Christian Women in Leadership

The Excellence of Love

For all of the things that Christ spoke about, leadership was not one that He gave too much attention to. He did, however, talk a lot about love.

(side note from julia; I read this article about 6 months ago and I really resinated with it. It's not quite where I am right now, but I still thought I would post it on my blog, the italics are mine)

THE EXCELLENCE OF LOVE by CHARLES WOODWARD
from theooze.com 2004

I have lost count of how many different ways I have heard we can build an effective church for tomorrow - hire outside consultants, check the demographics, bring an executive pastor on board, change the old s to adjust to today’s rapid rate of change, be relevant, think like a post-modern, ask Barna, flip a coin, blah, blah, blah. But the “fix-all” I seem to keep running into the most right now is leadership. We are told that the church needs leaders - it needs leadership training, leadership programs, centralized leadership, decentralized leadership, staff leadership, lay leadership, a vision, a mission, a five year plan…blah, blah, blah.

Whenever I hear something become the answer for just about everything I start to get a little suspicious. I start looking for the small print or the disclaimer. Now, not to say that leadership doesn’t have its place in the church, but it seems to have moved from the status of a spiritual gift to an almost idolatrous level. Leadership has become the most important thing to be desired, the thing to be prized above all other things.

I have to ask, how did one particular spiritual gift become so important? Is a lack of leadership really the problem or is it something else? What if the real problem is not a lack of leadership, but an over supply of leadership that is missing something? What if we are in need of something more fundamental, something simpler? What if we have just forgotten the basics?

The possibility is not that far fetched. Paul once wrote a small reminder to the Corinthian church encouraging them to remember what is most important when they were all excited about spiritual gifts. He wrote to remind them of the importance of love. There are few who would argue with Paul’s description of love in 1Corinthians 13:4-7. But what is interesting is the context of this description and how Paul places it over and above the various spiritual gifts – including leadership.

Paul explains that no matter what the spiritual gift that one has, that no matter what one does, if love is absent it all amounts to nothing. I hear all this emphasis on leadership, this focus on strategy, method, planning, and I wonder if the church needs this reminder about what is most important again. I wonder if we are so focused on finding, developing, defining and being leaders that we have forgotten the more important things.

The great commandment was not, “Lead for the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” It was to love Him and to also love our neighbor. The thing that we are told is our distinguishing mark in the world is not how well or effectively we lead. We are told it is our love, our love for God and for each other.

I have been to churches that had leadership. There was a vision, a plan, there were goals, values, procedures, and all the things that are important for leadership. All of these things are important for a church and have there uses, but in each one of these churches something was missing, something that made everything else, all that leadership, mean nothing. These places didn’t make you feel loved.

I have never heard anyone rave about leadership in the church being the reason that they came to know Christ. But I have heard plenty of people complain about not feeling loved in churches with lots of leadership. The unfortunate result has been that these people were led to walk right out the door and write off the church as obsolete, as hypocritical, as not being any different. They left the church because they felt used.

Somehow we have mixed things up. We seem to have put leadership before love. This may work well for corporations, for governments, and for businesses but it is destructive for the church. For all of the things that Christ spoke about, leadership was not one that He gave too much attention to. He did, however, talk a lot about love.

The truth is that I find myself thinking about all of this more and more. I find myself questioning all the things I have been taught to think about leadership – what it is, what it means to lead, what it means to be a leader. For the longest time I carried this guilt, this feeling of inadequacy, because I couldn’t say that I had some “vision” from God. All of the things I had read and had been told made me feel like I didn’t measure up to being a leader, that I didn't meet the standard.

I ended up doubting myself and asking all kinds of questions – How could I be called to be a leader if I don’t have all the things I am told are important for leaders to have? How can I be a leader if I don’t really know where I’m going some of the time? How can I be a leader if I’m just as confused and scared as anyone else? How can I be sure that God has called me to lead if I have not gotten the vision memo telling me where to go and how to get there?

I feel like I am on the verge of throwing out all the definitions and descriptions of leadership I have been handed and going in search of new ones. I find myself asking whether or not having a “vision” is important. I am beginning to think that it is ok for a leader to not know where he or she is going or how to get there. I’m asking, is leadership the answer? Are Maxwell’s laws really “laws?” I know that I must be bordering on heresy now!?!

Truthfully, I think that I am starting to dislike the word “leader” all together. These feelings are probably intensified by my run-ins with some self proclaimed leaders and visionaries. Each one was manipulative, deceptive and proud. One fired me from a ministry position, hurt a number of people I care about and then lied about me and criticized my “leadership.” At this point, I want to be as far away from being associated with these types as I can. I also have trouble seeing how they are the solution for any problem that the church may have today.

Maybe that is why I like the term shepherd so much right now. I have always associated that word with love because it is so closely tied to my understanding of Christ, the Good Shepherd. Jesus was definitely a leader – one could say He is the Author of leadership. But His leadership was secondary to His love.

The church is definitely in need of something today, but I don’t know for sure anymore that it is leaders or more leadership. There seems to be an ample supply of this. Maybe we just need to return to the basics of what being a Christian is about…loving God and loving others.

posted by the princess @ 2/10/2005 07:00:00 AM