Do you enjoy decorating the outside of your house with lights for the holidays? In my neighborhood are dozens of homes with colorful wreaths and twinkling lights. But there is a strange fad occurring of late: families of lighted deer on front lawns. Not reindeer with a sleigh behind them, mind you, which would point to Santa and the North Pole. Rather, there are two or three deer, lighted up and standing in the grass, just like the real ones that occasionally eat my flowers in the spring. My son noticed how many there were, so we started counting them—and they are everywhere. It made me wonder, what do Christmas deer mean? Surely there is some time-honored tradition or symbolism behind them.
As it turns out, there isn’t. I Googled lawn deer and found this deep intended purpose: “A deer represents inner peace, tranquility, gentleness, intuition, graceful action, and self-awareness. They have a strong spiritual connection, as they are aware of subtle energies happening all around them. They can also represent your deeper connections with your close family and friends, bringing unconditional love, belonging, and community to the forefront.”[1] Obviously entirely made up, penned by Dr. Phil for Psychology Today. I’m relatively sure my neighbor did not place those deer with the intent to foster a strong spiritual connection, unconditional love and community.
Deer on the lawn is a generic, inoffensive, holiday decoration that has no religious value. Nor does it identify with Christmas in any specific way. Think about it: You could put out lawn deer on the Fourth of July or Halloween or Easter and they wouldn’t mean a thing. Lawn deer aren’t controversial at all. They aren’t endangered. They look cute. They are attractive. They aren’t menacing or threatening. They don’t make you think about anything (positive or negative). You can’t tell anything about the people who live in the house with the deer out front—other than they acknowledge a holiday with lighted benign decorations.
What do Christmas deer have to do with leadership? I’m glad you asked. As leaders, we should hold that position with distinction. “Distinction” means excellence that sets someone apart from others. A leader should stand for something meaningful. Godly leaders should be men of distinction because God is a God of distinction. He sets people apart. He is holy—the word holy means set apart for a special purpose. In Malachi 3:18 God reminds us, “Then once more you will see that I make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not.” God sets Himself apart and sets His people apart.
God desires leaders who will stand for something. Stand on faith. Stand on principle. Stand on truth. You must be distinct. The danger in distinction is that standing for anything risks offending someone. And now we get to the crux of the matter: offending people. Today’s culture is a giant balloon of offense that leaders risk popping anytime they make a valuable point about anything.
Because nobody likes points. They’re far too sharp. But that sharpness is exactly what God expects from His leaders. The Words of God are “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). In other words, living as a Christ-follower and in obedience to God is going to divide people. Men of distinction will, through their leadership, risk offending. If you are distinct—set apart—then by definition you won’t follow the crowd.
Which brings us back to the lawn deer. A Christian leader might choose to put a nativity on their lawn to point to the central religious theme of the season. Now honestly, a nativity instead of deer doesn’t do very much. But what if you saw twenty houses in a row with nativities on their front lawns—what might that say about the people of that neighborhood? And if that thought resonates with you, then the converse is probably also true. Twenty houses in a row with lawn deer probably means a ton of neighbors who just don’t want to offend anyone, anywhere, anytime for any reason.
Let those deer remind you of your leadership role. I’m not asking everyone with Christmas deer to tear them down and replace them with something distinctly Christian. But they have become for me a constant reminder during the holidays of a leadership principle. I see them and I ask myself, where is my distinction? What sets me apart from other people and other leaders in a meaningful, God-honoring way? Does my life and leadership stand for something important, or do people see me as a benign man, standing on the front lawn, signifying nothing?
Leadership at some level is learning how to live with distinction, knowing that being set apart has a price. Jesus said in Matthew 10:34-36, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.” If you find yourself at odds with others based on beliefs and principles, and others take offense at your Christ-centered lifestyle, Jesus reminded us long ago that this would be the world we would live in.
Scripture also tells us, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18). There is a balance between standing up and risking offense, and leading with kindness and empathy. I’m willing to admit that perhaps at times the balance may appear to be lighted deer on the lawn.
[1] https://crystalclearintuition.com/deer-meaning/
Saint Nicholas of Myra (270-373) was an early Christian bishop from the city of Myra in Asia Minor during the time of the Roman Empire. That he loved children and was tremendously generous is widely accepted, and gave rise to the modern day tales of Santa Claus.