lifeasmission

Leadership is a hot-button issue for many of those involved in the emerging/missional discussion/church arena. Many of these people (I count myself among them) are coming out of churches and experiences that have left them scratching their heads, or worse, hurt and scarred, with regard to their experience with Christian leaders.

For some, and this is true in so many different areas, their tendency is to swing the leadership pendulum all the way in the opposite direction and seek to understand leadership in the opposite way they experienced it, sometimes advocating for leaderless community altogether. Others remain fairly well convinced that the leadership model they learned and experienced is valid, but that the particular leaders they interacted with were just poor. Still others (this is where I would like to locate myself) are looking not so much to counteract the leadership style they experienced, or to write those leaders they interacted with as poor, but rather they find it necessary to deconstruct the notions of leadership that their leaders operated out of, and reconstruct them from the ground up.

There is a refrain with regard to church leadership that I continue to hear from various members of the emerging/missional discussion/church that goes something like this:

“If we as leaders honestly believe that the Spirit of God is present and active among the people of God, then our main task as leaders is to listen to our people for what God is saying.”

While there is something very refreshing about this sentiment, there is something that makes me uneasy as well.

The refreshing part is this: True, those who serve as Christian/church leaders have no claim on the Holy Spirit of God, for, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.” God dwells among and in His people, not merely or even especially in those who lead. It is also refreshing in that it helps to move leaders away from the compulsion (so popularized within modern leadership styles) for control. If God’s Spirit is present and active among the community of God, and this is not only acknowledged but taken seriously, then the task of those who lead is not so much to control the Spirit’s activity, as much as it is to discern and interpret it.

But here’s the part that makes me uneasy: If it is the case (sadly, it seldom is) that leaders are appointed by the community on account of their character, wisdom, maturity, and giftedness, then ought we not look to these individuals for guidance and discernment, even correction and rebuke in their own right?

Can you imagine a group of cancer patients who call upon an experienced and skilled doctor to help them get well who turns back around and asks the group of cancer patients, “Well, what do you all think we should do?” It’s not that the group is stupid, just that they have discerned and called someone with a unique talent to play their part. Indeed, the community would fail themselves in not listening to the one they have called and the leader would fail the group they abdicated their unique responsibility.

I realize that my analogizing a Christian community to a group of cancer patients assumes something about the nature of human beings, namely their sin-sickness and depravity, thus assuming the primary role of a Christian leader is helping people to get well. However, I am not overly pessimistic about the human condition. I could also use the analogy of a class of art students who calls upon a world-acclaimed artist to teach them. Thus, the role of the Christian leader becomes not primarily helping people to get well, but to draw out their full potential. I happen to think that Christian leaders should do both.

It would be incredibly beneficial to the world-wide community of God if leaders shook forever their compulsion to control people and situations, opting instead to encourage others as they attempt to follow the Holy Spirit, but just as children must be weaned, trained, and corrected by those who love and care for them, so too must we be ever diligent in selecting those from among us who can do the same in helping us along to maturity in Christ.