Any fool can see the problems! It takes leadership to find the solutions!
You don’t have to be around church long to hear people identifying problems. In any organisation there are going to be challenges, difficulties and problems.
I remember doing my work experience 30 years ago in a local garage, it was the guy who swept the workshop who seemed to have the most to say about what was wrong with the business.
There was a reason he was sweeping the floor and others running the business!
When we are tempted to grumble it would serve us well if we stopped, prayed for the solution or for those charged with finding the solution before we shared our ‘considered wisdom’ about what was currently wrong with those around us.
The bible tells us to do everything without grumbling or complaining.
for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe
Philippians 2 13-15
We are given a reason why we shouldn’t complain and that is; that it is God who is ultimately working out His will. This doesn’t mean we never try and solve a problem or suggest better ways of doing things. It does remind us that God is busy working both in us and through is, sometimes the demonstration of this is how we react to challenges.
Good leadership neither jumps, angrily on the complainer or rushes to solve the perceived issue. It considers what has been said and looks to God for wisdom. Remember ultimately God’s glory is the aim for those seeing problems and those trying to solve them.
March 15th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Hi Andy,
You’re a level=headed guy, right?
So, may I open a debate on this topic?
Question: does the model of leadership you describe here owe as much to secular management thinking as it does to New Testament patterns?
Why do I say that?
1) Problem solving is by no means the exclusive domain of leaders in the NT. Examples of “ordinary” believers finding solutions to problems include: the Antioch believers deciding to send a cash gift to the poor in Jerusalem in response to a prophecy; the founding of the church in Samaria by Philip and other unnamed believers; Ananias, a previously unknown believer, welcoming Saul into the Christian community in Damascus following a divine revelation; “the brothers” in Ephesus encouraging Apollos in his ministry and commending him to the believers in Achaia, etc.
2) “In any organisation there are going to be challenges…” True, but the “organisation” that the apostles most frequently refer to when describing the church of God is the household not the business. Challenges, difficulties and problems in a family are dealt with quite differently to the way they are dealt with in a business, where the bottom line is profit/growth. In a family, the bottom line is the health and well being of the family. These two stating points will produce two very different approaches and outcomes. Comparisons, therefore, with life in the garage are surely misleading, are they not?
3) Your fourth and your final paragraphs seem to imply a “buck stops here” model of leadership. While George Bush might agree with that approach, it is difficult to argue that the new testament teaches a similar pattern. It is a frequently overlooked fact that the new testament letters were addressed to churches as a whole not to the leaders of them. The exhortations, therefore, contained within them must be understood as being addressed to a local body in its entirety. These include commands to “find out what pleases the Lord” and imply that it was the local church as a whole that was responsible for discerning the Lord’s will, not a select group of leaders. I appreciate this sounds dangerously close to democracy in church (!), which I am not arguing for. Rather, I am suggesting that we may be in danger of throwing out the baby (the ability of the local church to discern the will of God together) with the bathwater (carnal church politics).
What do you think?
March 17th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Hi Al, always nice to hear from you.
I agree with you whole heartedly that the whole church weighs prophecy, vision etc – there are some practical issues relating to this happening in a meeting, for instance. Let’s say a newish christian, seeking to have a go, hijacks the flow of a worship-time with an inappropriate contribution. The church clearly knows that this has happened, and in that sense they have weighed the contribution. What happens next requires leadership. For the sake of the contributor it’s not going to work, for most, to bring a correction publicly, but for the sake of the meeting refocus is required. The skilled, sensitive leader draws the meeting back without crushing the misguided yet enthusiastic contributor. This is leadership.
You’d be hard pushed to find someone who likes the corporate business model, for church, less than I do!! What I find it lacks more than anything else is any kind for relational reference. As you say, it’s built on the bottom line, which seems to rule the day entirely. You can be given your department and expected to produce results with limited resources. However, there is some wisdom to be gleaned form the business world. Churches can lack entrepreneurial vision – we tend to quickly descend into tradition. They can waste money because they don’t think too carefully about a good financial deal when spending.
In my opinion the answer to democracy in the church (which I really don’t want, or see in the NT) is relationship and communication. We need to work hard to communicate with everyone both information and vision. I personally give a substantial amount of time working on both these aspects of church life. Relationship and communication, by definition, work both ways and so, sometimes more slowly than we’d really like progress is made adjusting details along the way.
That is really what practically happens here on a daily basis.