Leadership

Aura: A distinctive but intangible quality that seems to surround a person

I just realised something this morning while I was doing my Commanders Appraisal. There is something different between My Leaders and My Commanders; even though they both lead people, they do it in very different yet ironically identical Ways

For Example, one of the important things required for leadership is Respect and in the Army, the Commanders demand our respect through constant scolding and fear while in Church the leaders Earn our respect through constant encouragement and Love, and the irony is that another way they earn our respect is to lead by example by being Role Models we can look up to.

As I ponder on this thought, I begin to wonder if my Commanders and my Leaders are actually not as different as I thought they were. Maybe they are leaders of the same qualities and abilities, if that's so then Church would be very similar to the Army(except without the physical torment and vulgarities). So in My mind I began constructing a Church/Army rank, and this is what it looks like

General: Pastor How & Pastor Lia
Colonel: Charleston
Major: Roy
Captain: Yassy
Lieutenant/Platoon Commander: Mong
Platoon Sergeants: Pan and JO
Corporal: All the Regulars
Privates: Good Integrations
Recruits: New Friends

On paper it seems logical that the Church is no different from the Army, when we are new to church, we are like the blur Recruits who know no one there and are vulnerable, but after 1month of BCT(Basic Christian Training) we move on to BMT(Basic Military Training) and after we POP from that we get posted to a ministry and become Privates, after spending a long time in church we take on more responsibilities such as organizing CG, Celebrating Birthdays we get promoted to corporals and its our responsibility to inter grate the new friends and if your show leadership qualities you get send to HOGC's Sispec/OCS which is called AMT and the cycle continues.

At first I was really excited about the whole idea of Church being an Army, Images of Yassy and Mong leading C1 and C3 into God's Battleground and Pan and JO holding SAR21's that shoot bible verses and the idea of people like Si hui or Grace manning a GP MG(General Purpose Machine Gun) really tickled my funny bone. But as I sat there, I begin to ask myself if the Army could be more like Church and to my surprise I can't seem to fit the image of church together with the Army, it seem impossible.

I was really confused, why can't the Army be more like Church? if the leadership qualities of both are the same, then theoretically the equation should be Church=Army. Then I remembered something Roy told me in camp last night

"The Commanders in Camp here are people who
are thrown into leadership roles, so under Pressure they become stressed
and are unable to lead by example"

-ROY

Initially I didn't really understand what He meant by that, but putting it into context I realised he had meant. The difference between the leaders in Church and the Commanders in Army is the GOD Factor. Even though the leaders of both organization both have the same qualities and abilities, they do not have the same Values for the Commanders in the Army are too independent on their own abilities, so when a problem arises they have no one but themselves to rely on giving them unnecessary stress thus making them break under pressure.

But the Leaders in Church are different, they too have the ability to depend on themselves during tough or pressurizing situations, but unlike the Commanders in the Army, They look to God for the solution and through that they are able to maintain a calm mind for they know that God is their Solution to the Problem, God Dependence.

I'm not saying that The Commanders in the Army are below those of the Church, for all we know some of them might even be better leaders, but what I'm saying is that the reason the Army can never be like church is not because of the vulgarities nor the leadership, but rather its of God. And once again I'm not saying that God is not in the Army Camps, I'm saying that the leaders in Church are really Unique and Special individuals who can trust God with all that they have.

Don't you feel that there is a different feeling you get from your leaders than with other people? like a special Aura? One interesting thing I noticed is that when Alvin a Platoon Commander walks into my bunk, all my bunk mates look at his rank and ran out of the room, but when they saw me talking with Roy right after the conversation, they asked me if he was My leader and told me that he seemed like a really nice person to talk to.

What I'm blabbering about may not make sense to a lot of people, but that's the least of My worries for right now I'm just glad that I am able to prove to myself the Army May be strong, but God's Army is Stronger.

With My Bible, and My Jesus and ME!

Love,
Henry

Faithful

What makes a Leader? God

My Blog has been dead for the past 3weeks or so already, haha guess Army is not only killing my brain cells its also killing my blog. Yeah I just booked out 2 hours ago, and all I can say that its not really a very happy bookout, why?

FIELD CAMP

Yep, 6 days of living in the vegetation(apparently the plantations in Singapore are too noob to be called Jungles) where our physical and combat fitness will be stretched to the limit and our Sergeants will mentally push our sanity to the brink of insanity. Worst part is, I won't be able to go for church service this weekend and maybe next weekend, Awesome...(Sarcasm)

But out of all this Negativity, there is a silver lining in the form of Dragon and Falcon Company. Haha! in case you don't know, My Leaders Roy and Mong are staying Really close to my Coy line!(Roy is just directly Beside my company line! haha plus he's also in Platoon 4 section 4!) and Mong is in Falcon company which is only like a stone throw away, haha plus Alvin is also in tekong as a Platoon Commander(You should have seen the face of my Bunk mates when he came to look for me in my Bunk! haha they were so scared that they ran out of the bunk!) plus Sean is enlisting in to Tekong tomorrow! and its kinda hard to miss Sean :)

So even though I am forced to face the floor 20times ever day and night and forced to run my 2.4km at a consistent timing of 11.40 minutes, I know that my Leaders are right beside me looking after me(literally, lol Roy can see my Company get Tekan everyday haha, plus Mong marches past my Coy line all the time)

Even Though I can't be in Heart Of God Church ever weekend, God has brought Heart of God Church to me everyday in my Army life, He is Faithful.

Love,
Henry


P.S. This is me without my hair, yep! Bald Hen or Featherless, which ever fits the sentence though my personal favourite is Botak! haha!