Jesus on Leadership: I

This is the first of four posts I will write over the next two months about leadership in Luke and Acts.  This post and the next examine passages in Luke in which Jesus gives leadership lessons, and the next two show how the disciples apply (or fail to apply) these lessons in Acts. I’ll also intersperse a few other things between these four posts.
Luke 6:12–16 is fascinating:
“12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.”
At first glance, there is nothing remarkable here. Jesus spends a night in prayer, and the next day he summons his followers and chooses twelve of them to be apostles, aka the Twelve Disciples. The list of disciples is slightly different from the lists in Matthew and Mark.
But theologically, this passage is extraordinary. When Jesus names his disciples in Matthew 10:1–4 and Mark 3:13–19, he immediately gives them power and authority to do miracles. Luke, however, does not mention the bestowal of power and authority at this point (he reports this later in 9:1). Instead, Jesus prepares to call the twelve by praying all night.
This is astounding, for two reasons.  First, the idea of the God-man Jesus Christ praying in solitude is hard to accept.  If we understand that Jesus was and is God, then verse 12 is telling us that Jesus spent the night talking to himself!
Even more remarkably, by staying up the whole night, Jesus weakens himself for the next day. Yes, even though Jesus is fully God, he was also fully man, and humans need sleep to function well. So Jesus’s prayer is not only unnecessary (surely God knew the identities of Jesus's disciples before the creation of the world!); it also detracts from his ability to function well the next day.  
Skipping sleep to pray is not something Jesus does, ever. His only other “all-nighter” is the night of his arrest at Gethsemane. So it’s significant that the one time Jesus decides that extra prayer is more important than tending to his physical needs is when he chooses disciples.  
By spending his time in this way, Jesus sets an important example. Among our most crucial tasks as Christians is our selection of church and parachurch leaders: pastors, deacons, teachers, youth and child workers, and so on. When we designate leaders, we often rely on secular criteria: vision, communication skills, the ability to make decisions and command respect, and so on. But secular ideas about leadership are insufficient for the Kingdom of God.  Christ calls us to try to identify God’s choices for leadership.  And to figure out who God wants, we need God to talk to God directly, asking him to give us direction.  Hard work, but essential! Since Jesus prayed long and hard before naming the twelve, we need to diligently set aside time to pray when we appoint people to share leadership responsibilities in the Kingdom of God.