The following is the "Introduction" from the new book by Clair Woodbury & Joyce Madsen, Leadership for Today - Putting Jesus' Model to Work for You. The book is for everyone who wants to explore opportunities to become leaders, and for those who are already in a leadership position and would like their leadership to become more effective.
Jesus' leadership was so effective it changed the world. What kind of leadership did he offer? Is that a leadership model that could be effective in the church today?
The Synoptic Gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke - provide a very good picture of what Jesus did. Insights into why have come through those who have examined what was happening in Palestine during Jesus' lifetime. Archaeology has unearthed new evidence about the Roman occupation and Jewish resistance. Ancient texts like the Gnostic Gospels that were lost but have now been rediscovered are giving us a deeper understanding of the times.
Other insights have come from the New Quest for the historical Jesus. Authors like Robert Funk, John Dominic Crossan, and Marcus Borg have gone to great lengths to identify how Jesus' actions were meaningful responses to the challenges of the day. The consensus today is that each gospel writer altered the original story slightly, and in doing so provides fresh insight into the challenges facing the young Christian community at the time when they were writing.
When we consider what we are learning from the new scholarship about Jesus and his times, we recognize that it was rooted in the past, the present and the future. We can discern eight facets to his leadership style. It was
In Leadership for Today, we explore these eight facets of Jesus' leadership in detail, along with stories of leaders who are using them effectively, but in this introduction we want to briefly define them.
We do not pretend that these totally account for Jesus' ability to attract followers and build the movement that has resulted in the Christian church - but they are the characteristics that we the authors feel are needed by leaders in the church today.
Leadership that Makes it Happen
Jesus' leadership was three dimensional in time. He was anchored in the past, able to clearly point out the basis for his actions in the Hebrew scriptures. He had a powerful and passionate vision of the future he called the Kingdom of God. A better translation today might be "God's New Community." It was a future when God's way of treating all people with compassion, equality, justice, and care would be reflected in the way we deal with each other. At the same time in his ministry Jesus was able to deal head on with the current issues of his day. "Is it proper to pay tribute to Caesar or not?" he was asked. "Show me a denarius. Whose picture and name are on it?"he answered. "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Give to God what is God's" (Luke 20:22-25).
Jesus' ministry was profoundly spiritual. It began with a transforming experience of the presence of God. There is no doubt that people felt a deep sense of the presence of God when they were with Jesus. That is a gift that saints like Francis of Assisi learned from Jesus, and one that is a key to leadership in the church today. Many people want to experience the presence of God in their lives in ways that give them meaning and a sense of worth.
Jesus had a powerful vision of a new society in which people are cherished for who they are, not just for what they can do, where the love that wants the best for everyone is the law of the land, where people's need take precedence over political domination, economic exploitation, and religious legitimization of these structures. It is a vision that has inspired people for 2,000 years and continues to be a driving force behind much social reform today.
Jesus was an initiator. He was a master at adapting his ministry to the challenge of the moment. He was able to address large crowds, then in a flash be totally present to a woman who touched his robe. There were major shifts as his ministry took new directions.
Jesus had a gift for communication. He talked about digging around fig trees, planting seed, harvesting grapes, and building watch-towers in those vineyards - experiences all his listeners would be familiar with. He used poetry to communicate. The cadence built into the Beatitudes makes them easily memorable. He used parables to catch people by surprise. By challenging many of the established practices of the day he was able to reveal God's way of looking at the world.
Jesus put time and effort into developing a leadership team for the future. It is quite amazing that the rag-tag collection of people Jesus gathered from fishing villages and rural Galilee eventually worked together to change the world, but they did.
Jesus risked everything when he took his movement to Jerusalem, the centre of Temple power. A current television program shows us each week what it takes to overcome the fear factor. Facing down the opposition in Jesus' day was, however, much riskier than bungee jumping or balloon flying. Mahatma Gandhi is a towering twentieth-century figure who knew the importance of overcoming one's fear in order to resist injustice. Nelson Mandela is a contemporary example of someone who was not afraid to resist injustice. He put his years of imprisonment behind him in order to lead his country into a new social order - transforming fear into forgiveness. The Mothers of the Disappeared risked a great deal to bring about political change in Argentina. It took courage for Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan to lead a peace movement dedicated to ending the violence in Northern Ireland, for which they received the Nobel Prize in 1976.
We admire the fact that Jesus was a man of action, taking his leadership on the road and walking to Jerusalem, knowing every step brought him closer to confrontation.
Jesus is still an incredibly attractive figure 2000 years later because his leadership was authentic. "He walked the talk" as we would say it today. The collection of his teachings we call the Sermon on the Mount stresses authentic prayer, authentic relationships, and authentic giving - a life where motives and actions are one.
The Jesus Leadership Model
This is the Jesus' leadership model. It is an exciting model. Paul picked up Jesus' model, and the result was the church's explosion across the Roman Empire and beyond. From our experience and research, we know that this model is the basis of every congregation that is making a difference in its community today.
We live in a new culture. The starting point for the church being able to speak to that culture is an experience of God. It is that contact with God that gives the church the courage to articulate a vision of where God is calling it to go. This is a journey in which those in the church must do five things: initiate new forms of ministry, learn new languages, multiply leadership, overcome fear, and act on convictions. All this must be done authentically.
In this book we invite you to come with us on a journey as, in the next chapters, we explore Jesus' leadership style. Jesus was authentic, adaptable, spiritual, a communicator, a team builder, courageous, an initiator, and first and foremost a visionary. We want to use one of Jesus' powerful tools in doing so, namely stories. We will share stories of people who are demonstrating the Jesus kind of leadership today.
Telling the Story
There is an insight from the 1960s attributed to Marshal McLuhan, the "media is the message" guru. It was during the time of Vatican II. When asked by the priests of his parish to tell them how to communicate better with the people, McLuhan said simply, "Tell the stories."
Jesus was above all a story teller. We would like to carry on that tradition, and we would like to tell you why.
We were in the final stages of a Saturday workshop with two congregations that formed a pastoral charge. It had been a great day with people expressing their enthusiasm for the tasks that were involved. When it came to the question of how to share some of this with the whole congregation on Sunday, we asked "Why don't some of you share why you are volunteering for the role you play in your congregation?"
What happened that Sunday morning was a moment in time we will never forget. One after another, the treasurer, then the Board chair, then various committee people told the story - not just of their role, but of the deep Christian commitment that empowered their lives and turned their contribution into what was for them a deeply fulfilling ministry. We could tell by the hush in the congregation that something very significant was happening.
We were reminded of the power of personal stories. There was an era fifty years ago when all young clergy peppered their sermons with what were termed "sermon illustrations." There were whole books of them to draw from. They were stories, but about someone else from another time and another place. They had one great gift - they were safe. Those using them did not have to reveal anything about how they felt personally or what they believed, or where they had made mistakes. Most lessons in life are learned from mistakes. It takes a lot of courage, however, to reveal our mistakes in public - but doing so means we can share what we learned in the process.
In her book, Storycatcher, Christina Baldwin tells many stories. The most powerful ones, however, are her personal accounts. She tells, for example, about an evening with her grandfather in his study. He was a clergyman who kept bees to bring in a little extra income. He had a jar of honey on his desk along with a Bible that night. Together they looked through the crystal clear honey at the words of Isaiah. He asked her to read what she saw. "Good," he told her, when she had finished. "And where he touched my hair," she adds, "I thought it smelled of honey. And where he touched my heart, there is honey still" (7). At a workshop we conducted, talking about this story created an occasion to celebrate the lives of people who had put honey into the hearts of those taking part.
Stories and Small Groups
Jesus gathered a small group of followers around him, and we know small groups are a great place for storytelling.
Clair remembers what it was like to be turned loose on the world when his contract at St. Stephen's College ended. Five years from retirement is not the best time to go looking for a call or a congregation. A couple of possibilities had turned into blind alleys. Then a small group, just four people, gathered around a meal, a bottle of wine, a flip chart - and the Congregational Life Centre was born. We had all been involved in one way and another in a five year research project investigating what it took to develop and sustain new congregations. We knew if we didn't do something, those research reports would be put in boxes and gather dust in the hidden recesses of some library. What inspired us was the thought of keeping those insights alive as we worked with congregations eager to become truly alive.
We each told our stories - where we were at personally and what we felt the
church needed for its ministry to be more effective. That led to the idea of
becoming consultants who could help congregations do just that. That there was
no money, no structure, and only four of us didn't matter. We told each other
a story of possibilities that night that sustained those of us involved in the
Congregational Life Centre through those start-up years.
This is only a portion of the Introduction. Titles of other chapters in the book are:
Congregational News September 2009