I had the privilege of growing up with a very tight knit group of friends who were all followers of Christ and who strangely enough all went into full time ministry. A centerpiece of conversation would always be around the idea of all of us coming together and doing ministry together at the same place. It could have been a church plant, an existing church, or any other place that would allow us to work and serve side by side. This is a dream I know is shared by many other individuals who long to do ministry with those in their close inner circle.
But one of the interesting snags that we would always ponder or chew on was who would be the “lead guy”? Who would be the one with the “Senior Pastor” name placard? When the buck needed to stop, who would stop it? When the red button needed to be pushed, who would push it? I know, you get the point. So we would always go round and round on who that might be or who it would probably be.
All of this leads me to what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Why is it needed in a community of faith to have that guy? Does the local church need the hierarchal leader or does the leader need the hierarchal structure? Is it possible for called individuals to share the burden of strategy, teaching, and vision and then be specialists in different areas?
I think it is. You can put four (for the sake of understanding & visualizing) individuals on a flattened plane of leadership. They come together to discuss strategy and the future direction of the church. They share the teaching load. I’ve always believed a fresh voice that has ample time to prepare is always better than the primary teacher model doing 80% of the teaching. Each time I teach for our main service, I’m reminded of the unbelievable amount of time needed to accurately handle the truth of God. Its takes so much time during that week that any other areas of giftedness barely see the light of day. My leadership gift is minimally used and my shepherding gift stays in the gift wrap. This concept would allow all gifts to be exercised and fully used. Shared leadership also decentralizes leadership from being on any one person. Whether its vision, innovation, or pastoral care—these don’t have to come from the same person. So if someone is stuck in a rut for a season, it’s ok. It’s a team effort. This team approach also minimizes any transitions in leadership. If someone goes off to another ministry or church—it can be celebrated and the proper sending off can be given, because the local church will move forward because it’s not grounded upon one individual, but on a team. This destroys the personality driven churches and ministries that happen intentionally or by accident. The accountability bar would be raised significantly as four would converge in sharing life and ministry together. All significant decisions would be shared by all on the leadership team. Each person on the team would be a specialist in an area or focus. For instance you may have one whose focus is student ministries, one whose focus is spiritual formation, one whose focus is creative arts, and one whose focus is children’s. The church’s strategy would dictate what those areas would be, but that gives you an idea of what I’m speaking of. So, each person apart of the team has a ministry focus to lead and an area to devote a majority of their gifts to. This leadership structure would have to be based upon trust, honesty, and true calling. And I believe those involved would have to have a strong leadership gift and ideally a majority of those on the team should have a teaching gift as well.
I have to admit that I’m at a church in which the leadership is healthy, grounded, humble, and of strong integrity. So I’m not writing this in response to a bad situation that I’m experiencing. Even though I know many who will read this are in very difficult situations caused by egotistical and unhealthy leadership. And I’m not even trying to presume that this way of structuring things is the only way, but an avenue to be contemplated. This has really been provoked by thinking of what could be and possibly what should be. And just maybe this is a glimpse into the future of the local church.
Where did the existing structure of what most local churches have in place begin?
I’ve always wrestled with this question and really never thought it mattered to answer it. I’ve come to the conclusion I’d rather figure it out than blindly moving forward accepting ecclesiastical norms. It’s very apparent in the Old Testament we had the “lead guy”: Moses, Abraham, David, and the list could go on and on…But when we look to the New Testament it’s not that clear. Sure there are leaders present and there should be—it’s a spiritual gift given by God. But can we really come to a genuine confidence in seeing the hierarchal structure in place through the New Testament Scriptures? What we do see is a community of faith that is constantly leveraging each other’s gifts, resources, and meeting the needs of those who had need. It’s interesting in the epistles of Paul that he wrote them to the Church at Philippi, Galatia, Ephesus, and Colosse. They were known by their location and their church community more than by the individual who was their leader. If there was such an individual.
I have a sneaky suspicion that the modern day model of the hierarchy of the local church began and became normal due to insecurities and sinful reasoning, not pure and holy motives. A leader's fear of being imperfect or held accountable. A leader's desire to control and manipulate. A leader's desire to be the man and to have all things fall and rise upon them. A leader's lust to build their own kingdom and promote their own agenda, not God’s. And even possibly a community of faith's artificial need to want a king and a kingdom to build eventhough the King and the Kingdom is already present.
A couple push back’s that I’ve received in regards to New Testament biblical examples of a hierarchal way of doing things.
The Trinity.
The other is the biblical text concerning husband and wife. There is obviously a hierarchy spoken of with the man being over the wife and Christ is over the Church. But can we really transfer what should be in the marriage relationship to the local church?
I’d love to hear your opinion on this subject and any insight or scriptural direction to the leadership structure of the church.
But one of the interesting snags that we would always ponder or chew on was who would be the “lead guy”? Who would be the one with the “Senior Pastor” name placard? When the buck needed to stop, who would stop it? When the red button needed to be pushed, who would push it? I know, you get the point. So we would always go round and round on who that might be or who it would probably be.
All of this leads me to what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Why is it needed in a community of faith to have that guy? Does the local church need the hierarchal leader or does the leader need the hierarchal structure? Is it possible for called individuals to share the burden of strategy, teaching, and vision and then be specialists in different areas?
I think it is. You can put four (for the sake of understanding & visualizing) individuals on a flattened plane of leadership. They come together to discuss strategy and the future direction of the church. They share the teaching load. I’ve always believed a fresh voice that has ample time to prepare is always better than the primary teacher model doing 80% of the teaching. Each time I teach for our main service, I’m reminded of the unbelievable amount of time needed to accurately handle the truth of God. Its takes so much time during that week that any other areas of giftedness barely see the light of day. My leadership gift is minimally used and my shepherding gift stays in the gift wrap. This concept would allow all gifts to be exercised and fully used. Shared leadership also decentralizes leadership from being on any one person. Whether its vision, innovation, or pastoral care—these don’t have to come from the same person. So if someone is stuck in a rut for a season, it’s ok. It’s a team effort. This team approach also minimizes any transitions in leadership. If someone goes off to another ministry or church—it can be celebrated and the proper sending off can be given, because the local church will move forward because it’s not grounded upon one individual, but on a team. This destroys the personality driven churches and ministries that happen intentionally or by accident. The accountability bar would be raised significantly as four would converge in sharing life and ministry together. All significant decisions would be shared by all on the leadership team. Each person on the team would be a specialist in an area or focus. For instance you may have one whose focus is student ministries, one whose focus is spiritual formation, one whose focus is creative arts, and one whose focus is children’s. The church’s strategy would dictate what those areas would be, but that gives you an idea of what I’m speaking of. So, each person apart of the team has a ministry focus to lead and an area to devote a majority of their gifts to. This leadership structure would have to be based upon trust, honesty, and true calling. And I believe those involved would have to have a strong leadership gift and ideally a majority of those on the team should have a teaching gift as well.
I have to admit that I’m at a church in which the leadership is healthy, grounded, humble, and of strong integrity. So I’m not writing this in response to a bad situation that I’m experiencing. Even though I know many who will read this are in very difficult situations caused by egotistical and unhealthy leadership. And I’m not even trying to presume that this way of structuring things is the only way, but an avenue to be contemplated. This has really been provoked by thinking of what could be and possibly what should be. And just maybe this is a glimpse into the future of the local church.
Where did the existing structure of what most local churches have in place begin?
I’ve always wrestled with this question and really never thought it mattered to answer it. I’ve come to the conclusion I’d rather figure it out than blindly moving forward accepting ecclesiastical norms. It’s very apparent in the Old Testament we had the “lead guy”: Moses, Abraham, David, and the list could go on and on…But when we look to the New Testament it’s not that clear. Sure there are leaders present and there should be—it’s a spiritual gift given by God. But can we really come to a genuine confidence in seeing the hierarchal structure in place through the New Testament Scriptures? What we do see is a community of faith that is constantly leveraging each other’s gifts, resources, and meeting the needs of those who had need. It’s interesting in the epistles of Paul that he wrote them to the Church at Philippi, Galatia, Ephesus, and Colosse. They were known by their location and their church community more than by the individual who was their leader. If there was such an individual.
I have a sneaky suspicion that the modern day model of the hierarchy of the local church began and became normal due to insecurities and sinful reasoning, not pure and holy motives. A leader's fear of being imperfect or held accountable. A leader's desire to control and manipulate. A leader's desire to be the man and to have all things fall and rise upon them. A leader's lust to build their own kingdom and promote their own agenda, not God’s. And even possibly a community of faith's artificial need to want a king and a kingdom to build eventhough the King and the Kingdom is already present.
A couple push back’s that I’ve received in regards to New Testament biblical examples of a hierarchal way of doing things.
The Trinity.
The other is the biblical text concerning husband and wife. There is obviously a hierarchy spoken of with the man being over the wife and Christ is over the Church. But can we really transfer what should be in the marriage relationship to the local church?
I’d love to hear your opinion on this subject and any insight or scriptural direction to the leadership structure of the church.
Jeff Henson
9 comments:
Great thoughts Jeff.
So Paul writes a great deal about elders as the established leaders in a church. In most of his letters he also mentions by name the various church leaders he entrusted with the gospel.
Church history reveals various levels of church hierarchy that were established even before the end of the first century.
And we have the gospels because the accounts of certain men carried a measure of authority over the accounts of others.
The movement has always had leaders. That fact is why Paul wrote much of the NT. People were either following the wrong leaders--Judaizers, or they were putting too much emphasis on specific leaders--"I'm of Paul." "I'm of Apollos."
I'm not sure where I'm headed with all of that, except to say the church has always had a measure of hierarchy. Now that hierarchy would go on steroids when Rome officially got on board, but you referenced that in your title so you are waaay ahead of me.
i think it would be interesting to see this type of leadership. i've always been a fan of this. When YWAM ensenada decided to adopt this type of leadership i was extremely excited for their future. And as far as i know, that base has had incredible growth since that happened.
i really like the idea because, although i know that in many churches the senior pastor is held "accountable" to the elders, i have seen where the "pope-style" of leadership has failed. With a central leadership team there seems to be more accountability, of which i'm a huge fan. Also, like you said Jeff, if one of the central leaders decides it's time for him/her to leave, then the church doesn't fall apart.
The thing that came to mind for me was when you mentioned each emphasis each leader would have. I was thinking more along the lines of a central leadership team for each emphasis when i first started reading this. If someone's emphasis is youth, then wouldn't they still have all of the burdens that you currently have with crafting a message and planning all of the youth events and stuff. or am i wrong in assuming that's how it would be?
The next thing that came to mind is that if you had a central leadership team, the church would have to be a decent-sized church to be able to handle the staff-load that would bring. Many smaller churches only have 1 or 2 people on staff as pastors because that's all they can pay. So a solution to that would be bi-vocational roles.
What if a church split the salary they would pay one person four ways, and each one of those leaders would have another job? Would their other job consume too much of their time?
Like i said i think it would be amazing if this model of leadership was the future of the church.
There's a church in town where their senior minister and his wife suddenly stepped down to take another position. As I step back and look at their decision, I truly see what you're speaking of. Their church is about 1,400, almost double ours, and the fact that their lead guy could just leave, without much notice, makes for an interesting thought process.
My boss has been at our church for 21 years, and he is in every way the lead guy. If he were to just step down, where would we be? What if we had the leadership culture you spoke of? One person isn't greater than the team of people assembled. It will be interesting to see the evolution of that church in town, to see what happens to an otherwise healthy congregation when you cut off the head.
Z
Good thoughts.
Jay makes some good points. There were leaders of some variation in the NT churches. That's not to say there were senior pastors and associates but there was a structure (or many structures).
Perhaps we ought to look at Ephesians where Paul talks about how some have been gifted by the grace of G-d to be pastors, and teachers and so on. Some churches hire guys ONLY to teach, some to counsel, some to do the numbers, etc. You know, they're job is to hone and use their giftings. That makes sense. I'm down for that but I think what we're desiring is for more than 1 or 2 or 3 person(s) to have a vision and everyone follow it. I think what is needed is a vision shared by the whole local body. Certain people can be appointed to lead us into making that vision a reality (even though we know G-d is the one who truly makes it a reality).
We're all following Christ. But being in a culture so greatly divorced form that of the one in which the scriptures were written, we need people to guide us into truth. It's not about holier than thous or pope status or anything like that. We simply need certain people who will be dedicated to the edification of the saints.
In a time and place where churches are ran by men as if they were businesses and not groups of dedicated people, we continually make the mistake of molding our identity after what the world has told us we should be. There may not be anything wrong with having a lead guy but at the same time, there is something wrong with not including everyone possible in on the worship (the studying, the sharing, the teaching, the counseling, the singing, the writing etc is the worship).
I would also say that the primary role of early church leadership was establishing and maintaining doctrinal purity.
Leadership today takes a much different shape.
I'm loving the dialogue. I'm not dismissing or negating the need for authority, accountability, and leadership. I actually believe we need to heighten those aspects of leadership by sharing the mantle. I know the New Testament does speak of elders and deacons to prove a hierarchy mentioned, but how many churches do you know that are "really" directed and led by their elders. In most situations the elders are the end all for acountability purposes and major directional decisions, but typically they flow down the same current the lead guy is wanting to take them. Godly leadership requires some to lead and others to follow, but why can't there be multiple leaders to follow? What are our structures and org charts rooted in?
This format of leadership is definitely attractive in many ways. Especially in light of all the church splits that come from a change in leadership. This could be a very effective way of maintaining unity throughout the local body.
Even if the hierarchal order has been in place since the beginning of the church, and even if it was put in place with pure motives, what is to say that a new format of leadership would not best serve our location?
Having multiple leaders on a flat plane could make the team more approachable from the congregational standpoint and it would also not let any idea be thrown out due to personal distaste.
I think it could be very useful if a suitable place could be found that was willing and open to a team leadership format.
Could a group of leaders collaborate in a plurality of leadership that were like minded, but had different theological convictions? Particularly if a pulpit was shared?
I think Jeff knows where I am headed with this...
I posted a conversation my friend and I had concerning this on my blog. xanga.com/thegreatbout.
Post a Comment