Leadership

Keith Farmer, having spent the past 5 years mentoring 90 Christian leaders in all states of Australia, summed up the current outlook in the Australian church.

The general situation in churches and Christian ministries in Australia today is quite discouraging to many leaders. Most churches, even those which had been growing well until recently, have plateaued (sic) or are in a mild decline with respect to attendance, giving etc. Even strongly committed Christian people are attending church less regularly. I believe there are many discernable reasons for this situation but I will not address those issues in this article (2010:2).

At this point his suggested reasons as to why this is so and what it is revealing, is not so important, although some are quite compelling. More important is why the discouragement in view of all the training and exhortation and educating that has transpired in the last 30 years.

Rainer & Rainer talking about the church in the United States had this to say:

The dismal reality is that the vast majority of churches have become nonessential. The church in the United States sits in the doldrums, going nowhere. With more than 80 percent of North American churches stagnant or declining, the church is quickly becoming nonessential to society. With nearly four thousand churches closing their doors permanently each year, a turnaround is imperative (2008:21).

The genesis for evaluating the role of leadership was triggered by a statement of John Maxwell who asserted that, ‘weak leadership equal weak churches, strong leadership equals strong churches. Everything rises and falls on leadership” (1995: n.p). Are these words of wisdom or words of the corporate motivator? Do they resonate with scriptural assent? Is this the kind of leadership that we discern from the scriptures? As Dawn & Peterson write in The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call:

There is a great deal of advice given today about cultivating leadership... Counsel in how to be leaders is unending, but it all has to be tested against our Scriptures. There are a lot of good ideas out there, but when they take over the core of what we're doing, we end up in the Gulag, enduring an unrecognized persecution (2000:7)

It should be stressed that the need for leadership per se is an obvious need. Certainly leadership is required and necessary. Banks and Ledbetter concur with the lack of evaluation. Commenting on the popularity of discussions on leadership they suggest that there is a lack of proper theological evaluation and the part that cultural factors play is not recognised. They also contend that these factors are not taken into consideration when focussing on the subject of servant leadership and the adequacy of Christian treatments of the subject (2004:11). They also contend that whereas Australians are adept at tearing down anyone who would think to rise above the rest, Americans cannot comprehend any group or organisation functioning without a highly structured and very visible leadership (ibid.23). Contrast this with another perspective which suggests that:

‘[t]he mark of a true leader...is that you never notice him or her. Contrary to our conference circuit headliners, real leadership is invisible... Maybe “invisible leadership” isn’t so much about being invisible as it is being visible in a way that invites freedom, expression, engagement, and connection’ (Gilliam 2008: n.p.).

The problem with much that passes for leadership in today’s churches is that it demands great visibility and the leader must be entrepreneurial and dynamic. What works in the corporate structure and context may be very good for the running of a business. But is the church a business? Eugene Peterson describes leadership as ‘followership’ – following Jesus. This he says takes precedents over leadership skills (cited by Banks & Ledbetter: 112).

In scanning through a number of leadership books we find the following ideas of what leadership should look like. For George Barna, leadership is about being effective. Yes, and one could agree with his definition of what an effective leader looks like.

To be an effective leader, one must be called by God to lead, possess the character of a person of God, and demonstrate a group of competencies that result in leadership. A leader implements the gift and ability to lead by motivating, mobilising, resourcing and directing people to pursue a jointly shared vision from God (1999: 31).

He also talks about ‘the gift of leadership’ and that only five percent of pastors interviewed felt they possessed this gift. There are pastors who are not leaders and leaders who are not pastors (ibid.). Does this statistic raise a problem when there is so much stress on leadership? A solution will be offered in the section regarding Ephesians 4:11-16.

1. Robert Clinton says, ‘[a] leader is a person with God-given capacity and God-given responsibility who influences a group of followers towards God’s purposes for the group’ (1988:127). Robert E. Logan declares that a ‘[t]rue leader knows where he or she is going, and thus where his or her followers are headed” (1989: 39). Whilst, according to the Dave Browning, ordinary people do the ministry ‘and it is it is the pastor’s job to identify, train, and support these ministers’ (2009: 15). This last definition brings the role closer to the idea of the Apostle Paul to the Church at Ephesus. It comes closest to the idea of equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.
2. Extract of essay on leadership by Tony Lyon Full Bibliography available.