I stood frozen in place. A moment before, I had been delivering a lecture to a classroom filled with students. Now, one of those students was convulsing on the ground in the throes of a grand mal seizure. 

As a young teacher, I had not experienced a medical emergency in the classroom before. Faced with that reality, I found myself unable to move. I began looking around for the adult in the room who could manage the situation. It took only another moment to realize the adult was me.

Although the early verses in the Book of Acts do not narrate the characters’ feelings, I wonder if they might have felt something like I felt that day in the classroom. 

Jesus, the one they had been following, the one who had provided guidance and direction, had just been taken up into heaven, and they were left gaping at the sky. Who were they to follow now? Where should they look for guidance? 

The text of Acts does not indicate that Jesus had trained his disciples on what to do after his departure. There is no indication of a transition plan, no hint of who should do what to continue the work. 

The impression the text gives is that this situation is what some leaders might identify as a VUCA environment: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. That is, there is no clear playbook, no set of instructions or organizational chart to guide decision-making and direction.

Despite the lack of a transition plan or the nomination of a new leader, just a few verses later it seems Peter has stepped up to the challenge. Acts 1:15 indicates that Peter takes it upon himself to stand up and address a gathering of Jesus’ followers, who numbered 120 people. 

Beyond finding the courage to step up and lead, Peter delivers a speech that demonstrates wisdom. He begins by setting the recent events in a his­torical context, going all the way back to David (Acts 1:16). From there, he charts the next step the assembly will need to take: identifying someone to take Judas’ place as a leader (Acts 1:21-22). 

Notice what Peter does not do: He does not adopt a narrow focus on the immediate events. He does not take it upon himself to make a key decision. 

Instead, Peter helps his community make sense of a VUCA situation by
1) reminding them of an important larger context and 2) empowering them to make a key decision that he has helped them to identify as the next step. 

Where did Peter get the boldness to step up and lead? How did he find the courage to take charge in this VUCA environment? 

The answer might be found in Jesus’s final words to the disciples before his ascension: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8). Although Jesus does not specify when or how this power would be conferred, it may be that Peter’s boldness is evidence that the Spirit’s power has come upon him.

Our settings today are different from those of the disciples in the early chapters of Acts. Nonetheless, we are no strangers to VUCA environments. And thus we might ask: How can we emulate Peter in our response to such circumstances? How can we invite the Holy Spirit to endow us with the boldness to address the volatile situations of our times?

As a young teacher, my first experience of leading when I felt unprepared was terrifying at first. In hindsight, I wish I had channeled Peter’s example of allowing the Spirit to empower me.

Peter’s example is a model for us in our own VUCA times. Like Peter, we need not wait for someone else to call upon us to act. Instead, we can invite the Holy Spirit to come upon us. We need not become mired in the challenges of the present time. We can invite our communities to look at the long arc of God’s history. 

Finally, we need not impose our own directives. We can point to the next faithful step and invite our communities to discern the right path together.