The church
of the 21st Century in North America is struggling mightily with
some significant problems and challenges. I am proud of the church for being
willing to engage in such a struggle. For much too long the church chose to
take the approach that there were no challenges; that there were problems, not
with the church but, instead, with the culture.
Many have
addressed the plethora of problems confronting the church: From a lack of
authenticity, to a lack of mercy, to a lack of love, to a lack transparency, to
a lack of direction, to a lack of consistency, to a lack of direction, to a
lack of hospitality, to a lack of mission, to a lack of whatever. What the
church lacks has been thoroughly dragged out and inspected. Except one thing.
We haven’t taken a hard look at one of the church’s greatest weaknesses; one of
the things lacking that is causing the church the most distress. I believe that
to be the lack of courageous leadership.
When I talk
about church leadership I understand that churches are led by both clergy and
lay leaders. But I, as a member of the clergy, am going to only address the
lack of strong leadership that our pastors are failing to provide for the
church.
It is more
than understandable why our pastors are failing to provide leadership for our
churches. Most of us did not answer a call to leadership; we answered a call to
the pastorate; to be pastors. Most of us went to school – 4 years of college
and 3 years of seminary – to train for the pastorate. We learned to read and
write and speak. We learned some theology, Greek and Hebrew, pastoral care,
Christian education, spiritual disciplines, church administration and, most
importantly, how to run a projector. We took classes in almost everything
except leadership. Leadership wasn’t on the agenda and, for most of us; it is
not on our radar screen.
In fact,
most of us were taught to do church in reverse leadership. Instead of answering
a call to a church and leading the people forward in God’s calling for that
church, we were taught to go to a church and ask this question: “What do you
want to do?” Like most politicians of our era, we attempt to lead from behind. Back
in the crowd is a place of comfort and safety. Nothing of much consequence
happens in the life of a group (or a country) when such non-leadership is
exercised, but one’s life expectancy in the organization is markedly increased.
Most of us
fail to lead because we were not taught to lead and leading never occurs to us.
We just coast along from church to church to church wondering why nothing
particularly significant happens in our ministries and finally land safely in
retirement. We become so accustomed to not much happening in our churches we
come up with statements like the one a dear preacher friend made to me several
years ago: “If you move them and inch, you’ve done some great work.” The truth
is we have worked hard but we
have not done great work. We have
hardly moved them. And we won’t do great work until we learn to lead
our churches in the Mission God has called us to.
When we look
at the topic of leadership we must think in terms of courageous leadership.
Leadership that does not display courage is not truly leadership. And this, I believe,
is where we have a profound problem. Like a majority of folks, being courageous
day in and day out is too much to ask. We can have flashes of courage. But
courage as a way of life is difficult. Because of the personality type
attracted to ministry, many of we preacher-types tend to want people to like us
and approve of us. More of the ministry we do than we would like to admit is
done so people will like us and approve of us. Doing pastoral ministry often
brings gratitude and thanks from those receiving that ministry. And that
gratitude really massages the old ego. Having people recognize us in public as
being “wonderful” for being there for them during a difficult time is addictive.
It is not a bad thing, but it can become primarily why we do ministry. And that
is unhealthy.
The
courageous leadership it takes to lead a church forward often is met with
opposition and sometimes with anger, unkind words and even threats of violence.
It takes courage and conviction to deal with such criticism and remain on task
and on target. In a vast majority of churches I have worked with, any display
of opposition immediately halts the forward momentum of new or proposed ministries.
We are so afraid of offending someone that we allow the most negative people in
the church to “lead” the church. We abdicate leadership for fear of incurring
someone or ones’ displeasure.
Bill Hybels,
pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, encourages pastors to ask and answer a
difficult, soul searching question. “As a leader, how often have I aborted a
vision secretly because I’ve lacked the courage to do the hard thing?” This is
true in far more cases than any of us would like to admit. Leading a church
into change and transformation is difficult, demanding and dangerous. The
possibility of verbal abuse, exhaustion from long hours of work and having
people oppose every new initiative is extremely high.
Many clergy
look at that and decide to not take on the challenge. Instead, we quietly exist
in dying churches patiently waiting for the day of our retirement. I say, shame
on us. We are afraid someone may not like us. We are afraid we might be fired.
We think: Life is good, why upset this good deal? Brene Brown challenges us: “You
can choose courage or comfort. But you cannot choose both.”
For those of
us honest enough to answer yes to the question Hybels proposes, he also says: “Don’t
go to your grave with you cool visions and dreams. Don’t die a coward.” Strong
words but good words. As many have already said, I want to come to the end of
life regretting the mistakes I have made instead of regretting the many things I
did not have the courage to attempt.
The church
in our culture is losing ground in any way you choose to measure it. Most of
our churches “leaders” choose to wring our hands, bemoan the demise of the
church, encourage our people to hang in there and invite others to join us in dying
as an organization, and continue to do business as usual. This is not
leadership. The most often repeated command from God, “Be not afraid,” was not
given by chance. If you are going to be a God follower and a church leader, be
of good courage. Please.
Copyright ©
2013, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved
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