Much of the modern church leadership trends and ideas have be shaped, both for good and bad, by the church growth movement of the past 60 + years. It has facilitated a CEO model of leadership, and a whole leadership indsutry full of seminars, conferences, coaching, and leadership cohorts (check out a previous article on this click here). A common slogan, “Everything rises and falls on leadership” (popularized by John Maxwell), contains an important truth, but when it becomes the controlling lens through which we interpret church leadership, it can lead to conclusions the New Testament simply does not support.
Church Problems: A Failure of Leadership or the Normal Work of Raising God’s Family?
One of the defining assumptions of modern leadership culture is that organizational problems are primarily leadership problems.
- Business schools teach it.
- Leadership conferences reinforce it.
- Books insist that if an organization struggles, the executive leader is ultimately responsible.
The logic is straightforward and leads to the following conclusions:
- Healthy leadership produces healthy organizations.
- Dysfunctional organizations reveal deficient leadership.
- Change the leader, and the organization changes.
That framework makes considerable sense in the corporate world. Businesses exist to maximize effectiveness, productivity, and profitability. Leadership is expected to remove obstacles, improve systems, increase efficiency, and achieve measurable outcomes. Due to the advancement of the church growth leadership industry, many churches have unconsciously adopted this same philosophy. As a result, church health is often evaluated by executive principles rather than Biblical ones.
The Business/CEO Assumption
Many churches now function with an unspoken belief, “If the church has serious problems, the leader must not be leading well.”
- Conflict? Poor leadership.
- Immaturity? Poor leadership.
- Division? Poor leadership.
- Doctrinal confusion? Poor leadership.
- Declining attendance? Poor leadership.
This assumption has produced enormous pressure on local church leaders to become visionary CEOs rather than faithful builders of God’s family after the Biblical parental/shepherd model.
It also explains why the popular mega leadership conferences often promise that the right leadership principles can solve nearly every church problem. THERE IS A BIG PROBLEM WITH THIS LOGIC…THE BIBLE!!!
When we read the New Testament, we encounter something remarkably different than what is promised at the popular conferences and coaching cohorts.
Paul’s Churches Were Full of Problems
Consider some of the churches Paul planted and cared for.
Corinth: No church in the New Testament seemed to have more problems. Here are a few.
- They tolerated sexual immorality.
- They sued one another.
- They divided into competing factions.
- They abused the Lord’s Supper.
- They misused spiritual gifts.
- Some denied the resurrection.
- Others questioned Paul’s authority.
If the modern church leadership industry assumptions are correct, Paul’s church plant should be considered a catastrophic failure. We either need to get Paul some training, get him in a leadership cohort, or git rid of him. Yet throughout the New Testament people are encouraged to follow his example.
Here are a few (there were many more) other examples of problems Paul’s churches faced.
- The Galatian churches abandoned the gospel.
- The Philippians struggled with rivalry and personal conflict.
- Euodia and Syntyche had become publicly divided to the point Paul rebuked them publically.
- The Thessalonians misunderstood Christ’s return to the point that people either felt is had passed and other quit working to wait for it.
- The Colossians were being seduced by false teaching.
How about the leader with the longest tenure?
What about one of the top three leaders Jesus identified while walking on earth, John? The seven churches addressed in Revelation struggled with compromise, immorality, false doctrine, loss of first love, persecution, complacency, and spiritual deadness. Only one, the smallest church in the most out of the way place, Philadelphia, received a good and encouraging report. Why weren’t they rebuked for a lack of numerical growth?
If church problems automatically prove poor leadership, then John should have been moved to forced retirement, and see some more innovative leaders replace him. Clearly something is wrong with some of the industry assumptions.
Building a Family, is not Managing Employees
I remember reading a famous quote by J.S. Bryan, a prominent Virginia newspaper publisher and former W&M College head who died in 1944. ”Many men can make a fortune, but few men can build a family….A day with an imperfect family is better than one with no family at all.”
The business model assumes that organizations can be optimized, but the New Testament indicates God’s family is in the process of transformation. Think how that fits in with CEO business models of leadership.
- The New Testament assumes people are not metrics to be counted but people in the process of maturing.
- Businesses manage performance. The church disciples people.
- Businesses improve systems. The church forms Christlike character.
- Businesses terminate poor performers (“Get the right people on the bus”).
- The church patiently restores sinners who have become part of God’s family (it is hard to kick family off the bus).
Paul and John never expected churches to become healthy simply because good leaders planted them and followed certain methods. He expected a long process of teaching, correcting, encouraging, confronting, suffering, praying, and patiently building.
One of the striking features of Paul, John, and other leaders was that he was rarely surprised by church problems. Paul almoste expected them.
In places like Acts 20 he warned leaders that wolves would come in and arise among the leaders to lead God’s people astray (Acts 20). He also warned that false teachers would infiltrate. Immature believers would require correction. Conflicts would emerge.
None of this caused Paul to conclude that his or their leadership had failed. Instead, these realities defined the work of leaders. Building living stones is inherently messy because stones are people.
All families, both biological and spiritual, experience conflict. Children mature at different rates. Brothers and sisters misbehave and disagree, yet good parents patiently discipline and instruct. Maturity is gradual. No wise parent concludes they have failed simply because their children occasionally fight, nor does the family shop around for better parents.
Likewise, Paul viewed the church as God’s household (1 Timothy 3:15), not merely an organization to be optimized. Healthy families do not eliminate problems. Healthy families learn how to get ahold of God in a deeper way and grow through them.
Essential Leadership Qualities Overlooked in Business Models
Modern leadership often measures leaders by outcomes. The New Testament first measures leaders by faithfulness and parental care. Consider what Paul wrote to the church in great conflict and immaturity about good leadership.
- 1 Corinthians 4:2-15 It is required of stewards that they be found faithful. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Notice what he did not say about good leaders that we often hear coming from the leadership industry.
- “…that they produce impressive statistics.”
- “…that every church becomes problem free.”
- “…that everyone stays.”
- “…that every conflict disappears.”
Paul’s concern was parental care and faithful stewardship. Results belong to God. Growth belongs to God (1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
The Superstar Savior
The business model often elevates the leader into the indispensable solution, the superstar savior.
- Find the right visionary.
- Find the right communicator.
- Find the right strategist.
- Find the right executive.
- Everything changes.
The New Testament places that hope somewhere else. Christ is building His church (Matthew 16:18)! God causes the increase!
- 1Corinthians 3:4-7 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? (5) What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. (6) I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. (7) So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
Leaders are faithful servants/fellow workers who plant and water, but only God gives the increase. This Biblical perspective protects both leaders and congregations from unrealistic expectations. Pastors are not CEOs tasked with fixing every problem through better management. They are shepherds, builders, fathers, teachers, and servants participating in Christ’s ongoing work.
The leadership issue isn’t about whether a church has problems or deficiencies. All the Biblical churches did. Instead we need to ask.
- Are leaders faithfully living and teaching the God’s Word?
- Are they guarding sound doctrine?
- Are they equipping the saints to become healthy family members?
- Are they correcting error?
- Are they restoring sinners?
- Are they modeling Christ?
- Are they building according to God’s pattern “God’s family walking together on God’s mission”?
The presence of problems does not necessarily reveal poor leadership. Sometimes it reveals that real discipleship is taking place among real people. The measure of leadership is not whether problems exist, but whether leaders faithfully shepherd God’s people through those problems according to Christ’s design.
Remember: One of the unintended consequences of importing executive leadership philosophy into the church is that it creates an expectation no New Testament leader ever met. Paul, and even churches John was involved with were often immature, conflicted, and in need of correction, not because of poor leadership, but because building the household of God is fundamentally different from managing a successful organization.
The measure of a leader, therefore, is not the absence of problems or deficiencies but the faithful, patient, Christ-centered work of building God’s people/family into the image of Christ. That is the work of a parental/shepherds, not merely an executive.