Leading from the Fringe

What if losing your place at the centre does not mean losing your influence?

Read Time: 8 minutes

Wee Margaret has accomplished absolutely nothing—and already her presence matters enormously.

What Does Not-Lonely Look Like?

What if some of our deepest leadership happens after we lose the place we thought we were supposed to lead from?

Last Sunday our preacher said that, statistically, about one person in four in a congregation our size is lonely.

I’ve been hearing the same thing in conversations with friends. Lonely.
It made me wonder:

What does not-lonely look like?

I don’t think it simply means having people around us.

We long to belong somewhere where we are accepted, where what we bring matters, where people notice our absence. 

Some loneliness is not caused by being pushed to the fringe. The fringe simply wakes up an older ache.

For some of us, that ache began years ago—in an environment where affection was scarce, approval was hard to earn, or someone important always seemed just out of reach.

Maybe that is why being pushed toward the fringe can hurt so much.

I can remember this happening several times in my own life.

In a private suburban high school, I never felt like I belonged to the in-group, so I went the other way—cowboy boots, a leather jacket, and finding some strange influence in my group by not fitting in.

Looking back, learning to be comfortable with not fitting in may have been good preparation for advancing the Kingdom of God. In the Yukon, I finally felt like I had found my people. Many of us newcomers—the ones who had not been born there—were social misfits of one kind or another. Maybe that was part of what drew us north in the first place. Later, at Bible school in Dallas, I was a Canadian from the far North surrounded by city people. Then school ended, and I started again at zero—back in the far North, living on islands near the top of the Canadian map, among people who placed no value on Bible school.

Years later in the Amazon, the pattern continued. 

Different circumstances. Same strange feeling.

One day you are somewhere near the middle of things. Then you begin wondering how to stay relevant.

Interestingly, some of the places where I have felt most relevant were also on the fringe. In the jail ministry in Marabá, I found myself immersed once again among social misfits. And Jesus was on the move there. That season remains among the highlights of those years.

Sometimes we move ourselves toward the fringe. Sometimes we fail. In some seasons, our best is simply not enough. Other times, a power struggle, organizational politics, a younger leader, or simply age moves us toward the outside. People no longer seek us out as much. They may no longer see us as relevant. We begin to wonder whether we have lost the influence we once had.

Good news! Jesus repeatedly moved toward the fringe—and formed leaders there.

When His disciples began thinking about status, Jesus turned the whole idea of greatness upside down. In the kingdoms of this world, powerful people “lord it over” others. Their leaders strive to become and to remain the center of power and the social elite.

“Not so with you,” Jesus said.
Whoever wants to become great must become a servant.
Then He pointed to Himself: the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve—and ultimately to give His life for others.

From a River Village to a Global Village
 

Years ago, a young woman named Elba came out of a remote community in the Amazon to continue her education, first in a town, and then in the city.

She had very little of what we normally associate with influence. Position. Platform. Powerful connections.

At one point, she came to live and work with us while our children were small.

Elba learned, served, grew, and became someone people could trust. Her influence began long before her titles did.

Her titles and roles came much later. We do not serve in order to become worthy of belonging. We serve because, in Christ, we are already seen and received.

Out of the Mud

Psalm 40 begins with remembered rescue. David remembers how God reached down, lifted him out of the pit of disaster, out of the mud, and set his feet on a rock. Can you see David singing the new song?

Then David says:

“Many will see and fear
And will trust in the LORD.”

See.

That word catches me.

People watch what happens when life does not go our way—how we release responsibility, how we speak about those who replaced us, whether disappointment makes us bitter.

Apparently, our lives can still point people toward God when we are no longer standing where we once stood. Maybe especially then.

Open Ears

A few verses later, David says:

“You have not desired sacrifice and meal offering;
You have opened my ears;
You have not required burnt offering and sin offering. ”

The Hebrew image is concrete. God has dug open David’s ears.

And I can’t help hearing an echo from the beginning of the Bible.

In Genesis, the ground has just been watered when God forms a human from its dust and places him in a garden.

Here in Psalm 40, God reaches down again—this time into a pit and the mud—sets a human on solid ground, and begins forming him from the inside.

The first humans responded to sin by blaming others.
David discovers a better way. He admits:

“My guilty deeds have overtaken me… They are more numerous than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed me.”

He confesses what is his to own—and then trusts in God’s righteousness, compassion, faithfulness, salvation, mercy, and truth.

David is touching a truth woven through the Torah and prophets:
God never wanted religious activity separated from listening hearts and willing obedience.

Then:

“I delight to do Your will, my God;
Your Law is within my heart.”

First, God opens his ears.
Then David delights in God’s will.
God’s Law moves inward.
So does the work of formation.
 

God works in the leader before God works through the leader.

This may be one of the strange gifts of the fringe. When some of our usual levers disappear, we discover how little we actually control. 

I may not control what others do, but I can take responsibility for my own response.

My ears. My heart. My response. My willingness to obey.
This may be the most challenging leadership task we ever do.

David Keeps Speaking

“I have proclaimed good news of righteousness in the great congregation.”

He tells people about God’s faithfulness, salvation, mercy, and truth.

And yet the man proclaiming God’s righteousness is not presenting himself as a flawless man.
As we have just seen, David is feeling crushed by his own sins.
He has enemies.
And guilt.

It would have been easy to portray himself as completely innocent because others treated him badly. Or to decide that because he had sinned, everyone attacking him must therefore be right.

We do both.
David does neither.

He owns his sin without handing his identity to his accusers.

Apparently some people were enjoying his trouble:

“Aha! Aha!”

Can you hear the smug voices?

I always knew there was something wrong with him.

David certainly needed repentance.
But people who delight in someone else’s destruction need to examine their hearts too.

David does not launch a campaign to straighten everyone out. He takes his case to God.
He cannot control the people saying, “Aha!” 

But he can attend to the man whose ears God is opening.
That sounds a lot like leadership to me.

We rarely see very far around the next bend. Maybe that is part of the invitation. And maybe it helps to remember that we don’t have to walk alone. – Chris Weins and Tim Neilsen walk a mountain path in British Columbia.

Around the Mountain Again

Psalm 40 does not travel in a straight line.

It begins with rescue. Then comes praise, opened ears, obedience, Torah in the heart, and public proclamation.

If we were writing the story, that would be a fine place to finish.

But the Psalm keeps going.

Suddenly David is overwhelmed again. Sin. Enemies. Need.

“Hurry, LORD, to help me.”

And that is where the Psalm ends. Back in the valley. Waiting for God again.

In my experience, life with God is less like a straight climb up a mountain and more like a path spiralling around it.

We encounter familiar terrain again—joy, failure, fruitfulness, discipline, opposition, waiting, wonder—but we are not quite the same people each time around.

The valley at sixty is not exactly the valley at thirty.

The terrain may feel familiar, but now we carry more history with God.

We remember other rescues.
We have scars.
We have stories.
Hopefully our ears are a little more open.

Spiritual maturity does not mean reaching an elevation where there are no more valleys. It means we meet the valley differently.

We remember:
God has met me here before.

Poor and Needy

Psalm 40 ends:

“But I am afflicted and needy;
May the Lord be mindful of me.”

David does not finish with, I conquered.
He finishes needy.

But needy is not worthless.

David has lost confidence in his own sufficiency without losing confidence in God’s attention.

“May the Lord be mindful of me.”

I may have failed.
I may be getting older.
I may no longer occupy the position I once held.
And still—

God is thinking about me.
God has not pushed me to the fringe of His attention.

Perhaps that is why Psalm 40 ends just in time to begin again.

The landscape looks familiar.
But David is not quite the same man.
His ears have been opened.
God’s instruction has gone deeper.
And still he needs God.
 

Maybe mature leadership isn’t about knowing what comes next.

Maybe it is learning to keep our ears open.

And maybe not-lonely does not mean getting ourselves back into the centre.

Maybe it begins with knowing that God is mindful of us, and then noticing who He has placed beside us to love and serve.

Three Takeaways

1. Jesus repeatedly finds and forms people on the fringe.

2. Kingdom influence grows less from position than from listening, serving, and becoming trustworthy.

3. Maturity does not remove the valleys. It teaches us to meet familiar terrain with memory, open ears, and hope.