By Jerry Harris
Many churches struggle to have leaders . . . or maybe I should say true leaders. There is no shortage of people who wear the badge. We have preachers, elders, deacons, trustees, superintendents, and committee chairman. Are you ready for a moment of truth? Just how many of those spots are occupied by true leaders? So, what is a true leader?
I love leadership definitions. I once heard a great quote from an army general who said, “Leadership is taking people to a place they would never have gone to by themselves.” There’s the problem! Without a true leader, a church won’t go anywhere. The people wearing the badge are dug in and defending their ground. Another author wrote a statement defining a true leader saying, “Leaders lead!” Many churches are stalled because they have plenty of people called leaders filling roles established years ago for the right reason, but remaining for one purpose: to maintain what already exists.
Someone’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Churches that resist change are staring down the barrel of their own mortality. Church communities that resist change become more irrelevant as businesses, jobs, and populations move out, creating decline. The church that doesn’t embrace change stands to suffer the same fate as the community it serves. The changes so desperately needed require a true leader to help the church bring them to pass.
Where There Is No Vision
Without a leader casting a vision, a church can find itself in turbulent waters. We’ve all heard the King James Version of Proverbs 29:18 quoted in discussions of vision, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The New International Version translates this, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.” Consider the word restraint. We usually see it as a negative word, but its use here suggests that when we forget why we’re doing something, it no longer restrains us. Restraint is a good thing when it holds us to what we’ve pledged to do. We are restrained by our Master to fulfill his Great Commandment and Great Commission.
Paul embraced this concept of restraint by calling himself a doulos, a Greek word meaning “a slave for life and a slave by choice.” When our model becomes ineffective, we must remember that we are restrained to his mission. With so many years without change in the history books, we can become restrained to the wrong things and forget the reason we exist. Tradition has replaced mission in many churches. A visionary leader calls attention to the changes so desperately needed to keep the mission primary. The book of Judges gives us a sobering commentary on what happens when God’s people are leaderless. The book ends with this passage, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.”
Even with a true leader, churches are still looking at turbulent waters. Visionary leaders face an uphill battle even in healthy environments. Actions that move the church to change are seldom comfortable. Change means moving away from the place where you are. This is almost never easy. Policies and structures will be adjusted or abandoned. Key positions will be established while others will be replaced or removed.
Change is best served in healthy times, but the institutional inertia and the success of years gone by prompt existing leaders to consider that if it isn’t broken, why fix it? By the time many churches find the stomach to change, they are pretty far gone. Like a terminal cancer patient, they are willing to grasp for life with experimental treatments. In How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins discusses the downward spiral that leads once successful businesses to capitulation and death. His research shows that in an effort to reverse the fall, companies make sweeping changes. By the time they make these changes, however, they are over leveraged in the opposite direction and not healthy enough to manage the massive changes.
Change is best accomplished in small increments. Driving on a straight road requires constant corrections at the wheel. It may seem that you’re going straight, but careful examination reveals a long line of small corrections. By contrast, most of us have been distracted while driving only to be frantically forced into a major correction and a very dangerous situation. Big change divided into lots of smaller, more manageable adjustments is a healthy strategy for churches.
The Rate of Change
A Harvard professor defined leadership this way; “Leadership is making people uncomfortable at a rate that they can tolerate.” What does this mean for a true leader? If you’re in a church that wants to change, do you have the patience for it? If you’re thinking about going to a church and implementing change, consider what already exists.
Sometimes pastors have the same logic a spouse in a bad marriage has. They think, “After we’re married, I’ll get him or her to change that behavior.” That’s a bad thing to bet your marriage or your career on. When interviewing with a church, find out what is on and off the table. Make an assessment of what is needed before you say “yes” and have a frank discussion about specifics with existing leaders. “Can we get rid of the pews, the pulpit, the choir loft, the choir, the choir director, the organ, the organist, the order of worship, the Communion table? What about the by-laws? Existing leaders will talk a great game about their desire for growth, but when specific changes are discussed, you’ll get more honest answers. Like an empty canvas, the absence of established traditions grants a freedom to explore edgy styles and methods.
Sam Chand wrote an incredible book called Leadership Pain. In it, he shows the connection between growth and pain. To summarize, there is no growth without change, no change without loss, and no loss without pain. So, our ability to grow is directly related to our ability to endure pain. Leaders are change agents that move their church in the direction of growth, helping them to overcome the pain of it.
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