36 Steps to Christian Leadership

The name of Dixon E. Hoste is not well-known today. But there are three reasons why he deserves to be better remembered.

The first is that he was the second General Director of the China Inland Mission, the chosen successor of Hudson Taylor.

Yet any man who can follow and advance the work begun by such a pioneer and legendary figure must himself be an individual of outstanding stature. Dixon Hoste was such a man. Coming as he did from a regimented and highly-disciplined military life, he brought the natural talents and spiritual graces which the Mission needed at such a strategic time.

The second reason Hoste deserves to be remembered lies in the fact that, paradoxically, he lived so as to be forgotten. 'Live so as to be remembered' is stirring counsel. But there is another side to the fruit of God's grace: 'Live so that you will be forgotten, and Christ will be remembered.' And it is here that Dixon Hoste serves us as a model.

There is a third reason Hoste should be remembered. His gifts lay in his prayerfulness, his thoughtfulness, his wisdom, his passion for evangelism; in his thinking rather than in powers of speech. For D.E. Hoste was a man who thought. He was wise: 'If I have any gift at all, I feel it is along the lines of applying Christian principles to life.'

The statistics of the period of his directorship tell their own story of his faithfulness. Those years saw the Mission grow from 780 to 1,360 missionaries; from 364 organised churches to over 1,200; from 400 out-stations to over 2,200; from 1,700 baptisms in a year to 7,500.

(From the foreword by Sinclair Ferguson)

How to get the best out of people

Think of the way the Lord Jesus handled his apostles, who formed the early church and in due course went on to plant churches in new places. It was by patiently bearing with them in their lack of insight, their unbelief, their pride, their hardness of heart, their instability and their other faults. He not only bore with them, but he entrusted them with his ministry and with a measure of his power, sending them out as his messengers to the Jews. Above all, he constantly prayed for them. Let's note, with reverence, the courage, the faith and the hope he showed in the way he handled his disciples. These are vital qualities of a great leader.

Over and over again, the Bible shows us people who seem un-promising at first, but develop into great servants of God through being trusted to bear burdens, face dangers, make decisions, and go through difficult times. True, they sometimes stumbled and fell under their trials. But as the proverb says: 'Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again.' (Proverbs 24.16).
I'm sure the church has lost people whom God could have used in his service because leaders didn't see their potential. Instead, they have been put off by faults and weaknesses which the people could have grown out of, given the right sympathetic influences and a sense of being valued.

We too easily become stereotyped, narrow and critical in our judgment about others, especially the young and inexperienced, and in doing so we fail in a crucial area of leadership. A Chinese proverb says: 'The good ruler is able to make use of men.' In other words, he can perceive and find scope for the gifts of a range of people, taking into account their limitations. He recognises that people with one particular area of gifting often lack other gifts. We need a team of people who bring different strengths. You cannot bore a hole with a good hammer, or drive home a nail with a saw!

The practice of prayer

Personally, I find it a good thing to fast. I don't lay down rules for anyone in this matter, but I know it has been good for me to go without meals to get time for prayer. We often hear people say that they don't have enough time to pray, yet we think nothing of spending an hour or two in taking our meals. Why not try doing without sometime? I have found it such a benefit spiritually, and I believe our digestion benefits too!

If our vision of the unseen and eternal is to be kept bright and true, how important it is to be faithful in our daily personal communion with the Lord himself through praying and studying the Bible. It is only through this that we can be guarded from temptation and from the traps of the devil. And it is only this which will help us through times of depression or sorrow.

We should teach young believers how to pray and how to intercede, and we should work at developing this in them. In all else that we want to teach them, this can be overlooked, though it needs to have first place. But unless we ourselves are praying people, and truly alive to God in this holy warfare, we will never influence others to be. I am quite sure that the more we pray, the more we want to pray; I am also sure that the opposite is true.

This extract is taken from 36 Steps to Christian Leadership by D.E. Hoste, (OMF Publishing) and reprinted with permission.

36 Steps to Christian Leadership

An extract from the book 36 Steps to Christian Leadership

(From the foreword by Sinclair Ferguson)

The practice of prayer

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