Great Leaders or Great Talkers ? (Part 3)

This article has part 1 & 2 so please read the two previous articles with the same title before reading this one which is part 3. The purpose of the series is to look at the hunger amongst church people to embrace a leader because they speak well, while their conduct and treatment of the people in their congregation is less than Christ would expect from shepherds of his flocks.

I shared previously how many great leaders after being gifted by God, get off track from their gifting and calling from what the Lord intended and let their desires for power and status cloud their judgement. They end up corrupting their God-given gift and squander it for selfish ends. In the beginning they may have built great organizations, but at the core now becomes corrupt in spite of their gifting and calling. The final outcome is a ministry built on the gifting of one person rather than building a healthy ministry of teamwork. To the undiscerning eye it looks successful because of it’s growth or size, but God sees it differently. All this happens in spite of being contrary to God’s will. Many things in life are contrary to his will because of God giving man the freedom to choose good or evil.

Then there is the problem of the lack of mentoring for many leaders. So often today discipleship and mentoring is a forgotten command of Jesus and the up and coming leaders have been left to figure out how to develop their God-given gift on their own which often go off track early into their development. Unfortunately for most new leaders the model they choose to follow is normally a corrupt one were pride becomes the ruling guide and motivator. Instead of a humble passionate pastor to follow they follow a pastor driven by insecurity or pride. The young leaders figure out they will not get ahead unless they do whatever it takes which almost always means pushing others aside so they can get ahead. Jesus told the church to go into all the world and make disciples teach people to follow the pattern Jesus set for all of us. We all to often build congregations on gifting rather than character an integrity. Churches, for the most part, build their ministries with pastors trained in college and seminaries to develop their minds, but not their souls. Especially not their hearts. This lopsided training produces lopsided ministries.

What I would like to focus on in this third segment is how vital the local church should be in raising up healthy shepherds and leaders. Jesus made a very important statement about what would have the power to overcome the powers of hell. It was the church being built his way with the keys to the kingdom of God which he would provide. Instead of the church looking to Jesus and the Holy Spirit for power and church structure many ministries have looked to a few mega churches to guide them to success. Unfortunately, all to often, these mega churches have left the guidance of the Holy Spirit long ago for the guidance of marketing and business models to grow the church. Since smaller churches desire great growth, they look to these bigger ministries to guide them and the cycle continues. Let me state that just because a church is big doesn’t mean it’s built poorly, but often the complexity of large ministries require them to look to big buisnesses and corporations to assist them in their development. Again, This may not be a problem unless the ministry loses its intimacy with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This, my friend, can happen quickly and with little notice.

Compromise can happen to an individual or a ministry. Compromise generally happens when the fundamentals of how Jesus did ministry is abandoned for quicker growth or less sacrifice. When we stop reviewing the four gospels because we think we know them well enough and start to immerse ourselves more in “Culture Trends” and styles wanting to be “Relevant“, we and our ministries get off bases in our faith and ministries. Compromise generally is not observed by leadership or the congregation unless there is a real spirit of discernment being exercised and constant intimacy with God and the Holy Spirit. Even in the best of congregations the healthiest ministries are ones that have outside spiritual consultants come in to evaluate the leadership behavior and church practices.

This brings me to the importance of having outside ministry relationships for the senior leader and the congregation. Most denominations started out through relational ties and then built a network of superintendents or overseers. Unfortunately many denominations lost their way in being servants to the local churches and ended up enslaving the local churches to rigid business practice were the local churches financially support the denominational structure. Many churches today are “nondenominational” because of this failure. The only problem is the local non-denominational church isn’t guaranteed success just because it’s on its own. Where did the new church get its pastor from? Was he mentored by a great spiritual leader or produced by a Christian college that feeds the denominational churches? Too often we rely on the credibility of diploma pastors rather than pastors trained with hands on experience to keep them grounded as they mature. I would far rather hire a pastor trained by a healthy pastor than a college graduate any day.

Some of you may not care about all these detail, but let me assure you, unless the people in the local church know what healthy structure is and what healthy pastoral staff looks like, we are bound to experience churches that are more businesses rather than spiritual families as Jesus intended.

The apostle Paul outlined what a healthy church should have in its leadership. He personally discipled and mentored Timothy and Titus and then released them to do the same with other leaders and churches. Reading those two book should be a model for all our churches and yet tradition often overshadows scripture and at times obscure what healthy church leadership looks like. Some denominations have eldership, but don’t let the pastor lead such a group. Some denominations have no eldership, but instead have deacons control not only the church and money, but also the pastor. People in these churches don’t know these practices are contrary to how Jesus or the Apostle Paul outlined, they just assume all churches do it the same way and possibly have done so for generations.

If the local church is built with healthy pastors and healthy leadership that work as a team for the health of the people attending and have as their passion the training of individual people through discipleship and mentoring there is no reason it won’t or can’t raise up new pastors and leaders to start new healthy churches. After all, healthy biblical growth produces healthy people. Healthy people love God and their neighbor as themselves and that my friend changes the world!

Questions:

1) Are you in a healthy church that has a healthy pastor who disciples his leadership? If not, why not?

2) Are you committed to being discipled and discipling others? If not why not?

The body of Christ needs people who are committed to serving like Jesus.

Pastor Dale