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It’s always intrigued me that one of the perennial concerns of modern church life is conspicuous by its absence in the Bible.
Paul wrote letters to encourage and help the churches he planted—but here is what is missing. He never once laments the lack of leaders. He never mentions a shortfall in those who were prepared to step forward to take up the role of deacons, elders, shepherds.
Fast-forward 2000 years and we see a very different situation. Thousands of churches without a pastor. Theological colleges and seminaries struggling to find people who want to be trained for ministry. Local churches unable to find people to run Bible studies, Sunday-school classes or youth groups.
What has happened? Has God’s Spirit deserted the churches?
I want to suggest that we have so bought into a cultural view of leadership that we have failed to recognize that the Bible’s view is very different, and so we fail to recognize, develop and encourage into leadership those that perfectly fit the biblical pattern.
Alpha males
Leaders that our culture praises, recognizes and aspires to are strong, articulate, entrepreneurial types. They take risks. They surge forward with innovations that break new ground and change the way the game works. They build interesting buildings. They inspire new ways of thinking.
Praise God that many of these kinds of men are active in Christian ministry. They are often the pioneering pastors who plant a church and start a new work. They are great speakers who offer new insights into God’s word. They inspire people to be like them. How could we complain about that? But hidden beneath the “success stories” of these pioneering pastors is a real problem. Because if we assume that only this kind of pastor is “the real deal”, we sow the seeds that have flowered into our current problem.
As great and inspiring as these leaders are, they will often be the first to admit that they are not the whole solution to the church leadership question. They may be able to start something, but they are often ill equipped in their gifts and their temperament to consolidate and grow the work they have started. I like to think of two different kinds of leader for which I do not want to apply biblical terminology. Studies have show that a disproportionate amount of people who are entrepreneurs are left handed. So let’s call them left handed and right handed.
Left-handed pastors are those who are entrepreneurs. They are church planters, pioneers and go-getters. They are like Caleb, who urged the fearful Israelites to invade the promised land, and who at 85 was still up for taking a new hill from the enemy.
Right-handed pastors are no less courageous, but are able to apply themselves to consolidating, stabilizing and growing a congregation of God’s people. They are more adapted to gospel ministry in the everyday routine.
Our problem is that we praise the left-handed leaders over the right-handed ones, who are just as, if not more, important! We look for those who are good “up front” in leading and public speaking, or who have creative ministry ideas, or a passion to go out and “capture a hill” for the gospel. We fail to look for those who will patiently and quietly love people, apply the gospel to their lives and their problems, and grow disciples. We have “alpha-tised” our expectations of ministry.
The qualifications for ministry are really very minimal: A Christ-like life, and an aptitude to teach. Note that the aptitude is to teach—to explain carefully and clearly God’s word to others. There are many ways in leadership that someone may do this without being especially good or memorable in the way they preach to larger numbers in a formal setting. Perhaps Paul never complained about a lack of leaders because he was applying different criteria to us!
The qualifications for ministry are really very minimal: A Christ-like life, and an aptitude to teach.
He didn’t put prospective candidates on a soap box in the middle of the market, and score them out of 10 for their performance. More likely, he observed them where they were in their jobs and families, and saw how they exercised leadership of the household. He marked their efforts to understand and express the gospel to others. He thought about how they showed Christ-likeness in the small details of their lives that are so often more telling in revealing our true character. How they spoke to those who were anxious. How they dealt with setbacks in their own circumstances. How they coped with criticism.
One helpful way forward might be to think about three different classes of people:
1. Potential leaders
There are leaders all around you in your community. They may own and run a local shop or business. They may run a local sports team. They may have a thriving “business” as a drug dealer. It is not wrong to pray and work for these people to be won for the gospel. God’s Spirit will transform their leadership qualities and infuse them with the character of Christ to make them valuable under-shepherds to his flock.
2. Leaders with potential
Unrecognized in your own congregation are people who will not consider themselves leadership potential for some of the reasons outlined above. Hunt them out! Find the men whose wives speak well of them, whose children love them, who love the gospel and want to live it out, however quiet or timid they appear. Then train them biblically and theologically, mentor them, disciple them, inspire them with the idea and responsibility of Christian leadership and call them to step up to the mark.
3. Those in leadership
There are people in many levels of leadership in your church who need to be urged to move on. I tell people: “If you want to take this on—you’ve got to be prepared for me to get on your case in a way that I never would if you were not in leadership. I will get in your face, because I want you to grow and not stagnate as a leader.” Disciple them. Urge them to apply the gospel to their households, and to the issues they face in themselves and others. And remind them that even shepherds are sheep who need the care, encouragement and guidance of others.
Where have all the leaders gone? They are all around your community, waiting to hear the gospel and for God to redeem their leadership gifts for something of greater value than money or power. Pray for God to call them as you share the gospel of grace with them.
Where have all the leaders gone? They are all around your church if you have eyes to recognize them and lay before them the joyful challenge of joy of their calling in Christ.
Where have all the leaders gone? They are waiting for you to invest in them so that they will no longer be happy just to “make camp” and survive this life before enjoying eternity, but will join you in leading God’s people with God’s word, for the glory of the One true Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
This is an extract from Gospel-Centered Leadership: Becoming the servant God wants you to be.
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