Leading in Spite of Adversity

Look beneath the surface of church history and you'll discover that most of God's servants—including the ones who made it look easy—had to persevere in spite of considerable pain and suffering.

Alexander Campbell said, "Attempt great things, expect great things will follow," but he also endured great adversity. When he preached his famous Sermon on the Law at the age of 28, some ministers convened a meeting outside the church building to discuss having him formally condemned and censured. In 1847 when Campbell was traveling in Great Britain, his son Wycliffe drowned while swimming on the family farm in Bethany, Virginia. Campbell persevered in his efforts to restore the New Testament church despite constant controversy and considerable heartache.

Big Hearts, Big Hurts

Barton W. Stone was only 28 years old and a newlywed when he led the Cane Ridge Revival in central Kentucky in August of 1801. Just a month before Cane Ridge, on July 2, 1801, he married a 17-year-old named Elizabeth Campbell. Elizabeth and Barton Stone had five children together—four daughters and a son who died in infancy. But after they were married less than eight years, Elizabeth died at the age of 25 of unknown causes. Stone was left to raise their four young daughters alone. Eventually he married a woman named Celia, a cousin of his first wife (she was 19 and he was 39 when they married!), and they had two sons together. Many know Stone as an influential leader in early American Christianity, but do we also know him as a widower who grieved the death of his first wife and of his infant son, one who labored to provide for his blended family?

When the frontier preacher Raccoon John Smith was away from home, his log cabin burned down, killing two of his children. Historian Leroy Garrett relates, "His wife Anna, who was on a visit of mercy to a nearby home when the fire struck, could not forgive herself of the unintentional neglect and could not be consoled. She took sick and soon died. Then Raccoon himself came down with a stubborn fever that laid him low for four months." Smith was an influential evangelist—and a man familiar with suffering.

When Charles Spurgeon was at the peak of his ministry in London, the local newspapers ridiculed him. One writer mocked his preaching by saying that he slid down the pulpit banisters and then climbed back up again to demonstrate how easy it is to backslide and how difficult it is to recover. (The truth was, his pulpit didn't even have banisters.) Other newspapers printed caricatures of Spurgeon with cartoons making fun of his appearance. An editor visited Spurgeon and told him, "We want you to understand that we have no personal feeling about this, and that we publish these things merely to make the paper sell." Spurgeon responded by collecting the cartoons and putting them into an album, "enjoying many a laugh over them," he said.

Yet, Spurgeon struggled with bouts of depression. He said, "My success appalled me. The thought of the career which it seemed to open up, so far from elating me, cast me into the lowest depths." He asked, "Have I gone up like a rocket and shall I come down like a stick?" He observed, "Depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry. Depression has now become to me like a prophet in rough clothing—a John the Baptist heralding the nearer coming of my Lord's richer blessing."

Paying the Price

The apostle Paul wrote, "a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me" (1 Corinthians 16:9).

That's the way it works. Where there are open doors, there are also some obstacles. Where there is opportunity, there is opposition. Where there is great possibility, there is also the potential for great pain.

If you want to be a leader, be ready to pay the price. And be ready to reap the rewards that God alone bestows upon his faithful servants.