Thursday, June 28, 2007
Leadership
MMI had a great post a while back on the church losing leaders
What this really is is a classic struggle that occurs in any organization between management and bureacracy, and the inevitability seems to be that bureacracy always wins. This happens in the denominations through sheer age - when the rules of the road take precident over the reason the rules were written to begin with. But it also happens in the more entreprenurial ways of doing church out of sheer size. Big demands bureacracy - no other way to manage it.
The leadership leak the MMI piece discusses is generally a result of genuine leadership become frustrated with trying to operate the bureacracy. You want a lesson in this, look at the collapse of Arnold Schwarzenegger's conservative ideals in California - he was simply eaten alive by the bureacracy - he chose to go along to get along. The problem is especially exacerbated when the apparent chief executive of the church - the pastor - is heavily invested in the bureacracy because he came through it to gain his position. Or, in the case of the entrepenurial church, he build the bureacracy as a shield against having his position challenged.
In the business world, this problem is resolved by key dismissals. The head guy just fires enough people in the right positions to send a message to the bureacracy - "You are not indespensible, time to tow the NEW line." The rules of civil service prevent that, thus Arnold's difficulties.
In church we seem to think that firings lack grace and therfore we should not, and generally do not, do them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Removing people from entrenched positions is all about freeing them to actually grow - but then we don't seem to encourage that in the churhc much anymore either.
This dilemma is one reason to minimize as much as possible staff in a church. Then no one's paycheck is at risk. But how do you fire a volunteer. Easy, you don't, you "term limit" them. The longest I have ever done a vounteer job at a church is 4 years, and usually it is only 2. I leave despite what have often been pleas for me to continue for precisely this reason.
Everybody gets upset because of how difficult it is to find someone else to do the job. That frankly, is part of the point. It is that effort, to find new leadership, that is most important to the church -- that is part of the process of developing disciples.
Time to get busy.
Related Tags: church, burecracy, leadership, discipleship, development
The church is in such a huge shift. The shift is not about emergent, post modern, modern, traditional, contemporary et al. The shift is this; within the church we are seeing more and more churches unhealthiness exposed because for them leadership is primarily a structure. In the bible leadership is a gift and the leaders God gave the church were supposed to be gifts too. Those leaders functioned in relationship with God and each other with humility and respect. For the past several hundred years the church has been led through a structure regardless of the gifts of those in the structure. This inevitably makes leadership about power not service. God designed the body to be led by leaders, taught by teachers, encouraged by encourager's... But for God’s design to work people must truly know and fan to flame their gifts, they must love the church with passion and must walk closely to Christ...There is some really good diagnostic work in this piece about what the problems are in the church, but I am not at all convinced that setting up a dichotomy between structure and leadership is the issue.
What this really is is a classic struggle that occurs in any organization between management and bureacracy, and the inevitability seems to be that bureacracy always wins. This happens in the denominations through sheer age - when the rules of the road take precident over the reason the rules were written to begin with. But it also happens in the more entreprenurial ways of doing church out of sheer size. Big demands bureacracy - no other way to manage it.
The leadership leak the MMI piece discusses is generally a result of genuine leadership become frustrated with trying to operate the bureacracy. You want a lesson in this, look at the collapse of Arnold Schwarzenegger's conservative ideals in California - he was simply eaten alive by the bureacracy - he chose to go along to get along. The problem is especially exacerbated when the apparent chief executive of the church - the pastor - is heavily invested in the bureacracy because he came through it to gain his position. Or, in the case of the entrepenurial church, he build the bureacracy as a shield against having his position challenged.
In the business world, this problem is resolved by key dismissals. The head guy just fires enough people in the right positions to send a message to the bureacracy - "You are not indespensible, time to tow the NEW line." The rules of civil service prevent that, thus Arnold's difficulties.
In church we seem to think that firings lack grace and therfore we should not, and generally do not, do them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Removing people from entrenched positions is all about freeing them to actually grow - but then we don't seem to encourage that in the churhc much anymore either.
This dilemma is one reason to minimize as much as possible staff in a church. Then no one's paycheck is at risk. But how do you fire a volunteer. Easy, you don't, you "term limit" them. The longest I have ever done a vounteer job at a church is 4 years, and usually it is only 2. I leave despite what have often been pleas for me to continue for precisely this reason.
Everybody gets upset because of how difficult it is to find someone else to do the job. That frankly, is part of the point. It is that effort, to find new leadership, that is most important to the church -- that is part of the process of developing disciples.
Time to get busy.
Related Tags: church, burecracy, leadership, discipleship, development
