence. He informed, inspired and influenced the people to change their attitudes and beliefs when faced with opposition and obstacles. Leading pro-actively, he empowered the people and helped them to accept responsibility and accountability for the results which contributed to its success. The above leadership paradigms should be applied by any organisation that seeks to develop peak performance in its people and be successful in its achievements.