Businesses know the importance of leadership, and every major corporation in America is in the business of leadership development. The most successful is the IBM corporation which spends $700 million a year specifically on leadership development. One day of every quarterly directors' meeting is devoted to a discussion of leadership development. (How many Elder meetings are devoted to this?) In a recent FORTUNE magazine article (December 7, 2009 -- p. 72), J. Randall MacDonald, Human Resources chief at IBM likened his business to a race that never ends. He spoke of the competition being "one-half of an inch" behind them. The only thing keeping them in the lead is their leadership.
Our competition, as a church, is not other churches. Our competition is Satan. And whether we are in front of him, neck-in-neck, or behind and losing ground has totally to do with leadership -- or a lack of it. And our "lack" of leadership has to do, most of all, with a lack of purposeful and intentional leadership development. I see it all the time. Churches that once were dynamic, growing and full of life, led by men of vision who could inspire others to see and do the seemingly impossible are now gasping for air, led by the collective consensus of whoever shows up for the monthly business meetings.
What happened?
The leaders died off (or moved away), and no one ever made provision for their replacements. Instead, we THOUGHT the Lord would provide -- and He didn't.
I do not mean to belittle the providential care of God. No one believes more strongly in it than me. But I believe that expecting God to provide leaders this way is unbiblical. God provided Israel a leader in Moses, and Moses led Israel for forty years. When Moses died, the mantle of leadership was passed to Joshua -- an assistant who had spent forty years at leader Moses' side. The result was that during the thirty years of Joshua's leadership, Israel served the Lord. The Elders who stood at Joshua's side led after Joshua died and Israel still served the Lord. But they failed to train leaders to take their place. The story of Judges which follows is the story of the Canaanization of Israel because she had no leader -- a fact mentioned specifically four times in the book. And those judges? Read the book. These are the kind of leaders you can expect when you wait on God to provide them at the last minute.
Every congregation must have leaders who know well what the work of the Church is really about. And by the way, if you see the work of the church as simply "preaching the gospel" or "serving the community," you have yet to grasp its true calling.
We must have leaders who know what is needed in their congregation to accomplish this work -- and it changes from community to community, which is why churches whose leaders adopt the latest and greatest fads because they've been successful elsewhere usually fail.
We must have leaders who will see that the work gets done. It doesn't mean that they have to do all the work themselves, only that they see the work is done.
We must have leaders who will inspire confidence in God among the people of God.
We must have leaders who will be responsible for anticipating the future, knowing where God’s people will need to be in the years to come, and charting the course to get there. That's called vision.
We must have leaders who will guide God’s people to that future and nurture them along the way.
We must have leaders who will model the life Christ calls us all to live so that we come to know it not just by hearing, but by seeing. Paul said: "Follow me, as I follow Christ."
Why would we ever think that God would want to entrust the Church he died for to a happenstance leadership?
He wouldn't.
A recent survey conducted at Lipscomb University asked ministers: "Based on your experience. what studies do you think would be most helpful to ministers?" It's a good question. As a church leader, where do you feel most inadequate? What would help you do your job better? Ask for it. You may have to slot it in the budget. You may feel guilty about asking for a place in the budget for your own development. Get over it. It will be money well spent. You may have to pay for it yourself. Do it. You serve by appointment of the Holy Spirit, and those entrusted to your care constitute the body of Christ for which Jesus died. No cost is too great.
Who will be the next leaders at your church? You should have them picked out. Know their names. Encourage them. Appoint them to tasks that will stretch them and get them ready for the task ahead. Through the years of preparation, some may drop out. Some you thought qualified God may remove from contention. But in the end, the right people will be in place for the right job -- because it was planned with intentionality and blessed by God. And don't forget to teach them to do for others what you have done for them.
Pass it on.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Leadership is not for the faint of heart, or the overtly proud. An excellent book I recently read is Leading with a Limp by Dan Allender.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as Mike so aptly put, I am convinced that that a congregations health and growth is determined by leadership. I differ slightly in this: God has provided the leadership, but those that have been called are running away because it is a painful task.
Mike's encouragement to leaders to ask for development and for Elders to include leadership development is crucial. Jesus developed the apostles and the apostles developed their protege's (e.g. Titus and Timothy were developed by Paul).
Successful leaders (those in healthy, growing churches) can help those of us in not-so-healthy churches. You see, the church were I help with the leadership team is shutting down and merging with another local congregation. It's painful but my prayer is that I and the other leaders involved learn the powerful lessons that failure often teach.