R U BEING LED?

Leadership is all about leading. What a strange comment you say as it is logical for leaders to lead, that is why they are leaders.

You would think so but the reality is that too many leaders do not lead, especially in the church. Let me explain.

In most cases a church invites someone from across the plain to come and lead the church. This in itself has no basis in scripture as the New Testament Church leadership was always made up of men who lived and worked in the town where the church was. How else could they fulfil the criteria that they were to be well thought of in the community?

The only outside leadership in the New Testament Church were the Apostles and Prophets who built the church from the ground up and then handed it over to the local leadership.

Once the so called ‘leader’ is installed, the church then expects him to do most of the ministry that is important and the rest of the congregation does what is left over.

That again is contrary to scripture as the New Testament teaches unequivocally that ministry is carried out on the basis of the priesthood of ALL believers, not just an elite few.

As a result, most of the church programmes reflect what the ‘leader’ is all about. In other words they are there to support his ministry. When that happens, in most cases, stagnation sets in and the congregation becomes mere spectators to one man’s efforts and performance.

This one man tells everyone what they can and cannot do and very often, this one man is the only one who can hear from God about the life of the church evidenced by the fact that no one can take any initiative unless the ‘leader’ approves.

This one man has great difficulty in believing and accepting that God might want to talk to his children direct, not through the mediation of the ‘leader’.

The real leader does not make everything revolve around ‘his ministry’. The real leader will take every opportunity to launch as many people as possible into their ministry. In fact, a good leader will see their ministry as only one of many, not a ministry in which all others have to culminate.

A good leader does not seek to control. A leader who is not a leader does. Because of their insecurity, they have to control everything in case they may be shown up to be less spiritual than everyone imagines.

A good leader celebrates the successes of others and will endeavour to develop other people’s ministry even to the detriment of their own.

A good leader will be a visionary who inspires others to greatness. A good leader will not be threatened by the greatness of others or when others get the glory or the spotlight.

A good leader will have time to hear the ideas and plans of others to make the organisation or church better than what it is. A bad leader will dismiss the thinking of others if it doesn’t fit into their plans or give prominence to their ministry.

A major problem in the church is that most are led by pastors, not leaders, visionary leaders. Pastors are interested in what is happening. Visionary leaders are interested in what can and should be happening. Pastors are more interested in the status quo. Visionary leaders inspire towards what is yet to happen.

When a pastor leader prevents a visionary leader from functioning and fails to treat him as an equal who is anointed by God for a specific role, the end result is guaranteed. The congregation will stagnate as it will move into maintenance mode and stifle all visionary thinking. Instead of being fishers of men they will become keepers of the aquarium and develop a ‘don’t rock the boat’ mentality.

When that happens the Holy Spirit will go on vacation and not come back until he is allowed to do what he wants to do.