Wednesday
Dec032003
Subversive leaders
Wednesday, December 3, 2003 at 10:23AM This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"
It sometimes feels strange to be employed by a church while writing about how the church needs to die to itself. I'm both the pastor of a church and, at the same time, a critic of how the modern church operates. It's sometimes a funny feeling, especially on payday. Two modern transformations give me hope. In 1985, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embraced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), allowing discussion and criticism of government and culture. Glasnost led to the end of the Soviet Union, and of Gorbachev's position, but it also led to the transformation of that society, which continues to this day. In the early 1990s, South African president F.W. de Klerk ended the ban on the African National Congress, freed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, and ended apartheid. In 1994, the first multiracial elections were held, and de Klerk lost his presidency to Mandela. Both Gorbachev and de Klerk were subversive leaders. They led structures that they ultimately worked to overthrow, at great cost to themselves. Thinking about these two stories, I'm wondering if there is a role for leadership within the system of the modern church that questions many of its assumptions, and which might in the end lead to something very different. It may cost these leaders their own positions (the gift of martyrdom?), but it may also lead to the very necessary death-to-self of the modern church, and to its rebirth as something new. Not everyone is called to be this type of leader, but surely some of us are.
Reader Comments (5)
Right on Darryl. I think if a church set out to do that and was totally on God's program and totally in His will what a blessing it could be. I love the end of Acts 2 where it says how God increased their number daily. I believe thats what happens when a group of people are totally in God's will. It would become contagious and God's blessing would be all over it. Don't you think?
Alive, on mission, not concerned with survival/maintenance, engaged with those outside the church. Probably a lot like the November 27 post. Probably a lot like Jesus.
What would the re-birthed church look like?
Agreed. It takes a rare individual who will cut the fat out of something to the point of losing their own position to live off the perks of the fat. However in the long run, I think that it needs to be done (and very quickly) now in order to make the church relevant again to society. Why? Because the church is no longer seen as relevant to society. We traded the power and glory for the numbers and money. We traded the guidance of Jesus for wanna-be politicians who self-exalted themselves as prophets.
Great points! Your are right on. I just struggle for hope that we will actually be able to pay this high cost for the sake if the Church. Sometimes I really doubt it.