A Basic Overview of Church Leadership
Introduction
This document began as a topical letter addressed to the leaders of a local fellowship in the fall of 2008. I wrote it as a response to their request that we get all our thoughts on the table concerning what local Church leadership should look like, how it should function, and what these thoughts might imply to them as they were looking to upgrade their own leadership model. At that time their leadership model was, for all practical purposes, a very traditional protestant fellowship model which had at its apex a senior pastor, then a board of directors sometimes called elders, and a few folks doing other kinds of leadership works like children’s ministry or hospitality. There were two paid staff that included, of course, the senior pastor and the full time worship leader. Since that time many things have changed, and I believe they have been changes for the better.
This document might be read after the article at Churchthink I titled, “Receiving the Apostle” which was written earlier to the key elder at the same local fellowship.
Not everything I have submitted in what follows (the great majority of which is the original letter which forecast my sense of coming changes) was immediately agreed with or even followed precisely even up to this day. I say this with a sense of humor as I submit these thoughts to you for consideration because I smile when I realize that no man is smart enough to know how, when, and where everything “ought” to happen in any fellowship or gathering of the family of God. It takes us all to work this stuff out.
Introduction to Family Tools
Another podcast excerpted from the very first Churchthink retreat ever. Here David Wilton and Ben Pasley introduce the idea of moving past the ideas of "church planting" or "community" and introduce the idea that what we really need are the practical relational tools to build family between us! Awesome. It's a long one at 45 minutes.
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Pastor: The Verb, Podcast 3
Ben is joined by good friend Karla Adolphe to read and discuss the latest Churchthink article on the beautiful grace of pastoring. Part 3 of 3.
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Pastor: The Verb, Podcast 2
Ben is joined by good friend Karla Adolphe to read and discuss the latest Churchthink article on the beautiful grace of pastoring. Part 2 of 3.
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Pastor: The Verb, Podcast 1
Ben is joined by good friend Karla Adolphe to read and discuss the latest Churchthink article on the beautiful grace of pastoring. Part 1 of 3.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Pastor: The Verb
The Gift is the Person
There are leadership graces for the Church and none of them are abilities--they are all people.
I am going to make this emphasis on people over ability for a very important reason. Let that sink in just a bit. I am touching on a couple of common ideas and ways of speaking. The question I am already posing to you is, “Do you carry gifts with you, or are you the gift?” Read on, and I will try to bring some deep encouragement to you as a leader.
It might be true that graces and gifts are things given to men just as it says in Ephesians 4:7, “to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it,” and in Romans 8, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us...” but to imagine these leadership gifts as externalized feature sets is an awkward proposal. What I mean by this is that gifts and graces do not exist in concept or in concrete form outside of a person, and I believe this truth is simple and instinctive.
Re-Calibrating for Family, Part 2
Part 2 of 2. Ben and Joe Steinke talk together through the first half of an article designed to deal with the fears and inhibitions related to discovering the Family of God. And by "family" we mean the relationships we have to one another as mother, father, sister, son, etc. Joe is in a cafe in Madison, Wisconsin and Ben was in a DQ in Lindale, Texas. Find the article at www.churchthink.com!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Re-Calibrating for Family, Part 1
Ben and Joe Steinke talk together through the first half of an article designed to deal with the fears and inhibitions related to discovering the Family of God. And by "family" we mean the relationships we have to one another as mother, father, sister, son, etc. Joe is in a cafe in Madison, Wisconsin and Ben was in a DQ in Lindale, Texas. Find the article at www.churchthink.com!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Re-Calibrating for Family
Scripture Note
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. Ephesians 3:14-15
Family Comes First
In this article I want to explain why I am so committed to promoting the imagination of family over all other systems as we think about the Church, and I hope we can deal directly with some of the obstacles to this “imagination.” I also want to try and uproot some of the weedy, undesirable stuff that has been growing up around the idea of family and blocking our healthy view of it. Some of us have some genuine fears when family language is used, especially around spiritual family, and these are critical for us to discuss.
Responsibilities or Tasks
I would love to continue this discussion on how we see the Church. This discussion is very much like a discussion of World-View--we could call this digging in to our Church-View. So in the last discussion we asked one another whether we view the Church as an Organization or as a Family, and discussed the differences between Value sharing and Goal setting. I hear in your comments that we might not be able to separate these categories with precision, but we definitely found differences, especially in the outcome of leadership style. It might be fair to think of these differences in terms of origin: does the origin of Church begin with Family or Organization? And in the same way, does the Church grow primarily from it's setting of Goals or from shared Values? (Last post.)
Here lets discuss part 2 of 3 with these same thoughts in mind. While Goals and Values proceed and guide action, sharing Responsibilities or assigning Tasks require action. They are the tools used to move us from "still" to "moving". Organizations tend to use one method of creating movement, and Families another. Here are some questions for us:
1. Does a manager assign tasks or share responsibilites?
2. Does a parent assign tasks or share responsibilities?
3. How does these two differences help us understand personal maturity? Which one do we look for in healthy adults: assumption of personal responsibility or the need for a task list?
4. What are some examples of the differences in leadership styles for those who use one or the other predominately? What are the end results in the lives of the recipients?
5. Does the idea of creating movement draw any assumptions or requirements on the first discussion: Values vs. Goals?