“Ever since the snake said, ‘The day you eat of the tree your eyes will be open and you will be like gods knowing good and evil’ (Genesis 3:5), we have been tempted to replace love with power. Jesus lived that temptation in the most agonizing way from the desert to the cross. The long painful history of the Church is a history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over the cross, being leader over being led. Those who resisted this temptation to end and thereby give us hope are the true saints.”
Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1989, pages 59-60.
Gary Chorpenning's Notebooks 