Thursday, September 08, 2011
Whining and Secrets
David Foster @ MMI:
But then this came along:
One - that you are there to lead a church to growth. Wrong! You are there to lead a church to Christ, growth will be a by-product of that actually happening, but it is not the point.
Secondly that is is about power. I beg your pardon, but God Himself set the example in that regard:
It has been my privilege to lead churches since I was 18 years old. I have watched both movements and movers move on and off the scene. The American church landscape has been painted, erased and painted over many times, yet in all these years and in the passing of all that time, I’ve heard almost nothing about, what I consider to be, the American church’s dirtiest little secret.Now I found that an excellent beginning because I believe it to be true. Entrepreneurial Christian professionalism, whether it be in independent, churches or the para-church tends to be a highly competitive, dog-eat-dog environment. It generally does not develop leadership, it hazes it. So I settled in for a good post.
The church’s dirtiest little secret is not the scandal of flock fleasing pastors jetting around at their church’s expense. Nor is it the outrageous salaries or even the oft expected and oft over-enjoyed sex scandal and subsequent fall from grace of a once revered leader.
No, the real scandal of the American church is something much deeper, and more pernicious than any of those tragic, isolated events. And I do mean isolated, because they are a very small percentage of what really goes on day in and day out, week in and week out in the hundreds of thousands of Christian churches all across this country.
No, the real dirty little secret in the American church is that we regularly, relentlessly, and without mercy beat-up, chew-up and spit-out our leaders.
But then this came along:
You’d have to be blind, deaf, and stupid not to notice the long line of, once effective and admired, leaders limping toward the exits. It was Peter Drucker who once said the four hardest jobs in America — not necessarily in this order — are President of the United States, a university president, a hospital CEO and a pastor. Amen, but for those called to it, we at least don’t expect to be shot in the back by our own team?Whine, whine whine, whine, whine. Come on guy, that's not the issue - there are two extraordinary fallacies in those paragraphs.
Why isn’t anyone talking about this? Maybe it’s because those who talk about church leadership, no matter whether they’re founding pastors or high-ranking staff members, have one thing in common: we’re all employees of our churches–leading without real power. Pastors have the responsibility to lead their church to growth with none of the power to actually do so.
One - that you are there to lead a church to growth. Wrong! You are there to lead a church to Christ, growth will be a by-product of that actually happening, but it is not the point.
Secondly that is is about power. I beg your pardon, but God Himself set the example in that regard:
Phil 2:6-8 - who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.The church is supposed to be a very different place from the rest of the world. The leadership paradigm given to us by Christ and the apostles is quite different from the power-driven, competitive paradigm under which we operate in other environments. To whine for the worldly way of doing things is to miss the point entirely.
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