I have been thinking lots about leadership in the last six months or so and I have been studying the bible to try to understand what it teaches. It is hard for me to think of words like pastor or bishop or apostle as they were used 2000 years ago. Simply the notion of shepherd to someone like me who was raised in a non-agrarian society is so foreign! But here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

There is a lot of talk in the N. T. about Jesus' authority. The folks who heard him were astonished at His authority because He did not teach like the religious leaders. I believe that His was the authority that comes from seeing what the Father was doing and doing it; hearing what the Father was saying and saying it. What did Jesus do with His authority? Did He lord it over others? Did He announce His title? Do you read of Him coming into a place having annouced His divinity? The Son of God will be here on Saturday to minister in His special annointings and giftings? Of course not! Even the idea is repellant. He does not proclaim that He is divine. He speaks what the Father speaks and does what the Father does and those are words and acts of love: He touches the unclean, heals the broken hearted, raises the dead and preaches the good news to all. Those (of us) who are able to recognize our spiritual poverty receive Him as Lord.

Jesus did not declare Himself by His own witness. Rather He declared Himself by performing Messianic miracles. When John the Baptist is in prison and begins to have doubts he sends some of his friends to Jesus to ask, "Are you really the One?" Jesus answers by quoting Isaiah when he replies that they are to tell John that the deaf hear, the blind see, the leper is healed the dead are raised. These are miracles that proclaim Him to be the Messiah. Most folks who claim to have special gifitings today offer their own testimony as the witness we should follow. "I am a ThusandSo. God has revealed this to me." Leadership is proven by the fruit it bears. Are there the kinds of fruit the scriptures tell us should be there? And have you seen it yourself or is the person claiming the annointing telling you what he has done? I find that there are lots of what my Dad used to call "blowhards" among those proclaiming their leadership giftings.

But this is the hard part. I do believe in Leadership in the Body. I think it is undeniably established in the New Testament. But I think we humans have distorted it and established certain "traditions of the elders" the same as was done in the O. T. Even among the saved our hearts are deceitful. We love honor and being first. (At least I do, much to my shame.) The praise of men is sweet in our ears even when it is only flattery and lies. And I don't think we can guard against this by ourselves. I think this is why there is (in the N. T.) always a group that is doing things. But if we are part of this group, we quickly make this plurality a private club and establish the clergy and the laity. We establish certain requirements for belonging to the club--either of age or gender or education or beliefs or skin color or financial status or social position or spiritual attributes or national origin or doctrinal positions or the witness of others. My son used to have a T-shirt that said, "If you can't run with the big dogs, don't get off the porch!". Well, we make big dogs and little dogs.

So how does leadership work? Well, in the first place I think it should be called LEADERSHEEP rather than leadership. I think the emphasis needs to be on the 'sheep' part. And I think that if all leaders did whatever their 'calling or gifting' was and also went to the homes of everyone who gathered with them and paid them $5 to be allowed to wash their toilets once a week it would sort things out much quicker than giving them a position of honor in the club. This was what happened to Jesus, don't you think? He was the Son of God so He was given the ministry opportunity to die a hideous, solitary death for all of us who were dead in our sins. Paul was a rich man with position and power until he because a leader in the church. Then he became an outcast among his own people, poor, wretched and hated, often beaten, left for dead, ship wrecked and starving. Look at Peter's life or John's or even James who died so early, a death of appeasement to the Jews. We have made being a pastor or an apostle or a prophet the equivalent of being the birthday child at every birthday party.

I think a person whom the Lord appoints to leadership should be frightened by it, humbled by it. If the appointment is genuine, then the grace will be too and the fruit will be visible to those who know them. It doesn't take a sign to announce a gift; the gift becomes a sign that announces itself.

I know my ideas here are far from adequate to this subject and I am sure that there are many faults in what I have written. I think the Lord may be the One who continues to bring it up to us for discussion by bringing in folks with strong opinions who announce their presence with this topic. At any rate, this is the best I have to offer on Monday morning. . . )

God bless and keep you and make His face to shine upon you!

Gee Denton

I enjoyed your Monday thoughts on leadership. I am coming to think in terms of the need for leadership to move from a base of "power position" to one of "peer relationships." There is ample support for this model in technical literature. It most assuredly is a biblical model (of course clearly Jesus, Paul, and Peter all make a case for leadership without the power of position- that should be enough, but we can use the world's own writings to get them to hear this!).

For example (and forgive the gobbledygookedness of this stuff, but it is useful to have their own philosophers tell the same story in terms they better respect and understand to make our case:

Yukl, "Leadership in Organizations"

In studies to consider whether effective and ineffective leaders have and use the same types of power, Yukl (1998, p.188) concludes, "Overall, the results suggest that effective leaders rely more on expert and referent (personal, relational) power to influence subordinates." This opposed to what Yukl (using the French and Raven model) considers positional and political power.

He also relates from studies by Warren (1968), Thambain and Gemmill (1974), and Yukl and Falbe (1991), that the use of positional power usually produces compliance. Since the church is a transformational organization seeking to induce high levels of commitment among members, this outcome of positional power is undesirable. Personal power, however, is summed up by (p.188) as having results that "positively correlated with subordinate satisfaction and performance."

We also have Yukl's (p.195) warning, "The notion that power corrupts is especially relevant for position power." In an experiment by Kipnis (1972) where leaders are given high positional power, related by Yukl (1998, p.195), the dangers of excessive position power were borne out. As a result of using high positional power, these leaders:

1. Perceived followers as objects of manipulation
2. Devalued the worth of subordinates
3. Attributed subordinate efforts to their own power use
4. Maintained more social distance from subordinates
5. Used rewards more often to influence subordinates

These are not the attributes desirable in leaders among the saints, nor are they descriptive of biblical leadership practices. Paul (I Thess. 2:7,8) told the Thessalonian church: But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.

Even secular leaders know the personal power of love. In the introduction to Kouzes and Posner's 1995 book, The Leadership Challenge, Tom Peters wrote, "He and Barry aren't afraid to admit that the essence of leadership is caring..."

Jesus gave in Luke 22 what on the surface seems to be an impractical command about leadership in the church:

"The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve."

This statement clearly rips from the arsenal of leadership the use of positional authority to influence other believers. The Apostle Peter (I Peter 5:1-3) reiterated this relinquishing of positional power for leaders with, "Neither as being lords over God's heritage (positional power), but being ensamples to the flock (personal power)." Current leadership research has provided a good amount of support for Jesus' servant-leader proposition.

Robert Greenleaf (1970, p.7) coined the term, "servant leadership" in describing a model very similar to what Jesus proposes. Greenleaf (1970, pp.22, 32) similarly sees positional power as at best producing compliance (at worst, resistance), and recognizes the superiority of personal power, "Leadership by persuasion has the virtue of change by convincement rather than coercion. Its advantages are obvious."

Leaders in Jesus' servant leadership model are left with what Jay Conger (1998, p.vii) calls "Lateral Leadership," calling it a "revolution in how we manage others," a model based purely on personal power. Conger's (1998, p.21) main observations are: "In essence, the lateral leadership method invites colleagues to work with you to solve problems... solutions are not the answer. The answer is a better process for finding solutions....what you suggest is always open to joint consideration." His guidelines:

. Ask questions
2. Offer your thoughts
3. Do something that models better behavior

Conger's (1998) chapter outline in speaking to lateral leadership is itself informative:

1. Building Credibility
2. Searching for Shared Ground
3. Compelling Positions and Evidence
4. Connecting Emotionally

Jesus' most profound example and encouragement of this style of leadership occurred on the night He last shared the Passover with His disciples. The disciples that day had been arguing who among them would be the greatest. In a household, the least of the servants was tasked with washing the feet of visitors. None of the disciples had been willing to do that. At the end of the passover meal, Jesus rises from the table, removes his outer clothes, wraps a towel around His waist, and picks up a basin from the corner. So, Jesus becomes the least servant among them, and washes their feet, one disciple at a time, and drying them with the towel. Finished, He explained (John 13:12-15):

"Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you."

In John 13:1, just before the passover meal, we are told concerning the servant Jesus, regarding His disciples, "he loved them unto the end." This example was not only about servant leadership, but about loving those we lead. That is then true secret of servants.

Art
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