Leadership Courage Series # 29
Could you imagine the impact of a largely leaderless Church for, say, 400 years? Well, look around…
We’re heading for the home stretch on this examination of courageous Christian leadership. The impetus for my challenges and observations is Edwin Friedman’s wonderful book: A Failure of Nerve. Thus far, we’ve made eight observations about leadership amidst a culture of cowardice:
One: Courageous leadership is not about skill, technique, or knowledge. It is, most of all, about the presence of the leader as he or she moves through life.
Two: Take full responsibility for your own emotional being and destiny.
Three: Promote healthy differentiation within the church or system you lead.
Four: Stand, as an exemplar, in the sabotage and backlash that must come.
Five: Don’t “push on the rope”: the unmotivated are invulnerable to insight.
Six: Undermine the 80/20 Rule.
Seven: Reintroduce yourself to the adventurous life.
Eight: Disengage an unreasonable faith in reasonableness.
This brings us to the ninth principle: Go first.
Ever wonder what happened to the Church the Apostle Paul envisioned in Ephesians chapter four? A Church in which the saints are the “ministers”.
Paul is clear:
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up… and become mature… Then we will no longer be infants… Instead… we will grow to become in every respect the mature body… the whole body… grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. [Eph 4:11-16]
In Paul’s conception, Christ gives ministers to the church to train, develop, and equip them to minister, to mature in every respect, and to w-o-r-k.
What have we had, almost universally, since the Reformation?
Religious educators who teach and teach and teach the saints who sit and sit and sit while they learn and learn and learn.
What’s missing?
The saints serving.
The body maturing.
Every part working.
Now here’s a shock. What if the culprit is not so much the laziness and lethargy of the saints but the focus and function of the clergy?
See, Christ himself gave apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, and teaching gifts to equip his Church for maturity and ministry.
Yet, since the Enlightenment, Seminary is the route to ministry for most. What do our Seminaries produce? An overwhelming super-abundance of pastor-teachers.
Period.
Imagine a softball team in which all nine positions are played by catchers. Very well equipped catchers.
Can you see it?
Catcher’s glove. Catcher’s mask. Shin pads. The whole get up.
Now, put that catcher on the mound and ask her to pitch… Put her in left to run down a deep fly ball… Or, at short to turn a ground ball into a double play.
This is the Church in the West today.
What do teaching-gifted ministers produce?
People who learn lots of things, important things, and not much else.
I’m not denigrating the teaching gift. I’m denigrating the notion of the teaching-only ministry. I’m inviting you to look at the results of recurring generations of pastor/teacher-dominant ministry in the West.
Are you impressed by what you see?
Matthew West wrote a song called The Motions. The first verse starts out plainly saying, “This might hurt, it’s not safe”. Change isn’t easy but that is where I find myself today. The chorus challenges me to live and work, and serve with Christ’s all consuming passion inside of me. Instead of just going through the motions of life.
Thank you for courageously exposing the elephant and calling believers to step into their Kingdom role and be Jesus to a dark and tasteless world. Leading with the power of forgiveness and truth. Modeling courageous grace, not as patsy’s but as leaders in a world that soon will bow before Jesus Christ at His return.
I spoke with a young man today who finally beat his 13 year drug addiction and has been clean for 4 months. He was asking how he could serve God and what he should do. We talked about the difference between doing and being and how God made him for a purpose. Here’s a young man who is open to more than just learning, he wants to do something. Who will lead him?
Jeff, thank you for your comments and encouragement. Thanks far more for being in that guy’s life. Dan Tocchini, a mentor and friend once challenged a room of Christian leaders about the perils of a ‘life lived in reflection’– yet that seems to be the “national pastime” of Bible-believing evangelicals everywhere. Dan challenged us to notice that BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY is a ‘life lived in action’. That is the only way Kingdom progress is achieved. I thank God for leaders like you, Jeff, who are stepping into the chaos of this world with the light and love of Jesus– however imperfectly we embody it.
Risk BIG, my friend!
Big fan with this website, a handful of your writes have definitely helped me out. Looking forward to updates!