When you realize that as a Christian you are a king, not a politician, how you handle conflict changes.

Politicians have to Listen to everyone’s criticism, everyone’s concerns, because they need the applause of the audience. Kings do not.

This surprises and frustrates many people when you start living like a king. They are annoyed because you will not obey their orders or drop everything or do something just to please them. They assume that because they would do anything to please others, you should too, or you are not in their eyes a good Christian. Then if you do not do what they want they will try and make you feel guilty until you do do what they want.

A Christian leader who is leading like a politician cannot grow a large ministry. If you are trying to please everyone you will always eventually please no one. If you are trying to stand for everything, eventually you will stand for nothing. And ultimately the emptiness of it all is revealed. It was not ministry, it was crowd leasing hype and foolishness.

A king handles conflict differently. They know they only answer to Jesus. You cannot make them dance to your beat, because they are dancing to another beat! They are only concerned with pleasing and impressing Jesus.

Does this mean a king never listens to another human? No, not at all. But they understand the principle that Jesus taught so clearly: by their fruit you will know them.

Let’s say a king has a problem with one of their sons. They don’t go to anyone and everyone to get advice, they don’t listen to all the detractors and all the people telling them how to do ministry and how to parent. They go to another king who has fruit in the area of parenting and they listen carefully to the fruitful.

I reign as a king, and I refuse to listen to unfruitful critics. The armchair football players yelling at the television! The spectators telling the runners how to run!

When people criticise my social media strategy, and their social media presence is smaller than mine, I won’t listen. You don’t have to listen to every voice! Which is liberating! When I get parenting advice from people with no children, I don’t have to accept it, I don’t have to canvass for an election, I have to bear fruit. I will find people with adult children serving the Lord and listen to their advice.

The problem is that many people with the politician mindset think that if you don’t listen to them, you don’t listen to anyone. People say to me “you are not accountable to anyone” and what they mean is “you are not doing what I want”. There’s a huge gulf between those statements, but the politician cannot see it.

Politicians never ever stop and think: I don’t really have a clue here, I will just shut my mouth.

They never think “hey, I have never started a ministry, I should really listen to this guy, he started all this from nothing”, no, they say what needs to be said to gain approval, and if that means putting you down that’s fine by them. They never think: “I’ve never done that, maybe I should learn from someone who has”.

You have to learn to develop a spine! A royal spine. You need to learn to say no to every piece of advice you receive. You want to be a good pastor, you need to ignore the baying of people who have never pastored a church telling you how to run your church. Find someone more fruitful than you, and ask their wisdom!

Being a king means that you make decisions based on what you see, not based on democracy. In our Western world, everyone wants a say and wants to bring democracy to the church. But God decided to set up His kingdom on earth, not a democracy. Selah!