Hi Jack. The focus on decisive leadership and the need for everyone to play their part, like in a real family, is so spot on. It’s definitely a challenge, but one that can bring so much growth. Thanks for sharing these insights!
Leadership is always crucial. Hope you will do more writing about it.
"Decisive" is clear to a point, but many dictators are decisive. "Responsive" is clear to a point, but most all of us have seen the dysfunction that results when the sheep lead the shepherds instead of the shepherds leading the sheep. Cultural influences and bad experiences often push brethren to one extreme or the other.
While there are anarchists among us, it's been my observation that much of saints' desire for "a seat at the [decision-making] table" that you lament results from saints having endured elders who functioned more like a board-of-directors than shepherds-of-a-flock. As long as elders see their primary functions as making decisions and issuing edicts, they may be decisive and even admired, but they themselves will be the reason the local church seems more like a business than a family.
Elders' "authority" is in their having been authorized by the Lord to lead. How they lead needs to be learned from the Scriptures, too. Sadly, the only authority/leadership-style some know is what the Bible calls being "self-willed" and "lording it over the flock." Neither this nor the opposite extreme will result in churches that are functional, fruitful families.
I've worked at churches that had these roadblocks. The most difficult one was the third one. People who don't want change got rid of the entire staff, including me. I had a professor who said you might not change their mind but you can out live them...
Hi Jack. The focus on decisive leadership and the need for everyone to play their part, like in a real family, is so spot on. It’s definitely a challenge, but one that can bring so much growth. Thanks for sharing these insights!
Leadership is always crucial. Hope you will do more writing about it.
"Decisive" is clear to a point, but many dictators are decisive. "Responsive" is clear to a point, but most all of us have seen the dysfunction that results when the sheep lead the shepherds instead of the shepherds leading the sheep. Cultural influences and bad experiences often push brethren to one extreme or the other.
While there are anarchists among us, it's been my observation that much of saints' desire for "a seat at the [decision-making] table" that you lament results from saints having endured elders who functioned more like a board-of-directors than shepherds-of-a-flock. As long as elders see their primary functions as making decisions and issuing edicts, they may be decisive and even admired, but they themselves will be the reason the local church seems more like a business than a family.
Elders' "authority" is in their having been authorized by the Lord to lead. How they lead needs to be learned from the Scriptures, too. Sadly, the only authority/leadership-style some know is what the Bible calls being "self-willed" and "lording it over the flock." Neither this nor the opposite extreme will result in churches that are functional, fruitful families.
I've worked at churches that had these roadblocks. The most difficult one was the third one. People who don't want change got rid of the entire staff, including me. I had a professor who said you might not change their mind but you can out live them...
Be the best sheep you can be - exactly! Thanks for the reminder.
In my entire ministry, I’ve known one elder that had vision.