Darryl's Blog
Substituting techniques and technology for love
Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion (sometimes pile-on) about leadership. I regret that I trusted a second-hand source for information about a conference and posted on it, even though I thought that this source is reliable. My fault completely. Egg on my face.
Still, we're faced with questions about leadership. I left this comment near the end of the thread:
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.
Ken and Paul also have some good thoughts.
Just received this e-mail from my friend Naomi this morning, and she gave me permission to post it here:
Speaking of leadership (and thinking now of Moses) and his being a man of great humbleness, his woosing out on wanting to go to Pharaoh on his own, and his not thinking he could speak well enough etc. — his only strength really being his direct line to God — that God gave — well, I’d like to see how the leadership strategists could explain the successfulness of that mission, leaning on the virtue of Moses’ gifts, abilities, or skills. Every single step of the way it was God leading the show, giving the instructions, showing the way, etc.
I even thought of this issue as I read this book review of a book I'm very interested in now. Lauren Winner writes, "Some of the questions Houston raises about the ways Christian culture has been infected by that secularism — such as his suggestion that the tendency in today's professionalized ministry is to substitute "techniques and technology for love" — strike uncomfortably close to home." I know that you techniques and love aren't exclusive of each other - but I wonder if this charge is true.
The problem is that techniques and technology and leadership have their place - but they are secondary at best, and we tend to make them primary. That's why I like books like Leading with a Limp, because they bust the myth of the heroic leader. Leadership is important, but the best leaders lead out of God's power showing up in their weakness.
It's why I like my friend Bill's observation that we're a lot like Israel looking for a king so they can be like all the other nations, when God says we don't need a king because we have him. The king can get in the way of God, and so can certain kinds of Christian leadership.
In the end, we need to do a whole lot more thinking about Christian leadership. I still believe leadership is important, but maybe we need a different kind of leadership.
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Darryl,
Above you say, "So I am a little concerned that we (not the Fellowship - the church in general) are mirroring a cultural fascination with business-style leadership."
I think it may be more precise to say a particular type of business leadership. Some business leaders are total bottomline authoritarian types. Others are more collaborative and see in their people the most valuable "assets" of their company. As a result they care for them in ways that some people would like their church to care for them.
What I'm pointing to is that I think the problem isn't business leadership and church leadership. There are sound business and biblical leadership principles that are compatible with one another. So I think it is misleading to label all business leadership as something to avoid in the church. Instead we should talk about the character and practices of leadership in business and the church, their similarities and differences, and how both worlds have strengths to offer to the other. I do agree that pastoral leadership and business leadership are not the same thing, but not because one is good and one bad. They are different because the organizational context is different. I think looking at this way will be a more helpful way to encourage effective leadership in both the church and business worlds.
Ed:
I really appreciate this.
This is exactly part of the struggle:
1. All truth is God's truth, so sound leadership practices should be transferable.
2. There is good and bad leadership in every arena of life.
3. The context really is different - businesses are really different from not-for-profit sectors, and the church is different from even that. But the Gospel should affect leadership in all of these areas.
4. The church really is unique from anything else. It is an counter-cultural embodiment of the kingdom.
I hate blogging about this because I don't yet have enough clarity to make a lot of sense - but I can certainly see the issues and why a simplistic answer won't suffice.
On a related topic, the other thing that's different about leadership in general today is that we live in a time of "discontinuous change" as Roxburgh puts it. Some of the old paradigms weren't designed for the days in which we live.