Got Intimacy?

Britt Merrick was giving a talk recently and it was put into the Catalyst Leader online magazine. This is such a great talk about what I believe to be basic to leadership. Britt talks about how we should stop trying to lead and start trying to love. He believes that loving God and being intimate with God must be the first thing. We need to stop doing doing, doing and get in the face of God. He talks about John who was reclining on Jesus’ chest. John wanted to be close to Jesus more than anything else and so he pressed in and got intimate. This priority of intimacy led to the longest ministry and the greatest revelation. When they tried to boil John it didn’t work! John was concerned primarily about intimacy with God and leaders must also be concerned primarily with intimacy.

What would it look like to be intimate with God? As a leader what would it look like to have a non-negotiable of intimacy with God? To have time set aside as the leader to be intimate with God? That you were paid to be intimate with God (hours in your work week dedicated to intimacy)? What if we had a seminary that valued that? We have a seminary that requires 40 hours a week of coursework and an internship. We must also eat and so we must work. Does our seminary value intimacy? Do we have a fundamental lack of intimacy and does that explain the horrible statistics in our culture for pastors?