By Lauryn Rooker
Staff Writer
As the famous singer Toby Mac flowed through speakers in Townsend Hall on October 22, 2009, Dr. Carol Decker presented Tennessee Wesleyan students with one of the most important convocations. If you know Dr. Decker you know that she is all about positivity, and that atmosphere is one of which I needed to be a part.
Decker’s topic was Christian Leadership. Though many profess Christianity, there’s never a point in which you fully know everything about your religion and spirituality. Dr. Decker said “Even when you are Christian, you still need continuous growth.” She presented us with five tools to become a good Christian leader.
The first tool is to “Model Godliness”, meaning that we as people tend to try and fix everyone else’s problems when we have our own problems that need fixing. You can’t go and condemn someone for something when you’re doing the exact same thing. Model Godliness, in my opinion, is where we as Christians need to mold ourselves and our lives in a Godly manner. We need to be Christ-like all the time, not just once a week when we enter the church’s doors. Dr. Decker’s point was that we need to do work on ourselves before we try and work on other people.
As an example, Decker told TWC students that she takes and draws out three charts, one that asks “What am I?”, the second “What do I do?”, and the third “What’s the result?”. By doing this Dr. Decker has realized that she brightens people’s spirits on campus. She said that she hopes to be a light to people on campus and be a leader for people to follow. Decker believes that if you frown, that is projecting unhappiness, and no one is going to want to be around that.
The second tool is “Inspiring and Sharing your Vision”. Her vision is to produce a college of Godliness. She asked all the convocation attendees if “enlist in her vision for TWC”, and many roared the answer yes. The third tool is “You must protect, care for, and nourish others with Godly principles.” What this means is that we all need to determine who exactly we serve; whether it be our families, our friends, our boyfriend/girlfriend, or Jesus Christ. You can’t serve yourself and be a good Christian leader. We have to know who we are serving and never give up on that. We also need to realize that we are going to suffer the consequences for doing the right thing. Be a good listener for those in need. By being good listeners, we can protect and nourish people.
The fourth tool is “Be a Talent Expert”. Dr. Decker said that she makes it a point to look for the talents in each and every one of us. She can spot who has strengths and when she finds strength in people, she will by all means exploit it. The final tool, “Being a Christian Leader”, means applying the balm of compassion and love. The first thing in this tool is to be able to take on someone else’s burdens; to do this you must be grounded in God. If we as Christians understand God’s love and His word, we can project it into this lost and dying world.
Dr. Decker told us “You must be a servant leader, not a self-servant leader.” You can’t serve yourself and be a good leader. You have to serve those around you and let them see the light in you on campus. We are all in this together, and we are all here for the same reason. Dr. Decker is the true definition of a leader,being one of the most humble women that I have ever met.
She spoke on why she is humble by telling a little bit about it. She wants people to know that a special person, several years ago, had abandoned her. She began to isolate everyone around her; she had nothing at all and was basically finished. Dr. Decker had a suicidal addiction and didn’t want to crawl out of the pit she was in. She had hit rock bottom and Jesus picked her up. Today she says that she is of humility, and happy because she knows that she is an “overcomer” and doesn’t think less of herself. She said that if you are in pit and have hit rock bottom, you are only serving yourself. Decker is who she was created to be in God’s eyes, and that is a strong, compassionate, fun loving, courageous, woman of God.
We all have to maintain Christian habits to be the leaders that God has called us to be. In doing this, we need to spend time praying with God every morning by doing scriptural study. If we don’t read the Bible and take that time, we can’t have the strength that we are meant to have. We need to exercise our faith and profess it all the time showing people that God is love and that love is God. We also need to find someone who we can do truth telling with. We all need someone to listen to us, who will be there and take the time to not be judgmental. We need someone who is a server not a self-server.
Every morning when you wake up, ask yourself these five questions: 1.) What Christian values do people see in you? 2.) Are we animated to transform people? 3.) Are we just doing things to be recognized? 4.) What are we doing to give our power away? 5.) How often do we look for people doing the right things? By asking these five questions we can begin our days as leaders and continue to be leaders throughout our daily routines.
In conclusion, what is Christian Leadership? It’s a “Christ-like” relationship between leaders and followers. All of Dr. Decker’s tools can establish you to be a leader or a follower. I can tell you that Dr. Decker has made me want to be a better leader on this campus. From my first day walking in her class, I knew that there was a reason that God placed me there. She has been there for me and I know that I can always turn to her. Her positivity has affected me greatly since August. I am choosing to be a leader and stand out on this campus and declare my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
