There’s been much ranting and raving on the inadequacies of leadership in the church. See Darryl here, Bill Kinnon here, and the man who started it all, Scot McKnight here. I must admit I recoil whenever I hear people say “Leadership is Biblical.” For alot of reasons, I find it eronious to say “leadership is Biblical.” When I say “leadership” I am talking about the way the term has become adopted into the vernacular of evangelical leadership conferences and books (most recently exhibited in this article). Last night at our “leadership meeting” (wink wink) I went off on a rant on this very topic (I have since had to repent of said rant – to me repentance is the best way of leading I know). I posted something on facebook and a lot of brothers and sisters set me straight. So, after learning much on facebook (see it’s good for something), I feel like I need to put out there why I think leadership in this mode “is not Biblical,” why we might need to find a new word when we are talking about what leaders do in a church, why if we are ever going to truly “lead” a gathering community into the Kingdom it simply requires a skill quite a bit different than what many in the church have come to describe as “leadership.” Here’s five comments on why “Leadership is not Biblical?”
1.) THE WORD “LEADER” ITSELF IS GENERALLY AVOIDED IN THE NT within the context of the church (with the notable exception of Hebrews 13:17,24). Likewise, the NT writers generally avoid using secular or Old Testament (LXX) titles for authoritative office (See Hans Kung, The Church, 496-497; E Schweizer, Church Order In the New Testament, 174-176; E Kasemann, “Ministry and Community in the New Testament,” in Essays on New Testament Themes, 63-64). The NT instead uses the term diakonia (servant, service) to label people in leadership far more times than any other term in the NT (for example, Rom 11:13;16:1;1 Cor 3:5; 2 Cor 3:6;6:4; 11:23; Eph3:7;6:21; Col 1:7,23; 4:7,12; 1Th 3:2; 1 Tim1:12; 2 Tim 4:5,11). The NT writers therefore used a word to describe leadership in the church which contrasted violently to the current secular notions of office. Hans Kung outlines how the NT writers saw that any words which suggest a relationship of rulers and the ruled were unusable in the new community context (The Church 498-502). The NT on this reading appears to carefully avoid the models of authority available in surrounding society for defining leadership in the church. All this suggests that using the word “leader” as has been defined by the business culture of the N America is highly dubious for the church and, dare I say, “unbiblical.”
2.) WHENEVER THE WORD “LEADER” IS USED IN THE NT – IT IS SUBVERTED BY THE CHURCH so that “leadership” takes on the element of leading by character not coercion, by submission not hierarchy in reverence for the Lordship of Christ. See for example Heb 13:7 “Remember your leaders …consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” Wisdom, age, maturity, as well as gentleness and self control “not lording over someone are the signs that someone is leading. This pattern, I would argue is present throughout the whole NT in the way the term “elder” and “overseer” are interchangeable (see for example Titus 1:7) revealing that for the early communities, age, wisdom and maturity were the recognizable traits of “leadership” in the community (elder means older mature person). Even the way “leader” is supposedly translated in Romans 12:8, it is placed within a total communal relationship of the gifts where each person exerts the authority of his/her gift in submission to the others. I would argue then that LEADERSHIP IS NEVER SOMEHOW A POSITION OF AUTHORITY/SKILL PLACED SOMEHOW UNILATAERALLY ABOVE THE CONGREGATION but always in submission to the body. Once again, the word “leadership” as used in the common parlance of business appears to be unbiblical.
3.) JESUS HIMSELF SUBVERTED THE TERM “LEADERSHIP.” The NT was so careful with its use of the words for leadership because the NT church carried the consciousness of Christ’s words, “If any one wants to be first, he shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. Because the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many”(Mark 10:42-45 par Luke 22:25-27). The NT church bears the image of Christ modeling servanthood when he washed his disciples feet (John 13: 13-17). They remember his words from Matt 23: 9-11 “But you are not to be called Rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all students, And call no one your father on earth, for you have one father, the one in heaven, and do not be called leaders, for One is your leader, the Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant; and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted”(NAS). Jesus commands his disciples to refuse any titles of the secular authorities including religious (Rabbi), family (father) or group style leadership (leader). Though we may argue how to implement Jesus commands on authority and leadership within the church, we must surely conclude that Jesus instructs the church to resist modeling its own leadership in any way on secular notions of leadership existing outside of the church.
4.) CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP IS DEFINED BY THE POSTURE OF SUBMISSION- TO THE WORLD THIS IS NOT LEADERSHIP All of this does not discount the need for leadership just a different kind of leadership! This is why I had to repent of my rant last night. I believe we need leaders who lead from below allowing God in Christ through the Spirit to exalt Himself in the midst, leaders who always act out of the authority of his/her gifts as received from Christ (Eph 4:7), who exercise authority as received only in dependence upon Christ. This is the leadership of Christ. We still need this kind of leadership. In fact, we need theological leadership sufficient to guide doctrine and practice in the church (we need ordination which is recognition by the community for this gift). Yet all of these gifted ones “lead” out of submission to God in Christ by the Spirit always offering what God is giving to the body IN SUBMISSION TO ONE ANOTHER. Dare I say, any other kind of leadership is unbiblical?
5.) THE BUSINESS MODELS OF LEADERSHIP WILL HANDICAP US FROM LEADING INTO MISSION. Because business style leadership works top down and often works in only already established authority structures, because business styles of leadership work to passivize the congregation negating participation, because business styles of leadership work well with people who already are acclimated to church and its Christendom structures of leadership, my general prejudice is that the kind of leadership most often taught in our evangelical churches/institutions is poorly suited to lead our churches into post Christendom engagement, i.e. into Mission. I don’t know how biblical this reason is (it may be sociologial?), but it’s another reason to be cautious about traditional “leadership” language,
No doubt this post will raise more questions than it answers. There are thousands of pages to be written on how the submissive (radically subordinate) leader is actually the revolutionary leader. But for now, I’m ready and willing to hear objections and ways this has played out in your own lives.
_______
UPDATE: Bob Hyatt has responded to this post right here. Go over there and set him straight! – humbly and in submission to the Lordship of Christ 
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Much better… all so I could say.. WAY TO GO.
Absolutely agree with your presentation of the servant character of leadership.
Perhaps, just to be clear, there are some weighty elements of responsibility the elders of each community are called to. The way we may fulfill these responsibilities is with the attitude of service, but the responsibility to "take the lead" is a very real one. This includes areas of church discipline, teaching, etc…
Humility is neither a lack of courage, just as courage is not foolish arrogance. A God-called elder should exemplify a good balance of service and humility, while also not being fearful and mousy. The God-called leader is neither a coward nor an authoritarian fool.
Well said. I understand what you said about various ways to apply Jesus' words (using "rabbi" and "father")–but let me go ahead and be a little literal here (very little). I get tired of seeing terms like "pastor", "reverend", "minister", and "Doctor"! These have become the very type of "title" Jesus warns against. How so? They promote a "higher, more educated, more in authority than you" mentality. If the whole point is we are equal before God and leadership is shared then why do we even use such terms in the first place? This isn't a legalistic issue–it's an issue of how words have meanings and those meanings create something that is antithetical to Christ-following.
I mostly agree with your assessment, though I fear you might swing a bit too far the other way. Even though the word "leader" may not appear in Scripture in a 1 to 1 (Greek to English) the concept of leadership is definitely there. This is parallel to the Trinity (i.e. the word trinity is not there, but the concept is clearly there).
So, the issue is not, "is leadership biblical?" but "in what way does the Bible speak of leadership?" Scripture is certainly varied in this approach depending on the time, culture, and context in which the topic is raised.
I do agree that a Biblical leader today is not in some way higher in value to other believers, but there is certainly a distinction in roles. (Again, please don't read distinction in roles as meaning higher in value). Nothing about this should cause us consternation if the Biblical leader is actually leading in conformity to Christ's example. The parallel is found in the family. The husband is the "leader" of the family. This does NOT imply that he is higher in value than his wife. Roles are different, by God's design, and when all parties (leaders and followers) are living in and practicing their God given roles, it works beautifully. The problem is, we are all in the process of sanctification and sin gums things up.
Agree wholeheartedly with your comments Ben. "Family" terminology is used frequently – and wthin the family leadership is exercised by the head, normally the father. And Paul's epistles indicate that some brothers were 'elder' brothers, with more authority and responsibility that the rest. We can get caught in looking for leadership language, when we need to look at the ways in which the community was influenced and led.
Just to be clear y'all, I use the term "biblical" somewhat in jest. I see that word used often as a substitute for "agrees with my own personal exegesis of what I want the Bible to say." In order for a position or claim to be Biblical it must be truly lived out and tested in a community as the outworking of Scripture is our lives…
Ben – where did you get the idea that the husband is "leader" of his family?
If you mean "head" then I can roll with that…but…we must be careful when we use synonyms for biblical ideas/concepts, etc. I would argue that we must do the work Dave does above with the idea of "head" before we can even think about using leader as a synonym for it. And then – my experience is that the word "leader" is too loaded for people to actually grasp the subversive, self-emptying, sacrificial, no-demand-making nature of headship in the NT.
This is Dave's whole point (well, part of it, i think) is that we import paradigms, assumptions, and meanings from our thought-world and culture that actually undo the subversive power of the scriptures. We subvert the subversion via analogies and translation. Part of this is inevitable, yes? So that's why Fitch throws rhetorical grenades into our assumption-bunkers – as he blows things to pieces on the blog we get to re-assemble our assumptions holding fast to what is good and discarding what we find shouldn't be there.
Dave – your post reminds me of the ole "banyan vs. banana tree" leadership illustration. For those unfamiliar: http://bit.ly/hnEQ1n
Again, Dave, thanks for leading us in this. (typed with no hint of sarcasm or irony…)
Tebb's … why is it you always say things I intended to say better than I ever could have said them myself … eh?
I thought you were just modeling "submission to the church" by allowing me to surmise what you said in a different way…as a way of serving the body…
I never thought about how little 'leadership' is mentioned in the NT. So it got me to thinking about words and ideas that are. I'd have to say 'authority' is one of the big ones. Authority, until the last few generations, was nearly synomymous with power. If you had authority/power you had subjects. Modernism brought a sense of autoauthoritarianism. We individuals gather with those who have common goals or values. We choose our profession and our employer and (somewhat) willingly accept a leader that will help reach those goals (monetary stablity and growth or meaning). We do the same with politics, education, hobbies, and *gasp* religion.
We are not anglican because we are subjects of God's sovereign in our land. We have also stopped being anglican because our father and grandfather were. We are now anglican because we have identified with her values and mission (and because we don't like Mom's community denominational megachurch).
Leadership exists–and your point is valid of questioning how 'leadership' conducts itself. Church structures usually reflect the culture around them, especially at the time of their forming: presbyterian, congregational, house church, catholic, orthodox, indiginous tribal,etc. We must continually be searching ourselves and our culture to see that top-down and bottom-up cultural trends need to be submitted to Christ, the head of the chruch..
Jesus did not lead, he did what he saw the Father doing. But he did exercise authority over creation and over the evil one. He did not submit to ungodly advice even by his disciple-tribe, but set his face like flint for Jerusalem, although not demanding a forced march. He allows us to decide if we are going to follow "so that we can die with him."
Thank you for your post.
It seems like the danger is seeing leadership apart from life with God. Do we see leadership as a "power" that works apart from the Holy Spirit. We cannot separate the giver from the gift and we can't separate leadership from the One who entrusts and empowers.
[...] You can follow most of the conversation from Dave Fitch’s excellent post which resides here. [...]
Great post, thanks, yet also dismaying at the same time. This business model form seems so prevalent and entrenched despite all of the cautions and directions in the NT. Im working my way through the new Claiborne/Perkins text, and while there is much within, the one line that caught me was Perkins responding to Claiborne about progress something along the lines of sure you will see progress, maybe in 10 or 12 years of working here. Even that time frame seems optimistic when talking about leadership and the American church.
Now tell the pope…
Thanks, David for a very inspiring post. I agree with some here that it's not the concept of 'leader' or 'leadership' that is contrary to scripture, but the contemporary notions we impose on those concepts that strike a cord of being contrary to scripture. Leaders lead and that is important to and for the church, locally and globally. However, as Hans Kung once alluded to, leaders in the church intentionally lead from 'within' the congregation of believers, as one of them (Eph.4 – one gift among many), and not from above which is so commonplace today. We lead, not through authoritarian styles of leadership (top-down as you say), but from a servant-style that seeks the good of those within the community. I'm not a leader because I am perceived to be in charge, but because I have been called, equipped and recognized by the community to have those gifts necessary to lead with humility and with an attitude of service to the other members.
All in all, I like it. This is a great place to start a very important conversation.
Thanks!
Good insights David
I assume all agree that call it what you will someone needs to lead, In my community of young skeptics who follow Christ I encourage a collegial, enabling and empowering and serving atmosphere, still someone needs to lead and they look to me more often than not. I guess I am a leader and in our community I am the primary leader.
How should we lead?
You refer of a posture of submission. I like that, Yoder speaks of a revolutionary subordination " Jesus motto of revolutionary subordination, of willing servant hood in the place of domination, enables the person in a subordinate position in society to accept and live within that status withour resentment, at the same time it calls on the person in the superordinate position to forsake or renounce all domineering use of that status" ( The Politics of Jesus pg 186)
[...] To read David’s post, “Is Leadership Biblical?,” click here. [...]
A couple of thoughts from the Missional development standpoint. If we can keep in mind that it is ‘God’s mission’ of which we all take part, it is then a matter of awakening people to engagement.
Awakening isn’t a leadership role in our modern world. Our culture wants leaders to ‘cast vision’, to ‘mobilize the workforce’, and to ‘drive for results’. The broader churches buy into this economic lingo mumbo-jumbo has squelched the apostolic and prophetic voices needed to cultivate the soul-level work of the Holy Spirit to inspire us to mission.
Much as the Holy Spirit both advocates on our behalf, and pushes from behind we need an apostolic and prophetic missional faithful that has the weight of standing for God’s people while at the same time being one of that same tribe (as Moses did).
This is good. The biggest problem in evangelicalism is that business models of leadership are held up not only as being sufficient, but as being the norm. An expectation is built in people that if leadership is not done "CEO" style, then it is non-existent. This creates a great deal of comparison between "leaders" as people flock to those who are the best leaders and speakers and teachers and who can create the best programs and systems to delivers religious goods and services. And, all of that is celebrated as being biblical because we are "reaching people" and are building bigger churches. The whole thing seems like a farce to me.
[...] Some interesting thoughts coming up on my blog reader these days – from Scot McKnight, Bill Kinnon, and, today, David Fitch. [...]
David,
I picked up Kung's "The Church" this fall after reading a footnote in Dunn's "The Theology of Paul the Apostle". It's interesting that you mention that section (498-502) as I was just reading it on Sunday. I think the key to having leadership be "defined by the posture of submission" is Kung's assertion that in the primitive Christian communities, the essential mechanism for ministry was the Holy Spirit directing and empowering EVERYONE with various charisms. Any leadership function was subordinate to and dependent on the community as a whole functioning in the Spirit. Kung says (I think this was earlier in the book) – “In a Church or community where only ecclesiastical officials rather than all members of the community are active, there is grave reason to wonder whether the Spirit has not been sacrificed along with the spiritual gifts.”
Dare we say that the rise of business models of leadership in the church are a direct result of a lack of understanding and reliance on the Holy Spirit?
Mike,
Kung's book is still he greatest book of ecclesiology I have read … And tho this may seem counterintuitive, a good place from which to then engage the missiology questions …
when the end allow all the mean, then the end is negated by the means we use.
the end: to spread the Gospel, the Kingdom of God
the means: money, efficiency, worldly leadership, marketing, …
[...] been enjoying the discussion on leadership that has been floating around the past few days (Kinnon, Fitch, Dash, McKnight, Hyatt, and Hiestand…I’m sure there are others). One, because [...]
Oh, that the church would hear these words. It would be good news for both those in "leadership" and the faith community. I would agree that thousands of pages could be written on this subject but that also is where we have gotten off track as the people of God. A few words, lived in simplicity and humility in reliance on the Spirit's power would suffice.
"In fact, we need theological leadership sufficient to guide doctrine and practice in the church (we need ordination which is recognition by the community for this gift)." David, please explain this. Where is biblical ordination found and why this gift singled out?
Hey Tom,
when I talk ordination I'm talking about the way the church developed the means in history to pass on the apostolic documents and church's interpretation thereof. Therefore, as in the pastoral epistles especially, the one who had suffuciently proven his/her orthodoxy in belief and practice (in life) was layed hands upon and annointed to continue on in the preaching-teaching of the gospel. This "succession" is important, although admittedly a later development … for it connects us to the origins of our gospel and the source of its authority in the world … i.e. the apostles as chosen eye witnesses/sent representatives of Chrust himself. The importance of these gifts, even though still subordinate to the community and His Lordship over it by the Spirit, ius evidenced as early as i Cor 12:28 …
peace bro
I think that much of the "problem" has come about because of structure and the competitive nature of humans. We give leaders a lot of props … they are up front, the "winners" (so to speak). So being a leader becomes a prize to be won, a ladder to be climbed, and is a career track to be mastered. The church is not very different from the world in this regard, despite a lot of debate over the words we use and what it is to look like.
I think that the church and/or churches must begin by organizing themselves in a way that is markedly different from the way that groups/organizations in the secular community organize themselves. Does this mean that churches will not have leaders? No. It means that church leadership as well as all other facets of church organization will look different … AS IT SHOULD. But right now, most churches are not significantly different from 4-H, the Moose Lodge, the Red Cross or any other volunteer organization. The larger question we might ask ourselves is, why is that?
Size matters. When the early church wrestled with the gentile believer issue your 4th point was practiced, but it may not be apparent to the person far away who received a letter and a messenger stating the final decision (especially if they disagreed with it). It may have seemed as if CEO James garnered support from the 'leadership team' and issued a decree to all churches everywhere.
David I want to push back a bit here in all humility . . .
While I agree wholeheartedly with the characterization of Christian leadership developed above – a leadership that looks very different from what we typically see in the world (and alas, it's too rare in the church as well) – I think we need to be careful that we don't weaken the idea of Christian leadership itself. The NT does not call us to avoid leadership, but to reform it.
My read of the NT church is that God has called and gifted some to lead, govern, oversee, shepherd, and even (gasp) to exercise authority (ala Heb 13 'Obey your elders and submit to their authority'). Obviously they are to do so in the way that you've laid out above, but for the Body to function well, those God has built for leading must lead.
The current trend toward team based leadership and seeing the congregation on the whole as the place of authority is thoroughly healthy. But I think I've sat with one too many young church planters who, eager to leave top-down authoritarian-style leadership behind, has let the pendulum keep swinging past that and sees leadership, even of a Christlike variety, as something to be avoided rather than embraced and utilized for the good of the Body.
An important conversation, thanks for helping us frame it in NT terms.. lots of deconstruction needed!
David,
Thanks for your provocative post. I see pragmatic problems with the way the concept of "leadership" is often employed in Western churches.
I think our concept of "leader" has actually starved our concept, appreciation, and exercise of the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit. The classic understanding of a "pastor" requires one single person to be an eloquent speaker, a studied scriptural scholar, a team builder, a counselor, an organization administrator, a recruiter, a moral exemplar, someone with a dynamic persona and a good sense of humor. And we expect them to have an organizational stamp of approval to do all these things–a graduate degree and ordination, usually.
If you look on church job posting sites, you see all these kinds of traits posted as requirements: "We're looking for a dynamic, passionate, sensitive, courageous preacher/administrator/worship leader with strong skills in community-building and the ability to draw in people from diverse ethnic, socio-economic, and age groups and experience in staffing and budgetary management. Doctorate in Theology a plus." How can every pastor possibly be all these things?
The result is that those without all these qualifications are often prevented from exercising their gifts, and the pastor is called on to do things he can't possibly do well. He or she must at least assume a veneer of competency, and he/she is often place in the position of having to defend actions or decisions that never should have been his/her responsibility in the first place.
There is no place in this model for "leaders" to be needy, deficient, because their responsibilities demand omnicompetence (I must credit "First Things'" J. Bottom for that term.) I see pastors having to hide insecurities and becoming defensive, and I see pastors failing to see their own weakness and adopting a superior attitude. I see congregants stifling their own voices and gifts out of deference to the authority of the pastor, and I see congregants chafing under and eventually walking away from situations where all authority is vested in the inner circle of the church.
The professionalization of ministry, I think, ultimately witness AGAINST the gospel that stands in solidarity with the poor and weak and marginalized, that relies on the power of the Spirit, and not the skill of the proclamation, that ends in the cross. There is no room in the current model for leading in admitting weakness and failure, for leading in prophetically uncomfortable observations, for leading in confession and grief, for children, to whom the Kingdom belongs, to lead us.
So I agree that our notion of leadership is so warped that it is worth demolishing, in the hopes that we would be able to see again what it means to be a body of different parts with different gifts–some to be shepherds, some to be teachers, some to be prophets, some to be overseers, etc.
Bob Hyatt has a good response to this on his blog, and what I glean from his church, he very much uses a different model of "leadership."
Reggie McNeal tells about a pastor, doctoral candidate who responded, “I have been thinking all along about changing the church. You are talking about changing the world!” (Missional Renaissance, p.65)
As I thought about this comment as it relates to your discussion of leadership, I was told this story by a parishioner: A multi-engine plane flew low over a man’s house indicating that it was having trouble or was lost. He went outside to see what was happening. As it neared the airport, rural Alaska, there was a muffled sound that indicated that it might have gone down. He called a friend who worked at the airport.
This friend gathered some radios and another friend and picked up an ELT signal, a signal that is automatically sent when a plane has crashed. Having arrived at the airport, he found the State Patrol and the Emergency Response Team already there. They were arguing over who was in charge. This friend suggested that they ought to be out looking for the crash site and any survivors. He was told that he was a civilian and shouldn’t be there.
So he and the other followed the signal up the hill. They lost it on the far side and turned around. Picking up the signal again, they found the wreckage. Everyone, unfortunately, was killed. They put out the fire on a couple of the victims and went back to the airport.
There they took the SP and the ELT to the crash site. The two groups argued all the way to the site about who was in charge. When they completed roping off the site, they told the man who found the site that he had no business there.
His response to others was, “If I crash, don’t call anyone. Just come look for me.”
If we are about resolving the question of leadership, maybe we ought to ask whether we are thinking in terms of the leader or the mission. It is interesting to me that when the Apostles delegated the servant role to those filled with the Spirit and wisdom, the focus suddenly shifts to the servants and the way the Holy Spirit worked through them. It never really comes back to the Apostles except later when there is a dispute to be settled.
Paul suggests that he went to speak to the “super” apostles with his teaching, but the authority in his life was the call of the Jesus and he lived under the direction of the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t address his coming to the apostles when accused by those who wanted the Gentiles to observe the Law which suggests that there is an authority structure. Is an authority structure the same as “leadership?”
Is it possible that this dialogue itself is in some way a conversation between the State Patrol and the Emergency Response team? When the focus is on the mission, don't leaders tend to rise to the front? And when that happens is that because they listened to so and so on leadership, or is it because God the Holy Spirit in the tradition of the Judges is quite capable of producing the leaders He needs for each occasion?
Some random thoughts not necessarily in response to anything above, but which came to mind while pondering all above. Leadership as it is commonly understood in the church today creates two standards, one for leaders and one for everyone else. Leaders it is said, are to be held to a higher standard. Why? And what does that teach those who are not leaders, that a lower standard is applicable and acceptable for them? Another thought…if Christians are followers of Jesus who are guided by the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus in every day life, do we really need organizational leaders? Does leadership as we commonly understand in the church today actually prevent people from truly following Jesus? That's enough for now. As I said…just random thoughts.
Darryl W – Third comment – Excellent point about the "Titles."
Today many take "Titles" NOT found in the Bible.
Like "Pastor," “Senior Pastor,” “Lead Pastor,” "Doctor," "Reverend,"
Right Reverend,” Most Holy Right Reverend,” “Cardinal,” “Pope,”
And the list goes on, and on, and… Did you ever wonder why?
Many today recognise that as ”Leadership.” Having the right “Title.”
Any congregations “Led“ by a “Pastor/Reverend” “Title” in the Bible?
Seems those "Titles" come with something "A Little Bit Extra."
Power – Profit – Prestige – Honor – Glory – Recognition – Reputation.
ALL those things Jesus was against. Phil 2:7-8. John 5:41-45.
ALL those things that become "Idols" of the heart. Ezek 14:1-11.
ALL those things that are highly esteemed among men. Luke 16:15.
In my experience…
“Titles” become “Idols”
“Pastors” become “Masters.”
And lead to “Spiritual Abuse”
Pastor/Leader = Exercise authority = Lord it over = Abuse = Always
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold:
them also I must bring, and they shall **hear MY voice;**
and there shall be “ONE” fold, and “ONE” shepherd.
John 10:16
One Fold – One Shepherd – One Voice – Jesus
@ Will – Excellent questions…
"if Christians are followers of Jesus… do we really need organizational leaders? "
"Does leadership as we commonly understand in the church today
actually prevent people from truly following Jesus? "
In my experience, so called "leaders" did prevent me from "truly following Jesus.
I'm Blest – I've returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of my soul… Jesus…
[...] Fitch has a blog post deconstructing the notion of leadership or rather the understanding of leadership on his blog. [...]
[...] Is Leadership Biblical? [...]
Great post David. I think there are some great insights to be had from Marjorie Warkentin's "Ordination, A Biblical-Historical View" and Mark Strom's "Reframing Paul: Conversations in Grace & Community" that are pertinent to this discussion.
Leonard Sweet
The disciples were instructed to feed the sheep, not lead them. Christ will lead them.
[...] Bill Kinnon and David Fitch wrote helpful, succinct blog posts that seemed to thoughtfully deconstruct and (at least attempt [...]