What does it take to be a Christian leader? How is a Christian leader different from what the world around us considers leadership? Weekends #357 and #358 are examples to us of the many ways the 4th Day community takes active roles in being Christian leaders.
The most obvious leaders were the Rector and Rectora. Each agreed to lead a team of Christian men and women in serving and reaching out to other Christian men and women. Their core team leaders agreed to assist in that role, leading sections of the weekend. The whole team showed Christian leadership in many ways--from the Rollos where they shared some of their own faith walk to the prayer warriors talking to God about the candidates and speakers to the kitchen team serving with smiles to the liaison team getting all the facility needs organized.
Deacons, deacon couples, and priests served as spiritual leaders non-stop for 3 days. Father Yanta served for the first time in this role. Two priests attended as candidates. Fr. Finnegan, pastor of Our Lady of Grace, eagerly committed their facility to host the weekends and welcomed the new 4th Dayers on Sunday afternoon. Twin Cities Cursillo is very blessed to have religious leaders who are willing to give of themselves in so many ways.
Sponsors brought their friends to the weekend to meet Jesus in a new way. The 4th Day community supported all of them in prayer, palanca, masses, and attending the closing. We were blessed to have our friends from other language groups join us.
The candidates learned more about the call to be disciples for Christ, and how they have been blessed to be Christian leaders by their baptism. They will all go back to their environments motivated to lead their family and friends closer to Christ.
In the Leader’s Rollo, we learn that baptism confers both natural qualities (knowing the ideal, living in reality, having discipline and initiative, being warm and generous) and supernatural qualities (have a living faith, have hope, love, and true humility) of leadership on the individual. Each person served with joy because they know they are living out these qualities. The Christian leader believes that God loves them and can live their lives in confidence of the power of Holy Spirit working through them. There is no room for the power, control, and recognition that characterizes much of secular leadership because as Christian leaders we understand we are living the will of God.
The 3-Day weekend is the best place to experience an abundance of Christian leadership, and the resulting love and joy that comes with it. The weekend, wonderful as it is, is only the bridge between our pre-Cursillo life and our post-Cursillo life. How are we Christian leaders in those places?
God bless you Friends,
Larry and Jeanne Bendzinski
