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What do you expect from someone who's last name is Ceasar...er, Kaiser.

Sounds like a comment made by a loser church growth consultant who's read too much of Barna.

Seems to me that losers may be in pretty good company from a biblical perspective. God often takes losers and deeply redeems them for the sake of others.
Greg

A lot of leaders may be the right leader for a time period, but the wrong one as the organization matures. Planting a church takes a lot of energy, idealism, focus and innovation. A leader "aims" at a demographic and often gets a slightly different one, and has to adapt the vision and mission of his new plant.

But, after a few (like around four, or so) years, it takes a different style of leadership and, often, the initial planter is not the type to adapt to this style. And, he's (naturally) unwilling to hand off his "baby" to someone else.

Many successful plants tend to grow inward-focused after year four, and stagnate in that model.

So, I wouldn't say most pastors are "losers", but I would say that most pastors are the right guy in the wrong job.

Daryl,

I did attend the convention you mention. By rehashing inaccurate hearsay you are misrepresenting publicly what Paul Borden said and doing a disservice to an important discussion. He actually emphasized that most pastors can be winners if they get the appropriate support and resourcing. He did say that only a minority of pastors have the gift of leadership and therefore the ability to lead successfully without support. But he said that those without such gifting can learn to practice leadership behaviours. The 95% comment was part of a specific situation and was not his comment on pastors in general.

It is easy to make points with cheap shots--especially on a blog--if you create a straw man for your target. I have read other things you've written that were accurate and thoughtful.

I would also take issue with your characterization of my book, but there the inaccuracy is more subtle, probably because you actually have read it before critiquing it publicly. I advocate an alternative to Carver, not pure Carver. And by listing freedom and authority (which fall into the same category in my model) you left out the other two essential elements in my model: responsibility and accountability.

I'm not a frequent blogger but happened across your comments. Will you be correcting your post? The tapes of Paul Borden are available from FEB Central if you want to hear them for yourself.

Dr. Kaiser:

I really appreciate your response, and I'll highlight it as a counterpoint. I'll also clarify that he was talking about leadership and not pastors in general.

Just a small clarification about my summary of your book: I mentioned "freedom and accountability" not "freedom and authority" which I hope is a little closer to the spirit of your book.

Perhaps saying "95% of pastors aren't natural leaders" is a more helpful way of expressing what Dr. Borden appears to have been saying. I agree with that statement.

I think there's a real danger, though, in implying that leadership equals winning, in over-valuing (or undervaluing) leadership, or not taking into account the divine economy in which God somehow uses the weak and foolish.

I also appreciate people like Alan Roxburgh who suggests that "the leadership models of currently shaping the church are inadequate to forming a missional church," and who present an alternate model.

As for the tapes, I just may look into that.

Thanks again for commenting. I've appreciated many of your insights on the Fellowship, and your leadership, and continue to pray for you and your role.

Darryl--you are a loser! Bryan

That's the problem with hearsay. It can be smug and devestatingly destructive.

Makes me proud to be a member of church represented by a president who did what John just did.

Hey Daryl isn't your church a member of the same denomination that Kaiser represents. Why were you even there in person?

Darryl,

Thanks for your response. I did realize my own mistake of misreading your "accountability" as "authority." My bad! So I'll live out my own advice and retract that point.

I also think our readers should know that you and I are friends and think well of each other (as far as I know).

Your restatement of Paul's teaching is still not correct. He did not assert that 95% of pastors were not or could not be good leaders. That is a flat misrepresentation. What he taught about the leadership capacity of pastors is exactly what I stated in my first comment. I'll restate it again, more explicitly:
1. a small portion of pastors are gifted leaders and succeed in leadership without support (or know how to gather the needed support by themselves).
2. a small portion of pastors are not capable of leading well even if they get great support.
3. The majority of pastors can succeed in leadership if they have the appropriate support and resourcing.
Paul does not normally assign percentages to these groups, but having learned from him for almost 20 years and working with him directly for 6 years, I would say he is thinking of roughly a 10-80-10 bell curve here.

The 95% figure was used with respect to a specific program in California for placing pastors. So that it is not misstated again, I will take the time to spell it out here:

Dying churches in this group (the ABCW) were approached with the following offer of help: "Because your church is in such decline, the kind of pastor who is smart enough to turn it around is smart enough not to come here. You can try to get a pastor on your own, but 95% of the pastors WHO ARE WILLING TO COME TO THIS BAD SITUATION will probably be 'losers' that no other church will hire. Or, you can sign up for our 'growth track' program, and we will help prepare your church to attract a proven leader who is able to lead you back to health and growth."

Is that clear now? The "95%" was taken completely out of context by whoever was your secondhand source of information on the FEB Central convention.

As an aside: A quick comment I would make on guys you cite like Alan Roxburgh and David Fitch is that they probably lead with more intentionality and focus than their downplaying of leadership would suggest. So we might well do more of what they do than what they say.

I'll give you this, Darryl--you raise interesting issues! Be blessed and fruitful today, Mon Ami!

JK

Dr. Kaiser:

Just ordered the recordings and I'm looking forward to hearing them. Your description of the context makes a whole lot more sense.

"I also think our readers should know that you and I are friends and think well of each other." Of course, and I admire your courage for admitting to our friendship. ;)

Ah Darryl,
Did the clarification of the context really satisfy you? The quote provided concluded by saying:

"Or you can sign up for our 'growth track' program, and we will help prepare your church to attract a proven leader who is able to lead you back to health and growth."

A few responses:
- Define "proven leader"
- If this comment to a church should prove to us that your earlier comments were unwarranted then my fears grow. Self confidence, independence dominate it and that is a very frightening thing because when it comes to faith, self confidence is the enemy.
- Where is God in the formula? To say "this will put things right" and not refer to God at all, is really scary.
- To be able to guarantee a conversion is not our prerogative.
- Contrast "a proven leader who is able to lead you back to health and growth" with "neither he who plants nor he who waters are anything, but only God who makes things grow."
- Where is the need to pray Psalm 85:6, Psalm 127:1, John 15:5 or Phil.4:13?
- A proven leader can be a bad pastor.

I do not question that pastors and others need to lead properly. I do not question that bad leaders have ruined churches. But I have great fears that the Fellowship, of which I am a part, is starting to believe that all that is wrong with us is mechanics. We seem to be saying that we have all our spirituality right and all that is missing is the right recipe, that we invent, in order to make things better. "Here, take our program and all will be better." "If you build it they will come". Why should God honour such thinking? And the even more frightening thing is that we can use our growth programs, get growth, and assume that God did it, when in fact, He may not have. Unless the Lord builds it, whatever we build, is not built. But will we be able to tell?

I am not pretending to be a proven leader. My failures haunt me constantly. But the solutions that I often hear concern me even more.

Not trying to cause a stink. Just expressing a small portion of my soul.

Ken:

I'm satisfied that what actually happened seems to have been better than what I heard happened. I feel badly that I trusted a report that seems to have been inaccurate, and I am interested in listening to the recording myself. But no, I don't think we've resolved all the issues about leadership quite yet.

There has to be something distinctive about Christian leadership, because God's economy is completely different. I'm in the middle of working through Judges, and one of the messages is that we're always in danger of adopting the values and practices of the surrounding culture, even when they are completely opposite to what God has called us to be and to do. So I am a little concerned that we (not the Fellowship - the church in general) are mirroring a cultural fascination with business-style leadership.

Finally, when I think of the places and times where God is moving and the church is thriving, I don't think that the key factor is that they have more capable leaders.

I'm not trying to dismiss leadership; I'm just saying there are still unresolved issues we need to continue to explore.

I heard another statistic:
95% of pastors were nerds in high school, and 95% of church board members were jocks...

No wonder nothing gets done.
(not sure if I heard that at a Fellowship Convention or not...

HAHA.

See you Monday.

I realize I am just popping in to the middle of what may be a more specific kind of conversation, but it struck me that part of what your FEB leaders is saying is correct: the man matters.
But it does not sound like the things that matter are the same things that God says matter. Old Testament and New, the Lord is interested in character before skill.
I would much sooner see a Christian be a member of some little country church with a godly man of integrity in eldership, than watch him jump into a mega-church with an ungodly pragmatist at the helm. The two are not mutually exclusive (i.e. "big" does not necessarily equal "ungodly leadership"), but the emphasis of the quotes Kaiser offers in the comment string above, and some of the responses, seem to ignore the greater issue.
God looks for a man after His own heart.

Dr. Kaiser,
Forgive me for my feeble attempt at humour and unnecessary comment on your last name. I might not agree with you on what constitutes "winners" in church leadership or whether the language of winners and losers should even be used - but my comment was a cheap shot.

Regarding Roxburgh and Fitch, knowing them both (and having served as an elder for five years in a church Alan led), what they say, write and do is consistent. We would do well to listen to them.

Might I recommend David's book, The Great Giveaway and Alan's books, The Sky is Falling and The Missional Leader (with Fred Romanuk.)

Darryl does a fabulous interview of Alan Roxburgh on the Allelon website that you might also find interesting.

Again, my apologies for the cheap shot.

The real shocker for me (if you read the context of the discussion of this quote on your blog) is that Dr. Kaiser doesn't seem to get it. To call a pastor a "loser" in any sense, especially one who has been ordained into ministry by their peers, church, and brothers and sisters in Christ is unconscionable. Yet, this is exactly how I have felt as a pastor in the FEBCC--if I didn't "produce" and show numerical growth in both attendance and conversion and baptisms, I was also a "loser". And although I had the blessing of having seen significant numerical growth in both ministries I was in charge of as an FEBCC pastor, I was very uncomfortable with this whole attitude.

A year ago I was faced with the decision to leave the ministry in order to get help for my son Joshua who is autistic. I moved from Ontario to Manitoba where he is now getting 30 hours a week of one-on-one therapy and has made tremendous progress. I was blessed with a wife who is an accountant and could provide for the family until I found a church to minister in again. It was during this tough time in my life that I found out how many pastors really view their peers who are in need. If I thought it was tough to relate to my colleagues in ministry before (due to the competitive ethos we seem to fall victim to) it was far more difficult during this time period.

Not once did I get so much as a phone call from FEB leadership (regional or national) to see how I was doing. This in spite of the fact that the regional leadership in both Ontario and Manitoba knew my plight. I met with Dr. Kaiser in Manitoba at the FEBMID annual convention in 2006, but neither he, nor the FEBMid leadership said anything to even address my situation let alone give me prayer support even though a number of the pastors, including the FEBMid moderater knew my situation. I felt abandoned by those who were former colleagues in ministry. Now that I could no longer "produce", I was on the outside looking in.

The attitude I see both modelled and championed by FEB leadership is decidedly results oriented, and very cold to those who might be in a tough spot. If you treat your own peers as dispensible, then how does a "growth oriented" pastor really view those in their flock who are in need? It's easy to make a pretense of caring for those in need, it's quite another to make a sacrifice to make that happen.

I know that some pastors may read this blog and say "what a whiner", but I believe that this response would just strengthen my perception, not weaken it. There are many "losers" in ministry who "just don't get it". There are many "loser" churches that are terribly damaged. I can tell you many stories of pastors and churches in the FEBCC that are going through dark times. What's the response of our leadership? In all too many cases it is to let the pastors and churches fall flat on their face and offer no mentorship and little personal help to them. Is this really godly behaviour? Is this how we read the apostles treating troubled churches and leaders in the New Testament?

We can change the mechanics all we want, adopt the latest new methods and strategies from south of the border, make "vision statements" galore, and even hire a new president, but until our attitude starts to reflect that of Christ's and the apostles, I fear that our long term prognosis for the FEBCC is further declince, not new Spirit led growth.

In Christ,

Glenn Krobel
Pastor of Valley Bible Fellowship
Winnipeg, MB

In Christ,

Glenn