A Different View of Leadership

As you probably realise I do a lot of leadership teaching and training, not just within Liberty, but with leaders in other churches in Australia and Overseas. The more I study this topic the more convinced I am that generally speaking, the church doesn’t do leadership very well or very biblically. From a biblical point of view, especially from Jesus’ teachings, leadership should not separate people into leaders and non leaders in a way that gives the inference that the leaders are better than others.

I see that as Christians we are all called to be leaders. We are all called to be ‘light’ and ‘salt’ and to lead people to Christ. We lead according to our areas of influence, our giftedness, our experience and our example. I may be a leader in this church, a leader in my home and a leader among some pastors in Africa, but that doesn’t mean I am a business leader or a leader in someone else’s area of influence. Even in the church I am not a leader in every other are of life. For example, at a working-bee I am one of the followers who need a person with greater expertise and experience than me to be in charge.I am not called to be “all things to people” Only God can handle that assignment!

Some will argue that what I am saying could erode our respect for authority. I don’t agree. Genuine respect is not the result of our position but it comes from our character, competence and the God-given spiritual authority we been given. It is not something to be strived for. (See Philippians 2:5-11)

In the kitchen at church I am not the boss. There are others who are far more competent than me. Because I submit to them in that area does not erode their respect for me as the visionary leader of the church or as a Bible teacher. In every organisation there is a need for leaders to come together for meetings. It is impractical and inappropriate to have everyone there. However because some are not included in that particular leaders’ meeting doesn’t mean they are not a leader or are less important. Our various ‘leadership’ meetings or team meetings have little to do with our status, or personal importance, but everything to do with our relevance, experience, competence and involvement in a certain area. I am not usually needed in a music leaders’ team meeting, a helps’ ministry meeting, a youth ministry team meeting or a children’s church team meeting. There may be occasions when I am needed because my gifts or experience is needed. That is the same for anybody in the church.

In our church I would like each one of us to see ourselves as leaders. Each one of us is necessary and important for the whole church to function well, not just in in-house church activities, but also in our society. (See 1 Cor 12:12-31.) Within Liberty, we have business leaders, family leaders, school leaders, sporting team leaders, work-place leaders and many more. This doesn’t mean you need to be the leader of the business, family, school, sporting team or work place to be a leader in that place. More and more sporting teams are selecting a leadership groups rather than just on captain to take responsibility for the leadership of the team. There may be one member od the group, who because of his gifts and his experience is the up-front person. However that doesn’t take away from the responsibility and ownership of the rest. Like in a church eldership he is the “first amongst equals”.

As each one of us needs to discover our gifts, recognise our areas of influence, as well as recognising others’ gifts and influence. As we submit to one another and serve one another, everyone is better off and the whole body operates more effectively. It is my goal that everyone in Liberty sees that they are a leader and takes on the responsibility and challenge of leading in the area where God has placed them.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under Liberty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.