The Strength Of Diversity - The Avengers

If we’re honest, that’s not really leadership.

Great leaders celebrate diversity and learn to empower those with different strengths and personalities. To be clear, I’m not suggesting this is easy. Quite the opposite! This is the hard work of leadership. But it’s hard work worth doing. 

Take the Avengers for example.  

They begin as a dysfunctional group of heroes with clashing personalities and priorities—Tony Stark’s arrogance, Steve Rogers’ old-school virtue, Thor’s otherworldliness, Bruce Banner’s volatility, and the covert skills of Black Widow and Hawkeye. Their inability to get along almost tears them apart. Not only were they leaderless, but their differences were points of intense friction as opposed to what makes them more fully equipped to fight their enemies.

Has leadership ever felt like that to you? It certainly has to me. Differing opinions can feel like threats. Differing personalities will certainly slow you down. Why? Because you have to work harder to ensure you’re on the same page. To maintain unity. 

But diversity, as opposed to sameness, is a much better picture of the kingdom. When Jesus invited the original disciples to follow him, he asked a group of men who couldn’t have been more different from one another. 

The apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 12:12 — “Just as a body, though one, has many parts… so it is with Christ.” 

As I write this, our church is in the middle of a Discovery Class taking place during the summer weeks. The purpose is simple—to discover how God has uniquely made you so you can more effectively advance his kingdom and make disciples. In short, the class has revealed how incredibly diverse the rooms is—spiritual gifts, personalities, natural gifts, passions, etc. We are all incredibly different! Yet how we need one another! From people who can develop systems and processes to those who can bring life to the room to those who help you belong and feel seen to those who can pioneer new endeavors—we aren’t who God has asked us to be without all of us operating as God intended. It’s hard work to work together, but it’s work worth doing. 

This is what God’s picture of team looks like. Not only is it a picture of team, it’s a picture of heaven. Every tribe, nation, and tongue are going to come together in worship of the Lamb. We had better get used to a room filled with all kinds of different people. 

Great leaders celebrate diversity!