A Leadership Problem
We have a leadership problem today in the church - a lack of leadership to be precise.
This past year, a clergy in Vancouver wrote an article published in the United Church Observer that asked, "Why has leadership become a bad word in the United Church?" That brought to mind all the subtle messages I have received over the past decade about the importance of being an egalitarian church where everyone ought to be capable of doing anything.
Why is this? I think it is because the main-line church is incredibly slow at keeping up with the changes that are taking place in society. It was around 1900 that Henry Ford invented the assembly line, and changed the way we work and think forever. Every part is interchangeable with every other part. The church caught on, and set about to make every church interchangeable with every other. The United Churches all sang "Holy, Holy, Holy" at the start or every service. Every congregation had the same programs - Women's groups, young people's groups. Theological colleges set about to train clergy to be interchangeable.
Today we are in the computer and information era. People expect to be treated as individuals, to have their unique gifts recognized, honoured and encouraged. We each rely on an information system made possible by the computer to recognize and meet our individual needs. Yet most main line churches are still in the assembly line mode of thinking.
We have a leadership problem.
How do we solve this problem? We follow the model of leadership that Jesus provided. Jesus demonstrated several of the leadership styles that we see today. Jesus was charismatic, yes - crowds followed him, young people were attracted to him. This, however, was not the ultimate type of leadership he depended on.
Jesus was spiritual. People felt they were in the preserve of God when they were in his presence. Jesus' leadership did not consist solely of introducing people to an experience of God's presence.
The key style of leadership we see in Jesus is that of the Mentor. Jesus' Mentoring Leadership style can be seen when he sent his followers out two by two to do what they had seen him do - heal the sick and preach the good news of God's new community (Mark 6:1-13). He called people to follow him, and then shared his life with them. He was a teacher who wanted his followers to extend his message. The effectiveness of his mentoring can be seen in the explosion of Christianity after his death. The leader had gone, but his followers became leaders.
It is that kind of leadership that is needed today.
Why I Became a Christian
Let me bring a little
personal perspective. I became a Christian in my teens because I needed acceptance.
Like most teenagers, looking to move out of the security of a family into the
world, wanting to be accepted was key. It was an experiencing of God's acceptance
that set the stage for that move for me, and has made it an exciting journey.
I needed a model. I wanted a model for life that I could build on. I found it in the life of Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount and in the parables. At the core of the Sermon on the Mount is the idea of integrity. "Let your yes be yes, and your no be no!" (Matthew 5). The parables hold up care for the weak and creating a community where everyone is important. It was the model for a society I wanted to be part of.
I needed acceptance and I needed a model. The third need was something I experienced later. Jesus accepts people as they are, but calls them to be the best that they can be. Think of the disciples, called to follow Jesus. There was no test, no exam to see if they were smart enough, no background check to see if their life was suitably exemplary. There was simply a call, "Come and follow me."
The magic occurred as they followed. They each found they were called to be the best they could be. The result was a leadership explosion, and the Christian expansion was a result.
It is not easy to grasp how these two concepts fit together - unconditional acceptance just as we are and being challenged to be the best we can be. The best illustration I can think of is the movie Chocolat. The mayor in that movie exemplifies Authoritarian Leadership. He comes from noble stock and has an elected position. He has the authority of office. The owner of the tavern is an example of the Leadership Bully. He abuses his wife, and sets a fire out of revenge for being slighted.
It is Vianne who comes to town to start a chocolatarie that exemplifies Mentoring Leadership. She accepts people just as they are - the ailing grandmother alienated from her daughter, the abused wife, the deprived woman who steals from the store, and the freedom loving river gypsy Roux. No questions asked. Unconditional acceptance. But by some magic, each of the people she relates to, even the Mayor, is challenged and enabled to be what they can become. Some call it magic. We know it as Mentoring Leadership.
We Need Jesus' Mentoring Leadership
We need the mentoring type of leadership we see in Jesus in the church today.
There is a cry in society for spirituality, for an experience of God. There is a crying need in society for the kind of unconditional acceptance that comes from knowing God's acceptance. Talking about God is no longer enough. We need leadership that points the way to an experience of God's unconditional acceptance. We know it does not always happen in churches - perhaps seldom happens in churches. Nelson Mandella experienced God inside the walls of persecution. Vaclav Havel found God in a prison yard. An experience of God's unconditional acceptance changed the lives of these two men, one who became President of South Africa, one who became President of Czechoslovakia. It does not always happen in churches, but churches prepare the way for it to happen. They till the soil, sow the seed, plant the idea, and encourage the search. They mentor.
There is a cry for integrity in this world of ours, for lives with an ethical foundation. The Enron scandal, the scams perpetrated within the business world, pornography on the Internet, unfaithfulness of people to their promises. We live in a world in desperate need for the integrity that has made so much in our society a success. Integrity is the hallmark of Jesus' ministry and life. We need leadership that models integrity and the other elements that Jesus' life exemplified.
There is a cry from people to be recognized as individuals, to be valued for the unique person they are with the unique gifts they bring. There is a desperate need for the type of Mentoring Leadership that calls forth the very best people have to offer. Young people especially need to be valued. They find themselves in an incredibly complex world where they desperately want to fit in. They need help. We need their individual gifts. We need the kind of Mentoring Leadership that will call forth the best in people.
We need the type of leadership that we see in Jesus, the Mentoring Leadership that changed the world of his time, and is once again needed in our time.
Clair Woodbury is a member of the staff team of the Congregational Life Centre and Adjunct Faculty at St. Stephen's College, Edmonton.
Congregational Life Newsletter Vol. 9 No. 3 August 2003