Going public

If you might want to use 'creation' to discuss belief, life and who we are (culminating in the gospel where possible), here are some tips from a group that did this over about a 7 year period.

1. Anything you can't answer, write it done in a dedicated book and research for the next time the question pops up.

2. Offer to respond to the person by e-mail.

3. Have a tablet or some other device handy with backup material.

4. Have a good and easily available pamphlet supply at the ready and in view. Have a sign saying 'Free Literature'. If you don't you'll be bombarded all people with people asking you "May I take this?".

5. Have the material/articles on the walls of the stand in some sort of order/category to make for easy reading. Have the heavy hitters up there e.g. T-Rex blood.

6. Have your spiel down pat but be prepared to break away from it when the situation demands.

7. Don't be afraid to reel people in as they pass by for an explanation of your stand e.g. "Would you like me to give you an explanation regarding our stand?"

8. Have an enticing line to reel them in e.g. "We want people to reconsider the question of origins. 

Logically there is nothing objectionable about there being a Creator/Personal Designer", or something to that effect.

9. Follow Jesus' use of analogies (i.e. parables) to get the message across (e.g. "Do you believe that it's possible that the paper, ink and time alone cam make a book? What's missing? Information, which is not a material entity, can't arise from purely material processes." Then link it it biological and evolutionary processes.)

10. Be prepared to "respond" to the idiot! i.e. the nasty atheist.

11. Have a sleeved folder with article in categories to help.

12. DO NOT throw Jesus and the Bible at people. Wilder Smith always said it was better to stick to the science (and from my perspective, philosophy). If they ask for further info (i.e. what do you believe?), then tell them as a Christian I believe reality begs for a Creator and chance chemistry just doesn't cut the mustard (or some variation on this tactic).

13. If you are at a fair, check out the other Christian stands and invite them around for a talk. Chances are they won't turn up but it's always worth a try. And have your anti-theistic evolution and long age responses, both the biblical and philosophical, down pat.

14. Research other religions and philosophies and be ready to give them a response (but don't come across as uber-Christian e.g. sin, you're a sinner, Jesus died for you, hell....). Instead show them how their own system of thought can't handle the big questions and is internally at odds with itself and with external reality.

15. Appeal to the personal.

16. Recommend a good book (have that list next you you as you'll likely forget the ideal book in the moment) or web site (e.g. creation.com, Answers in Genesis, etc.)

17. Be able to respond to the question "But are you religious?" (I usually say "By 'religious', if you mean having answers to the ultimate and big questions, then yes we are religious. But then all people are religious: the atheists, Marxists, Buddhists...We happen to be Christian and hold that the complexity of the universe, particularly the biological world, demands explanation and we say that only a Creator of the order that Christianity proposes can explain this. Chance chemistry over eons of time is inadequate. We can show you why a Creator is the only rational explanation." i.e. be BOLD!)

18. Have interesting photos or objects (samples, fossils, etc.) at the back of the stand to attract people in and past the free literature.

The anti-leader

I came across this piece on a church website on leadership. Now, you may know how I hate the use of this non-biblical concept, making of a type of action a static role.

But I wonder if the notion of 'leader' has any applicability in the church. After all, the church has servants, not leaders; we are all lead by Christ. The implication of 'leader' is that they know where we are going!

'Leadership' is about the one; service is about the others. Henry Mintzberg touches on this in a FT article on the subject.

So, I sent this to the church in question:

The conceptualisation of leadership in church life that I read in your blog seem to me to be at odds with the way the church is portrayed in the NT. In fact, it looks like a complete inversion of the notion of the church as a body of believers whose head (source) is Christ. As soon as you talk 'leaders' you talk the individual, inevitably, at the expense of the church as a body.

To think that a church needs a 'leader' installs a concept that is foreign to the NT theology of church. It uses a concept that is at best a modern misunderstanding of how a charismatic group 'works' (or that denies that it is charismatic, in the biblical, not the modern sense), and at worst uncritically apes the world in the installation of a paganistic hierarchy where there should be none.

In the NT, the church is a community, indeed, a family, where gifts are distributed for the mutual growth and edification of people working and living together in love. A leader at once demolishes this notion and makes of the church an organisation with someone, or a small group, who commands it, takes responsibility (in an organisational sense) and is not primarily a servant undertaking a role in a particular context.

Nowhere in the NT do I see an 'archon' mentioned in the church, which is the ancient world's equivalent of the 'leader' that comes to us from the secular world. The world of 'one is more important than the many', a world where political structure, whether in business, politics, or other social groupings is the default ordering mechanism, and social influence or the imperatives of the one are prime. This displaces the considerations of love, service and the promotion of others for a world where the leader is the front (usually) man, the one with the prestige, the one who calls the shots and sets the pace, if not the total mission.

I can't think of anything further from the church, or more likely to make the church a passive shell of what it should truly be: a mutually supportive and responsive body of serving believers.

Leaders are anti-humility, where as the notion of servant is pro-humility.

I think of the program of the church in the 1980s, when 'ministry' was often the theme in church 'development'. Ministry is where we seek how we are to serve, how we are to put the other ahead of ourselves, and how we are to express our love. Those we today would call leaders now appear to be the locus of ministry, and a magnet for prestige and adulation, at least by the secular media and institutions.

But we do not have leaders, we have people who serve in various ways and at various times, in various contexts. Some as teachers, some as pastors, some as administrators, etc. No 'leader' here, except that the whole church does the deciding, and the acting. It is the church that has presence in the kingdom of God, not 'leaders'.

Its well time that this was straightened out and we forgot about borrowing our structuring terminology from the hubristic world of business and affairs, and rather judged that world with a way of being community that showed up its puffery. Even the piece on 'anti-leadership' misses the point, I think, of the biblical passage cited, and makes of a structure, what was an organic and participative set of relationships...and, anyway, Peter was an apostle. We don't have them today in they way they were then.

Now, instead of 'leader' I'd like to see churches, and Christian organisations (ministries?) use Christian titles for their contributors: organiser would be good for people who organise things, convenor for those who bring people together for a task or activity, overseer has a biblical warrant; I think moderator also has a functional ring to it (apologies to the Presbyterians), facilitator is possibly OK, and administrator is directly biblical. Anything but the turgid puff of worldly organisations were titles are used to garner prestige!

Why Leadership? #2

I got a reply to my previous post, and the writer wanted some background, so I rejoined with this:

My observations on 'leadership' come from years of ministry and advanced formal study in management.

The problem as we conceptualise the body of Christ (thus different from the pre-incarnation references to God's people) in terms that gives sense to 'leadership' is that we run, I think, the very risk that Mintzberg identifies as fatal to an enduring practice in any organisation, where one, or even a small group is stuck out the front or on a pedestal and isolation between leader and lead is created: the word itself does that; and renders everyone else a follower, induced to passivity; against how I think the biblical injunctions on church life would work.

The induction to passivity leads pretty quickly to the church coalescing around the 'priesthood' and ministry, the ministry of all believers, ceases to be the central motif of church life. It also gives the 'leader' an impossible job to do. Isolating this person from the coalition of mutual service that is in situational flux in the paradigmatic church. That is we take different roles with respect to one another as circumstances adjust. I've seen many a home group 'leader' feeling overburdened by the false responsibility they think they have, when if their service had been characterised, as it truly was, as 'convening', ministering or even just helping, their and the group life would have been simpler and more effective.

But, I think what disturbs me about the slide from talk about ministry to talk about leadership over the past 30 years, in my observation, is that we adopt organisational terminology which points away from the gospel. Thus my use of terms about my own experience above, which are community centric terms, not 'me-centric', I hope, and I hope my efforts have been genuinely of this manner, and the list I suggested in my first email to you. So, not 'youth leader' but youth minister/worker, not children's 'leader' (if there are any children's leaders, they are their parents), but children's worker, teacher...etc.

As I composed this list, I reflected on my admiration for my late father's trade union work. His union adopted terms for the service roles they had that reflected their beliefs about the way things should work. Oddly enough the 'leader' of the smallest unit (called a chapel) was the 'father'. They had organisers, delegates and similar roles, because they were all equally workers, and no one 'led' them!

So too in the church. If we are serious about our profession, I think that we must organise congruently with this profession. As soon as we say that there are leaders ('archon', is, I think the Greek equivalent word, and not used of church life in the NT) we say that there are followers; but we only follow Christ. Paul is clear on that as he teaches against party spirit; if we say there are leaders and followers, we also say that we have leadership, not community-ship (a coining by Mintzberg that I particularly like).

Thus, as I read the list regarding healthy church life...which list I've worked with in another denomination, I think, if a church has 'good leadership' that is expressed in the natural reading of the phrase, ministry will inevitably break down, the 'pastor' and elders will burn out and the church will dry up, the idea is a problem both terminologically and instrumentally. But what if a church was characterised by a resilient network of ministry groups? Much better I think, and very much what chimes with the NT church life exhortations.

A couple of references that may be of interest:

http://complexityandmanagement.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/hello-world/ and quite a few other posts

http://oss.sagepub.com/content/24/6/961.abstract (I can send you this article if you don't have access)

http://www.faithandleadership.com/multimedia/ronald-heifetz-the-nature-adaptive-leadership

Why Leadership?

I read with interest you piece on the healthy church in the current issue of Together.

Lists that motivate action are always helpful, and one could probably not disagree with your nine points, even though we would all probably give the phrases differing understandings.

But, I do disagree with one of them: point 2 "empowering leadership". I think that there is much wrong with this notion from many perspectives.

I will, however, be brief, and argue that I don't find this concept in the New Testament at all. All I find there is a charismatic community: joint 'leadership' at work, if we must still use this term. It is a great concern that we've imported into our conceptualisation of church, and rather uncritically, the worldly concept of 'leadership'. And its not even uncontested in the world of business organisation, whence it came.

Refer to this article by Henry Mintzberg, for instance: http://www.oxfordleadership.com/journal/vol1_issue2/mintzberg.pdf, and this one:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c917c904-6041-11db-a716-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=8d70957c-6288-11db-8faa-0000779e2340.html#axzz1bDm1PwMc

What the concept of leadership does in a church is instantly disempower everyone, no matter how 'empowering' it sets out to be. The paradox is, that if a 'leader' wants to empower, they must think that they have the power to give out. I don't think that this is the case scripturally, or in terms of the sociology of congregational organisations, such in your denomination.

With the joint exercise of ministry, a healthy church will not have a 'leader', someone who has the ideas, gives out power, forges into the future, because we are lead as a church by the Holy Spirit. I would not want to usurp this role.

Now, its a pity that our adherence to the scriptures does not permeate the way we think about ourselves as organisation. Our language should reflect our beliefs. We don't have leaders, we have organisers, coordinators, helpers, facilitators, teachers, convenors, moderators (a good concept in the Presbyterian church that has morphed into 'leader' unfortunately), delegates and above all, ministers: servants of the people of God. And we don't have that awful oxymoron, the 'servant-leader' which is a trick of business rhetoric and has no real meaning within a church context.

Spotlight on leadership in the church

This article by Jon Zens picks up a theme I've caught in a few posts in my 'ministry' tag.

Translating leadership

In the light of my recent posts on the misapplication of the notion of 'leadership' to church life, I recently came across some statements of a church's objectives which I thought I'd attempt to re-word in the light of those posts.

Original: to review the leadership structures and processes of church and evaluate our goals in the light of this.

My suggestion: to review the ministry structures and processes of church....

Original: To develop service/leadership teams for reach congregation.

My suggestion: to develop service teams for each congregation.

Original: For our children's ministry leaders; to establish regular meetings and care for our leaders.

My suggestion: For our children's ministry workers; to establish regular meetings and pastoral support.

Original: To further develop a culture of equipping leaders.

My suggestion: To further develop a culture of equipping and encouraging people to take part in ministry.

Original: To establish a leadership team to coordinate men's ministry.

My suggestion: To establish a committee to coordinate men's ministry.

The constant use of the word 'leadership' is not only cloying, not only uninteresting use of English, but it masks the range of ministries that people engage in within a church, it hides variety, interest and complexity behind one somewhat mechanical term which has become meaningless through (inaccurate) overuse.

Shepherd

It is well known that David was, prior to his prominence in the Bible, was a shepherd: in 1 Chronicles 17:7, it says this of him:

Now, therefore, thus shall you say to My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be leader over My people Israel.

Interesting to note that a shepherd...a pastor? doesn't lead, but follows the flock! Also that the passage distinguishes that role from that of 'leader'.

I wonder if this might throw light today on the prediliction we have in modern western churches to refer to a model of community life that is predicated upon the exclusivity and individualisating notion of leadership.

Leadership may work in authority or information relationships, such as the armed forces, or in the quasi legal relationships of business or government; but I don't think it is congenial with how the scriptures, particularly the NT describes the life of the church. Certainly we have apostles, prophets, teachers, etc. But essentially all relationships within the body of Christ are characterised as serving, ministry, relationships, not leading/boss/political relationships, essentially.

Yet we allow ourselves to be led down the path of the world, which loves specialness, celebrity, power and prestige, and have 'leaders' and CEOs (of christian organisations...why not coordinators, organisers, even just ministers or servants?).

This comes to me every so often in the context of 'leading' a service, or a small study group. But I've never 'led' them, I hope I've always served! So a small group servant/minister? Or at most convenor or moderator?

I've learnt of a recent World Vision leadership convention for young people. Surely we want young people, particularly young christians to learn to be humble servants, not court the prominence of 'leadership'. Christ had some hard words to say about 'leaders'. I would suspect that we should try not to be such, but seek opportunities to serve, and encourage, which I think the word and the contemporary context of 'leader' mitigates against.

Rogue Executives and Darwin

From "The Rise of the Rogue Executive"
Leonard Sayles and Cynthia Smith

"...Contemporary American acquisitive culture has been undercutting the very premises of capitalism: honest reporting and executives who believe they should serve shareholders' interests--not their own investment accounts, a half dozen homes connected by Gulfstream jets and enormous yachts, and their children and grandchildren's comforts. Many conservatives take pride in a social Darwinian culture, survival of the fittest. Losers are less fit and deserve less. But when "survival" is the result of gross deception and self-dealing, a "winner take all' philosophy, evolutionary platitudes are grossly deceptive. Winners may rapaciously suck up too much. Some will find it is easier to win by cheating than by the fierce competition that capitalist theory assumes. This is social Darwinism at its insidious worst."

p. 177

Irrational faith

Quote on leadership from Pfeffer and Sutton "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense":

...the belief that leaders have massive influence over performance turns out to be a half-truth. As leadership researcher James Meindel put it, our culture romanticises leaders, anointing them with 'esteem, prestige, charisma, and heroism' that outstrips the weight of the evidence. Why does this irrational faith in the power of potent individualis persist?

Now, at least this puts the notion of 'leadership' into perspective. I only wish those in Christian ministry uniformily understood that the notion is worldy, and has little if anything to do with the supreme value of service in the New Testament.

It's also worth remembering Mintzberg on 'communityship' in this context.

Another "leadership" genius

Just for the record, another churchly genius who thinks that people and not the Holy Spirit "lead" the church. Apart from that barb, the site appears to have some interesting material.

See my own crits. of this notion.

Servant Leadership?

Caught this quote, from the fellow who invented the term 'servant-leader', with a critical comment on the idea. It is from Creating Leaderful Organisations by Joseph Raelin (Berrett-Koehler Publications, San Francisco 2003)

Death by Leadership

I quote from Mintzberg's latest book "Managing"

By the excessive promotion of leadership, we demote everyone else. We create clusters of followers who have to be driven to perform, instead of leveraging the natural propensity of people to cooperate in communities. In this light, effective managing can be seen as engaging and engaged, connecting and connected, supporting and supported.

How different this is from the tired rhetoric I hear too often in church circles about 'leaders' and 'leadership'. Also, how remarkably congruent with the community life extolled in the New Testament.

But, what gives me pause for thought is that this challenge to the hollowness of 'leadership' as a notion did not come from a bible-based Christian critique of business, management, the treatment of people in organisations or the like: that is, the church being prophetically attunded to the scriptures, but from a scholar who simply seeks to go where the data and his observations lead him.

I often wonder what we pay theologians for...and suspect that we get a very poor return for our investment on some occasions!

Leading from the back

In a recent church news the following quote was printed:

Asked what would be his priority if he returned to leadership in a local church, New Testament scholar Gordon Fee replied: "No matter how long it might take, I would set about with a single passion to help a local body of believers recapture the New Testament church's understanding of itself as an eschatological community (The Ordinary Hero by Tim Chester, p. 165).

Now, there it is...'leadership' in a local church? I'm glad that Fee had the sense to realise that if he returned to serve a local church his job would be to HELP in some way. So often we take the notion of 'leader' from the world, maybe from the military, and think it has some application in the church.

An example of how this skews things came from a friend recently. She related how an acquaintance was over-awed by being asked to take on the leadership of a particular group. I'd be surprised if she was told what she would be expected to do, but being told it was 'leading' would be enough to give anyone the jitters if it was not stripped of worldly connotations; she would possibly have known that it is the Spirit that leads and we all follow together contributing as our gifts can provide.

It would have been more useful if she had been asked to help with the __ group. And the dimensions of that helping given to her: maybe organising the roster, helping people prepare their own contributions, finding fill-ins when someone can't do their roster, be the contact point, etc. More like convening, facilitating, organising, or just plain helping (Gordon Fee's word). My earlier post on Mintzberg on 'leading' is apposite here.

When we start to think 'ministry' and not 'leader' we'll all be better off, and as Christians we might all be encouraged that we have a part to play in the life of the church and not just sit and watch, which is what 'leaders' so often engender and the concept in its worldly configuration suggests.

BTW, I was very encouraged to hear a person who was going to serve at a remote area church talk about the 'contribution' he hoped to make: a much more Christian conceptualisation of joining the life of a church than any worldly hubristic notions of 'leading' (and, please don't start me on the oxymoronic idea of 'servant-leader')

Pastor-Theologian

My comment on a blog on pastor-as-theologian at Euangelion:

It is almost inevitable that a pastor is a theologian, else with what is he or she pastoring? Applying the word of God to the growth or encouragement of another Christian involves engaging with that Word, does it not? Or have we entered the conceit of the world that some 'do God' better than others, and that because of specific studies? Not to confuse being a theologian with being someone whose job is to research, teach or publish about theology, or who is a paid Christian in a church...anyone can enter into a pastoring role by the circumstances my opening suggests.

I was a little concerned at some posts that seem to lock either pastoring or theologizing into formal jobs, or even a pastor being part of a therapeutic dyad...heaven forbid! It seems to me that there is or should be a relational dynamism in churches that would step beyond job titles to actual encounters of people with each other: in home Bible study/prayer groups, in formal 'classes', in the bus...whereever. It's what happens, not by whom it happens that sets the scene, I think...meaning we could all at times be pastor-theologians!

Leading to where?

Listening to 2CBAFM aka Hope-FM recently, I heard mention of a course at Tabor College on pastoral leadership… and a few days ago I read in Mintzberg’s latest book Managing the following:

…by putting leadership on a pedestal separated from management, we turn a social process into a personal one. No matter how much lip service is paid to the leader empowering the group, leadership still focuses on the individual: whenever we promote leadership, we demote others, as followers. Slighted, too is the sense of community that is important for cooperative effort in all organizations. What we should be promoting instead of leadership alone are communities of actors who get on with things naturally, leadership together with management being an intrinsic part of that. Accordingly this book puts managing ahead, seeing it together with leadership as naturally embedded in what can be called ‘communityship’.

Now I’ve blogged before, critically, on the penchant in contemporary church circles to talk ad nauseum about ‘leadership’ and bemoan the passing of the counterpoint concentration in decades past on ‘ministry’. The latter more biblical in every way than the former: the latter being about serving and building cooperating mutually serving communities abounding in the giving of the gifts of the Spirit; the former being about the promotion of the select few over and above the rest of the church, they reduced to a passivity that itself is unbiblical and in denial of the work of the Spirit in building the church. The former is about a supernaturally derived body, the latter is about a lifeless worldly organization that seeks to substitute mechanism, technique and ‘methodology’ to use that strange word, for the movement of God’s Spirit in people.

I reflect on two things coming out of this:

1. The church’s uncritical aping the world without being able to stand informed intellectually by the scriptures and say ‘no, we do things differently to the world’s organizations, because we are a people called by God to live together in service and love’. We look for different things, we seek to build up one another, not promote the few, we seek to live as a family of love, not as a business where we clock off at 5pm and look to 'leaders' because we don't know where to go'.

Alas, the church has said nothing of the kind, but instead wants to squander its heritage, and its Lord’s teaching in such crude and nonsensical ideas as ‘pastoral leadership’. Why not ‘pastoring’ or ‘pastoral care’ or ‘personal ministry’ as course titles? What does a ‘pastoral leader’ do, anyway?  Where do they lead, and how do they get followers? By dying on a cross? That’s where the church’s leader got his followers!

Of course not, the whole idea is silly. There is no such thing as ‘pastoral leadership’, relying as it does on the counter-biblical passivity of those ministered to as though a psychotherapeutic dyad comes into existence at each pastoral encounter, instead of the mutually committed support given to each other in Christ.

I’m saddened that I’m not aware of any Christian thinker who has made the argument about church life that Mintzberg makes about worldly organizations!

2. Christian organizations seem to bolt head over heels to adopt the titles and structures of worldly organizations. We have ‘CEOs’, Directors, General Managers, State/Area/Regional Managers, and so on. Why don’t we have such humble descriptive titles of functions as ‘coordinator’, ‘organiser’, ‘planner’, ‘secretary’, ‘convenor’, ‘teacher’, ‘facilitator’, ‘helper’, ‘worker’, ‘servant’ 'steward', and ‘minister’? Even ‘elder’ and ‘deacon’ have a good biblical track record for the right circumstances! As I’ve also said before, we even ape the world at the level of Sunday school (now with cute names such as ‘Kid’s Church’, or Sunday Club) and our children have ‘leaders’ not ‘teachers’. Is this not the first step in showing them that the world sets the pace, not the word of God; that we seek to build a structure and not live out the calling of the Kingdom of God?

In a way, I admire the trade union movement that my father was involved in. They eschewed the terminology of big business, and indeed adopted church terms at some levels, being organised into ‘chapels’ with the main worker in each ‘chapel’ being the ‘father’. But they had delegates, organisers and convenors. They had the focus of their convictions to make a new world for workers unlike the one they experienced. It is sad that the church, Christian organizations, seem to lack similar courage or insight and ape the world that it says it rejects! Naturally our witness falls flat because our actions say ‘we want to be just like you, not show a radically different way that is the calling of our Lord’.

Leadership competencies

Caught this link on leadership by Deming

I post it in connection with my earlier posts on this misused term in the church.

Becoming a minister

A recent post on Andy Goodliff's blog on starting in ministry attracted a comment from me. I've re-posted the comment below.

The blog was on how seminary study does not equip one for the real world of 'ministry'.

My comment, a little edited:

Being a 'minister' in organised church terms is very much a craft, which suggests that becoming a minister should be by an apprenticeship. That is, fresh out of theol. college, you are not a minister (although you might have the title), but have a body of knowledge and a level of intellectual understanding (but not necessarily wisdom or applied love) that will assist you be a minister, but not make you one. I don't think that it's even a precondition.

Step one would be to serve in a church under the guidance of its elders; later you might become an elder too, if the Spirit so provides.

However, a highly trained person might make a great teacher: different from the omnibus role we have today of professional minister (I note the unbiblical game was given away by the term 'laity', incidentally).

It would be great, I think if all Christians underwent some form of formal Christian education: some may do short courses, others might do PhDs (and then not advertise the fact out of properly placed humility :-) ); some would then go on to be Sunday School teachers, convene youth or adult study and prayer groups, others would assist with the formal weekly gatherings (aka services) as moderator, reader, speaker, teacher, prayer, etc.

This would tend to create ministering communities, rather than one-man shows, and one would hope, such communities that could organically support their ministry needs, without 'flying in' experts who are not part of the community to get rapidly grafted on, with many attendant problems (but some benefits, too, I agree).

It is the professionalisation of Christian ministry that is a problem. Once people are denied a valid voice in their Christian group, because they must defer to an expert (how does one become an expert in Christian life, or living in a loving manner against the challenges of every day?) they are told, implicitly, that they have no voice that's worthwhile for evangelism, or any other spiritual purpose; which is Not Good!

Collins on Leadership

Jim Collins, author of "Good to Great" and other books regarded by Phil Rosensweig as "a mix of The Little Engine that Could and The Da Vinci Code", but still well worth a read to my mind, stated this about my bete noire, 'leadership' [at least in its uncritcal and semi-digested Christian version] (Collins calls himself a "leadership sceptic"):

"

Business corporations are the special case in society. It's unlike almost every other type of social system -- it's a concentrated executive power. If you look in government and social systems there's a more diffuse power model where no one person has the concentrated power of a CEO. What we see then is an interesting asymmetry and a sobering one. No single leader can make a great company, but the wrong [leader] invested with power can do a lot of damage

"

Now, substitute for the value 'leader' the value 'christian minister' and you'll see how corrupt and unbiblical is the common reflexive and ill considered application of that concept in church circles.

"concentrated executive power": in the church? I don't think so! At least not amongst praying and serving communities.

"power model": power? Where does this concept gain any ground in the church; a society of cooperation, mutual support and loving commitment, self-sacrificial loving commitment (opps, I don't see that too much in churches I've known...although I have seen it, I must say, in churches in less well off areas)? Unfortunately it does, to the detriment of the church and the poor fellow who is usually looked to (without much practical or effective discouragement in many cases) as "the leader".

The most pointed observation for churches that find the 'one person leader' model (even if couched in that oxymoronic 'servant-leader' term) applicable to themselves is the final observation: "no single leader can make a great [church?], but the wrong [one] can do a lot of damage."

I think most Christians will have seen that in spades.

When I was young I was much interested in anarchic politics, particularly as described by Murray Bookchin; the use of consensual decision and planning models, where power, if it existed was diffused appealed to me.

Now, I think that anarchism is probably unworkable and impractical, but ironically, it is just the model that I would think that a praying community, dependent upon the Spirit of God, would most readily fall to. Not a power structure, but a serving/ministering structure. No leaders, just ministers of various gifts.

Leading: tips

Aspects of ‘leadership’

Notwithstanding that I’m a bit of a sceptic about ‘leadership’ (see this post), and prefer Henry Minzberg’s ‘community-ship’ as a better descriptor of the community of effort in a church, below are some quotes that pertain to ‘leadership’ for those misguided souls who think that it is a better concept than ‘ministry’ in churches where people mutually serve, encourage and share with one another.

Jack Welsh: (ex CEO of General Electric)

Make people feel good about themselves. Make them better, fuller, richer. Tell people where they stand, and what they can grow up to become. Talk about mistakes.

Be real, not stiff. Motivate face to face. You can only rally a team by being with them and having them feel that you know them and care about them.

You want to get everyone to feel free to create and contribute their own ideas. Harness the best ideas, share them, and apply them across functions. Show clear vision. Be decisive. Care deeply.

The central idea at GE was to build great people

When you get it wrong, treat people fairly and move on.

Convey a passion to your people to be great in everything they choose to be and do. A leader can't build trust without transparency, and a team without trust won't win.

Colin Powell (ex US Army Chief of Staff)

Once I examine all the rough edges and make a decision as to what we will do, then we all move in that direction and stick with it, with coherence and consistency—until it's proven that we should move in a different direction.

Tolerate rebels who tell the emperor he has no clothes.

The people in the field are closest to the problem, closest to the situation; therefore, that is where real wisdom is.

The day that people stop bringing you their problems is the day you stop leading them. They either lose confidence that you can help them or conclude that you do not care. Either case is failure of leadership.

The leader sets an example. Other people take their cue from the leader —not so much from what the leader says, but from what the leader does

Michael Porter (Harvard University, Grad. Schl. of Business)

A leader also ensures that everyone understands the strategy. Strategy is not some mystical vision that only the people at the top understand. Strategy informs all of the things that get done every day, and aligns those things in the same direction.

Deciding which customers and needs to serve requires discipline, the ability to set limits, and forthright communication. Clearly, strategy and leadership are linked.

Rudy Giuliani, (former mayor of New York)

You can't accomplish anything of great worth without other people. If you're in charge of anything, ask yourself: "What are my weaknesses?" If you can balance your weaknesses with the strengths of others, you can create a great team. Build your team with people who have strengths in your area of weakness. Tell people why you do what you do. If you can't communicate what you know or expect, you can't lead people. Leaders are rarely doers. They rely on other people. They are teachers, motivators, and coaches.

From 10 mistakes that leaders make, (ones that I’ve seen from time to time in paid Christians (ministers)) (Harvard Business Review, June 09, p. 18)

Have poor judgment
They make decisions that colleagues and subordinates consider to be not in the organization’s best interests.

Don’t collaborate
They avoid peers, act independently, and view other leaders as competitors. As a result, they are set adrift by the very people whose insights and support they need.

Resist new ideas
They reject suggestions from subordinates and peers. Good ideas aren’t implemented, and the organization gets stuck.

Don’t learn from mistakes
They may make no more mistakes than their peers, but they fail to use setbacks as opportunities for improvement, hiding their errors and brooding about them instead.

Lack interpersonal skills
They make sins of both commission (they’re abrasive and bullying) and omission (they’re aloof, unavailable, and reluctant to praise).

Fail to develop others
They focus on themselves to the exclusion of developing subordinates, causing individuals and teams to disengage.

But all said and done, if the 'system' the community, or cultural configuration that you attempt to 'lead' within is flawed, then all you are doing is polishing fish before putting them back in dirty water. See here on 'leadership' and systems.

Because, really, its about community: the life of the body, not of one part!