A small-group leader starts avoiding folks in his fellowship. It’s mid-October and small group attendance in his group has started to decline. Midterms are hitting hard. He has not seen some people in a month. His friends’ small groups seem to be thriving. Many of them have an outreach planned for the end of the month. He feels like he has failed and has very little energy to try to change the course of things. He thinks, “I wish I had more marshmallows.”

A chapter president slams down her telephone. “Why doesn’t this fellowship care about pre-Christians?” she grumbles. The leadership team is trying to cast a vision for a structural makeover that would help the fellowship become more intentional in reaching out to pre-Christians. But there is a lot of resistance to the change from the fellowship. As the president reflects, insecurity creeps in. Why can’t I cast vision better? Why am I such a poor leader? What I wouldn’t give for a few more marshmallows.

It’s about midnight and Mike gets a call from Greg, someone he is discipling. Greg sounds desperate and alludes to some serious stuff he needs to share. They meet at an all-night coffee shop and it is clear that Greg has been living a double life. He has not been honest about personal sin and some deceit in his class work. He is frantic to make things right. Mike listens and grows more and more uncomfortable. What do I say? he wonders. What’s the right response? I wish I had that marshmallow.

Out of Control

We were on our way to a beginning-of-the-year student retreat. Steven was sitting next to me and a student named Stephanie was in the back. My wife, Laurel, and the rest of the students were in another car. Steven was telling us about his Student Training in Missions trip—the chances to pray, the hikes in beautiful mountains, the bonding with children and nationals, and also disappointments—unmet expectations and illness. We enjoyed his insights and empathized with the shortcomings. He then began to tell how his re-entry into American culture had been challenging. In particular there was a hard conversation with his Mom that had elicited deep pain from his past and present. Suddenly Steven was beating his fists against my dashboard and yelling about how much he hated her. This tirade went on for some time. It was a turn of events that I was not expecting. I gripped the steering wheel harder and tried to connect. “That sounds really hard,” I said weakly. I glanced at Stephanie who had slumped into the back seat and appeared to want to get in to the trunk. Steven grew quiet for a moment and my mind raced.

I was scared. What would he do next? I was out of control. What should I say? I wondered. And suddenly I was angry. Why me? I feel self-pity. Why do I have to deal with this kind of stuff? My own expectations made me angry. After all, I’m the staff worker, and I should know what to do. Steven expected me to know what to do. But I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to go home. If only I had more marshmallows . . .

Those Marshmallows

As I reflect on these leadership situations, an underlying assumption about leadership is exposed: if I only had more of these marshmallows, I would be a better leader. It is an assumption that says the marshmallows are what empower us to become good leaders. So, covet the marshmallows! They are your hope. In reality, at their essence, the marshmallows are idols that we are tempted to worship—idols that could give us what we want: recognition, praise, appreciation and glory.

What are these marshmallows? Lets explore them through the eyes of a hypothetical student leader in your fellowship. We’ll call him Marty. Here are his marshmallows:

Creativity and competency. Marty watches his friends read books about being a small-group leader, is envious of their creative publicity fliers, jealous of their administration gifts and believes if only he were more creative or more competent, if he could come up with better outreach ideas or understand Scripture better, he would have more success as a leader. Leadership is all about what you know.

Time with a staff worker, pastor, or discipler. One day Marty is faced with a complex situation—one of his small-group members is having a hard time emotionally. Marty needs to talk out the situation with someone wiser—someone who has been through it and who might have some good insight. He longs to spend time with his staff worker. In fact, he becomes angry that his staff worker isn’t immediately available to him, and he grows jealous that others in the fellowship seem to have more access.

Leadership is all about who you know. More free time. Marty works ten hours a week in the biology greenhouse, is a student in civil engineering, is trying to maintain a relationship with that special someone, and needs to get home once a month to visit his family. He resists when his leadership team wants to meet more frequently or do some special training together. Inwardly he thinks he could do a much better job in leadership if only he had more time—if he could hang out with his guys more and spend substantial time with folks in his GIG. He worships the idol of free time.

Leadership is all about being more available. A different past. Marty has some things he regrets from his time in high school. In addition, his family seems to fight whenever they gather together. His parents don’t seem very happy. They didn’t do much church stuff when he was younger.

This family, these regrets, and a non-Christian heritage seem to hinder Marty from being the leader he wants to be. He wishes he didn’t feel guilty all the time. He knows that he is pretty selfish. He wants to be more generous, more loving, more able to give, but his past seems to hinder him. Marty is convinced that leaders are made in ideal environments. Good leaders come out of really good situations.

Moral perfection. Although his past is difficult, unfortunately, Marty’s present is still challenging. The leaders he looks up to seem to really have their act together. They don’t seem to struggle with the things that plague his inner world—anger, lust, comparison. Marty is convinced that to be a good leader he must be morally perfect or at least pretty close. He works hard to not mess up. He worships the idol of moral goodness. Leadership is about perfection.

Mere Marshmallows

Marty is pretty typical. And the idols that present themselves to him almost always travel together and are common to many in leadership. These marshmallows are not bad or evil in themselves. They look good. It is laudatory to strive after them—to be competent, to be pure. But when Marty worships them and pursues them and thinks that they are the key to effective and empowered leadership in themselves, the fruit is drivenness, bitterness and a vapid, utilitarian relationship with Jesus. “God, what can you do for me? How can you help me to look good—to look successful?” The reality is that when we compare what Paul calls the unsearchable riches of Christ, the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit and the creative capacity of God the Father to these idols, it really is as silly as thinking more marshmallows will help us be a better small-group leader or have an effective campus outreach. The power of God versus just these without God? Mere marshmallows.

Thankfully there is good news for the Marty-marshmallow-seekers of the world! Isaiah tells us that in repentance and rest is our salvation; in quietness and trust is our strength (see Isaiah 30:15). God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have given us everything we need to be empowered as leaders. In every situation that confronts us, every weapon formed against us, every person that challenges us, the Triune God says, “We’ve got your back. Will you rest in us? Or will you, as Isaiah goes on to say, ‘have none of it?’ Will you pursue the marshmallows instead?”

For Israel, the marshmallows were an alliance with Egypt and access to its army’s swift horses.

Whenever Israel faced invasions by the Assyrians from the north or the Babylonians from the east, there was always Egypt, a powerful country to the south with a vested interest in Israel’s keeping its enemies at bay. Egypt was more than willing to be an ally. And Israel was more than willing to trust in the strength and numbers of Egyptian troops and horses.

Meanwhile, God was pleading through prophets like Isaiah, “Trust in me. I know it’s a difficult situation. Trust me. I am your salvation.” But they would have none of it.

Paul’s Marshmallows

The Apostle Paul gave us a positive picture of how repentance, rest, quietness and trust are salvation and strength. We know Paul’s pedigree—he told the Philippian church that if anyone had reason to put confidence in the flesh, to trust in marshmallows, he did. He had the right past, the right family, the right training and competency, the right moral purity, and access to the right people. He was the total package. He was the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

In Ephesians 3, Paul described his calling from God and the leadership task to which he had been assigned:

“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. . . . This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things” (Ephesians 3:1–3, 6–9, emphasis mine).

Paul calls himself a prisoner of Christ Jesus. He was actually a prisoner of the Roman Emperor Nero. But such was his view of the Lordship and goodness of God that this unpleasant situation was chalked up, with joy, to God. Paul had been arrested in Jerusalem because of fanatical Jewish opposition to his mission to the Gentiles. Luke explains that what prompted the Jews to stir up the crowd was his reputation for teaching against the law and the temple—two main tenets of Jewish faith. Paul’s message was that Jesus was creating a new people and building a new temple, that the walls that divided people—walls of hate, racism, bigotry had been removed by Jesus.

It was an incredibly difficult leadership assignment, humanly speaking, to preach peace between Jew and Gentile and, by extension, Asian and African, European and Latino. Yet, Paul is not bitter or full of self-pity about the impossibility of his task. No, he uses the same Greek phrase twice which is translated “God’s grace that was given to me.” This situation is God’s good, good grace to him.

All of Paul’s marshmallows lined up perfectly, making him an outstanding Jew, possibly the greatest ever. But for Paul, God poured out grace, lavished it on him and said, “You get an assignment where the marshmallows don’t work—your pedigree, training and background don’t mean a thing. In fact they are going to make the establishment even angrier. This is my gift to you.” Because of this mission, Paul got to be in on the center of God’s heart—a whole-world-all-people-gospel. To accomplish this mission he would be forced to rely on the power God wanted to give and not his marshmallows. Paul got a chance to break the idols and choose repentance, rest, quietness and trust.

Empowered leadership is joyfully accepting an impossible task. It is not choosing a flurry of activity or anger or self-pity. It is believing, as Paul goes on to say, that the God who can do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, is at work in and through us.

In contrast, these marshmallow idols represent the human quest for self-sufficiency, a quest that doesn’t include God, a quest that is as old as the Garden of Eden. How do we come to a place where we see our leadership roles as Paul did—a gift of God’s grace, given so that we can see the working of his power and not our sufficiency?

Give it a Rest

How do we live in this rest? I am reticent to offer a plan or program. It seems dangerously close to creating a new marshmallow. But there are some things that we can do. They should not be where our hope lies, but we need to be faithful.

1. Repent. Our first response is the opportunity to repent. Each of us needs to examine our life and look for idols of self-sufficiency, of confidence in our giftings alone, of worshiping the “right people,” of placing our hope in our competence or our purity, of our busyness—our chasing after the right book, experience, training or teacher.

It helps to have a regular discipline of repentance. First, examine: “Search me, O God, and know my heart . . . See if there is any wicked way in me . . .” (Psalm 139:23–24). Next, use the acronym ACT: Assess. Confess. Turn away.

Avoid making excuses, rationalizations, or explaining the idols away. God gives us a viable option: in repentance and rest is salvation. What a great gift. Try a simple prayer, “Jesus, as I recognize this idol today in my life (name it here, such as, that if I had a different personality, I would be a better leader), I choose to turn away. Tomorrow, who knows? You know tomorrow. But my longing is to string together a bunch of these days of turning away and so build momentum and space for your empowering presence.”

2. Be faithful to the task to which God has called you. This message is in no way calling for apathy, passivity, or laissez-faire Christianity. If you have a task role as a leader—be faithful. Prepare the best small group you can. Write really good discussion questions. Use your administrative gifts to plan large group well and find good speakers. Be faithful. Resting is not about anxiety, worry or frenzied activity. It’s about being faithful to the things we have been assigned and not trying to do, control or take over what is not ours.

I remember when our UT staff team piled into a van and drove to Bear Trap Ranch, an InterVarsity camp in Colorado. We were there for three days. We spent six hours a day in individual and corporate silence—three hours in personal retreats and three hours in listening prayer for each other. During that time the Holy Spirit said significant things to us. But also, he revealed to me that I was pursuing two marshmallows while there. The first was the need to construct significant moments for the team. I realized I’d been thinking, if only I had a better personality, if only I could ask better questions and tell better jokes, this trip would be better. Second, because I had helped set up the trip, I was trying to take credit for what the Holy Spirit was doing. In reality, I hadn’t made the scenery, I wasn’t forcing God to speak to people, and I wasn’t refreshing them through silence or a nap. I had been faithful to my part. I was faithful to my role as a manager, administrator, and creator of space for God to work. But it was God’s grace to me that the significant occurrences of the trip came not from my direct speech or activity, but from him. It was God’s grace to teach me to be faithful and to rest in his power.

3. Spend time with Jesus. This journey of growth is “a long obedience in the same direction,” as Eugene Peterson says in his book by the same name. The idea is to develop intimacy with God and times of prayer not born out of crisis or emergency. We want to be steeped in Jesus, soaked through and through. And it’s a daily developmental process.

Once, my friend Eric had an indoor bike accident and put his head through a bedroom wall. In order to patch drywall, it takes multiple layers of drywall “mud.” This has to be layered thinly and allowed to dry before applying the next layer. If it’s put on too thickly or if it’s rushed, it will crack. Repairs take a while. That is the image for spending time with Jesus. It is many layers over many days that expand into months and years. Rather than just getting an answer for a current crisis, seek to build a discipline and habit of regular time. Get up tomorrow and meet with the Lord, then the next day and the next day, for the next 60 years. Spend time with Jesus.

4. Be rested and ready to act. Rest is an intentional, spiritual discipline that does not come naturally. Eugene Peterson relates this insight from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. In the story, Peterson explains, the sailors are rowing furiously and the sea is frothing as they pursue the great white whale. All attention and energy are focused on the task. But there is one person in the boat who does nothing. “He doesn’t hold an oar; he doesn’t perspire; he doesn’t shout. He is languid in the crash and the cursing. This man is the harpooner, quiet and poised, waiting.” Melville has this great line: “To ensure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this world must start to their feet out of idleness and not out of toil.” If there is no harpooner in the boat, there will be no proper finish to the chase. If the harpooner is exhausted with activity, having abandoned his assignment to be an oarsmen, he will not be ready and accurate when it is time to throw. There is a great temptation for us as leaders/harpooners to abandon our waiting, resting role and row furiously in a flurry of activity, to pursue all the marshmallows.

As a leader, how can you create spaces of non-productivity, of rested idleness? This doesn’t mean watching TV, playing a computer game or Instant Messaging your friend. This is about places of quiet, of listening, of “bored readiness” like the harpooner. A weekly Sabbath is a good place to start. The hope is that when you face the situations that seem like they just need a bunch more marshmallows, you will instead be empowered and ready to dart to your feet from a posture of languid readiness.

Let’s take a final look at that chapter president I mentioned at the beginning. She is upset that no one is doing anything—no outreach, no follow-up, no attempts to build relationships with pre-Christians. So, she has become a Marshmallow Seeker. Marshmallow-seeking leaders in that situation will often choose manipulation, anger or giving up in defeat. My hope is that the Marshmallow-seekers of the world, like me, would grow into empowered leaders instead. Repent of idols, anger and manipulation. Cast vision, being faithful to the task. Pray a lot, trusting in the immeasurable power of God. And because you are steeped in Jesus, rest intentionally in his power.

David Hanke served on InterVarsity staff for ten years at the University of Texas. During that time God mercifully exposed lots of marshmallows that his heart was bent to pursue. Currently he is running, biking, and studying theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He loves digging holes in the sand with his sons and walking through tiny New England towns with his wife. You can find more of his writing at www.xanga.com/writebikerun/.