Fred Smith cannot be easily described. He is a businessman, consultant, great public speaker, active Christian. He possesses not only the fastest but the most fitting quip for any occasion. His humor is always sneaking up on you from the most unlikely angles. But Fred’s is never surface humor-it’s lightning-crisp communication which will catch the unaware. Fred answers questions with stories and elliptical insights that blow open preconceived ideas.
Even meetings become interesting when Fred is in them. He has an unusual ability to pinpoint the real issue with a barb of humor or a sentence which cuts through the undergrowth. Yet he’s also capable of transfixing an audience and touching nerve endings in a thoroughly serious way.
When Fred was 40 years old he turned down the presidency of a national corporation so he could divide his attention among business, education, religion, and lecturing. He has served on more than 20 boards and trusteeships, holds an honorary doctor of. laws degree, was awarded the Lawrence Appley award of the American Management Association, and currently is president of Fred Smith Associates, Inc., a food packaging company in Dallas, Texas. While he truly enjoys business and the financial rewards it has given him, he keeps reaching out for the broader life. For many years he was active in the leadership of a Laymen’s Leadership Institute, chairman of the national board of Youth for Christ, and member of the executive committee of Christianity Today, Inc. He was chairman for Billy Graham’s earliest Cincinnati crusade. He has been consultant to such corporations as GENESCO, Mobil, and Caterpillar, and has lectured in over 20 universities and 46 states and foreign countries. He is an active, objective, questioning Christian, fascinated by the board room as well as the pew.
When we conceived of this first issue of LEADERSHIP, we immediately thought of interviewing Fred. Yet we knew we would have a rather challenging task. Fred often speaks on two or three levels of insight and humor at the same time, and you have to be watching his eyes for the twinkle and his face for the precise expression to punctuate his meaning.
We spent an entire day chatting with him and ended up with 100 pages of manuscript. We cried a lot as we had to trim it down and snip a beautiful but elliptical statement which worked so well in conversation. The real Fred Smith must be heard in person. For our attempt at distillation, read the following.
You have achieved a great deal in your life. How did you find the time?
Those of us who divide our efforts, particularly in the more visible activities, may appear to do more, but I doubt it. Frankly, I thought you might ask me why I have done so little, considering Wesley, Napoleon, Churchill, et al, have done their due  with the same 24 hours. I keep thinking how much Wesley did and how he was dead for several years before he was my age. I’m not being facetious or humble. Think use, not amount. Blaming lack of time can become an escape.
Fred, you always appear so relaxed even casual, yet there is below the surface a lurking intensity. Does this intensity have a special color or meaning for you?
Yes, I guess it does, for it is one of my gauge-points, like a channel marker to a ship captain. Intensity is the boiling point of effort, the concentration of energy, the tip of the welding flame. Most men of accomplishment have a special ability to develop intensity at the right time over the right issue. Jackie Robinson at second base could come out of his relaxed pose and snap into action as the play came to him, and then go back into a poised relaxation, saving himself for the next time. Most pros have this; only the amateur keeps jumping up and down like a college cheerleader. Many hardworking people fail to accomplish much because they lack intensity at the meaningful time.
For example, the Dallas Cowboys are intense about converting third downs. So it is with any planned activity. Good leadership takes out the crucial elements and places something extra at these points. I occasionally check to see what I am doing that makes me willing to become intense. If nothing, then I tend to be flat. I also am careful to keep around me people who can reach back and get a little extra for those tense times. A placid assistant, unable to become intense on demand, can foul up the play or severely limit the options.
Can you condense your system?
Yes. It involves a new concept plus techniques, most of which I’ve borrowed from those I admire. Of course, I’ve adapted these to my personal style to accomplish flexibility and free time for multiple activities. For example, I like to find the essence of each situation, like a logger clearing a log jam. The pro climbs a tall tree and locates the key log, blows it, and lets the stream do the rest. An amateur would start at the edge of the jam and move all the logs, eventually moving the key log. Both approaches work, but the “essence” concept saves time and effort. Almost all problems have a “key log” if we learn to find it.
I try to decide what I’m trying to do, what it takes to do it, and who I can get to do it better than I can. I find summary thoughts helpful in keeping me conscious of my concepts, such as, “Results are the only reason for activity.” So many good-intentioned souls will spend a lot of time telling you about the labor pains before they show you the baby. I try to discourage this.
Say a word about leadership systems.
Again, executive concepts are important. I use this definition: “An executive is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.” My responsibility is to be a supervisor, not a superworker. A little selective laziness is not all bad. It increases the thinking time. These things I have mentioned are samples of my concept system. A system such as mine requires competent people. We could spend part of the time talking about selection, development, and motivation, because if you don’t understand these you will suffer by this system.
For example, recently I looked at an organization with problems. I asked the board, “Is our lead horse strong enough to pull the wagon?”
They said, “No.”
“Okay,” I said, “where is the one we need?” So we went out and found a strong man and turned the organization around. I could have approached it differently. I could have said, “This man we have is a sincere, fine Christian person, and with enough help he just might do it.” But that would have meant pulling with him for five years before you found out he couldn’t do the job. We would have used up a tremendous amount of time and effort and paralyzed the organization just to avoid a tough decision. The earlier you make a decision about a failure and “cut your loss,” the less actual waste.
While talking to a banker one time I asked, “What do you think about when you make a loan?”
He responded, “I always think, Never delay a failure with my money.”
People spend endless energies delaying failures. I was in a church not long ago where they delayed by at least five years letting a pastor go. Members were dropping out. Fewer and fewer people were doing more and more. The preacher was going to the whip to get people to attend- the obvious signs of a dying church.
It’s a disservice to the pastor, who for five years is in a failure situation where everybody knows he is going downhill, and he perhaps feels trapped. …
I don’t think about it being a disservice to him. A change isn’t a catastrophe. Roger Hull liked to talk about people who succeed after failing, even because of failing. When you are the head of something and you don’t make it go, that’s your responsibility. If you are not making it go, you ought to make a change. If you haven’t got the guts to make the change yourself, then somebody ought to make it for you. I don’t think we can make all difficult changes pleasantly. People who wait around trying to find the pleasant, comfortable moment to make difficult decisions and difficult changes are simply kidding themselves. You can hide behind Christian tolerance, or we’re going to wait and pray about it; but when you know, according to your best judgment, that the situation is going wrong, then do something to alleviate it. The answer to most problems is the right people in the right places.
I was talking to the president of a bank in Oklahoma who said he was working himself to death. I said, “Whose work are you doing?” He stopped, reflected for a moment and then answered, “Well, to be honest, the cashiers I asked, “Why are you doing it?” He said, “I hadn’t really thought it through. Now that I think about it, I’m going back and straighten that situation out.” Here was a fellow working himself to death just because he hadn’t asked whose work it was.
It is very important that the people who work for me understand my job. If they don’t know what my job is they often try to do it. That’s why it’s so important for them to know what I want to retain control of. I decide this very simply. I make a list of all the things that only I can do. It’s an embarrassingly short list. I have to add a few things that I prefer doing to make the list long enough to justify my salary. It’s amazing how few things there are that only the boss can do. Most bosses don’t think this way. They say, “How much can I do? Whatever I can’t do I’ll hire someone else to do.” Well, that’s the way to work yourself to death.
It’s like the less-than-successful president who went around each day and turned out the lights before he went home. I thought, Now that’s what you hire a president for, to turn off the lights!
How would you respond to a pastor who says, “That’s all right for ‘bosses’ and ‘presidents,’ but here I am. All I have is one staff member and some volunteers. Delegation is out of the question.”
As long as you have one other person in your organization you can be learning delegation. Delegation is a philosophy before it is a practice. Some parents do everything for the children while others teach the children to do for themselves. I don’t know many churches as small as a family. Most leaders who don’t delegate want others to be dependent on them; they want to be needed more than they want to develop their associates. Be sure you don’t try to delegate the “dirty” part of the job and keep the good part. “Folks ain’t dumb!”
Most great pastors I know started in a small situation and grew into their present large responsibilities. In the small operation they learned the techniques that allowed them to hold the larger responsibilities . The pastor who is doing everything himself might ask, “Is there any pastor who can get it done? Aren’t there several pastors who lead small churches-who don’t work themselves to death- who don’t handle all of the details?” Then the next question would be, “Are their members different from mine?” Well, most members are about the same wherever you go. This begins to make him believe there’s something about management that he doesn’t understand.
For the pastor who reads this–who feels he’s covered over with committee meetings and administrative work-what do we say to help him break out of this trap?
I would say be very honest about why you’re covered over. If you’re protecting your job by being sure you’re in the center of everything, it’s your own fault. If you just have a natural curiosity about what’s going on, and you like to be with people, and you’re spending your time with people and details instead of studying and praying, it’s your fault. If you’re insecure and cannot let other people take responsibility, it’s your fault. I can’t accept the premise that there is a job big enough to keep me away from my primary responsibilities.
Andrew Carnegie once asked a consultant, “What can you do for me about time control?” The consultant said, “I’ll make one suggestion, and you send me a check for what you think it’s worth. Write down what you have to do on a piece of paper in order of priority, and complete the first item before you go to the second.” It’s reported that Carnegie tried it for a few weeks and sent him a check for ten thousand dollars.
I constantly find people trying to accomplish their work as if they were eating dinner at a smorgasboard. They don’t prioritize anything and they don’t complete anything. They don’t practice good time discipline. I had an executive say to me, “How in the world do you turn down people who want to play golf with you?” That question has never entered my mind. My time is as much mine as my money. If I don’t let everybody else spend my money, I’m not going to let them spend my time. I have a right and a responsibility to say to people, “I have to have this much time for my priorities.”
For example, I was traveling with the president of a subsidiary company and every time we’d stop at an airport or sit down anywhere he’d grab at this big stack of magazines and start reading them. I asked, “Do you like to read?” He said, “I hate to.” “But every time I’m with you, you spend your time reading. Why do you do that?” He said, “The president of the parent company sends me these magazines.” I said, “What would happen if you’d walk into the president’s office and say, ‘Hey, Boss, you want me to make money or read magazines? I’m willing to do either one, but I can’t read all these magazines you’re sending me and do my job too’? I will guarantee that the boss would laugh and say, “Throw those magazines in the basket. I sent them to you because I thought they were too current to throw away.” A lot of people will generate work for you on this same basis.
For example, my friend Bob Turner kids me about the fact that I won’t read all the books he sends me. A man came in to see me who had written a book and brought a copy for me to read-a big, thick book. He said, “I’ll call you in a week and see what you think about my book.” I said, “Make it six months because I don’t read books that people give me. I only read the things that I’m currently studying. This book costs $10.90. Since I’m a slow reader, it would take me two days to read it. That means I’d be making about $5.45 a day reading your book, and I think I’m worth more than that.” Unless a book has something to do with what I am trying to learn, and I consider it a priority, I’m not going to read it just so someone can call me and say, “What did you think about the book?” I’m going to be very frank and say I don’t read books just because people give them to me.
This raises a pertinent point. We’re sitting here trying to think of how a pastor would respond to what you are saying. Many of them might say, “Look, I’m a public person. My congregation of two hundred expects to be able to telephone me day or night. They not only expect an answer, they expect me to drop whatever I’m doing and address their problem. They’re forever shoving books under my nose because they think they are doing me a favor. Next Sunday they are going to ask about the book. As I see it, my job is to minister to these people, to get to know them, and build rapport with them. As irritating as these ‘personal favors’ are, a response is probably necessary if I am going to develop contact with them. However, pretty soon all of my time is gone.”
This sounds like the politician who spends all his time running for office and never performs when he gets in. Building rapport can be a smokescreen. The pastor must set some time aside for it, but he must constantly remind people of his commitment to the most important things. I don’t think they would be offended the least bit if he said, “Folks, Tuesday is my day with God. I have to spend some time with my boss to keep this job and he has called me into conference on Tuesday. He takes a dim view of me answering the phones and appearing at social occasions on conference day. Your boss wouldn’t like it if you’re running out of the room when he was trying to talk to you. Mine doesn’t either.”
I know a pastor who does this. He simply shuts himself off from his people on Tuesday so he can study. But they all know he’s studying. I know a life insurance man who refuses all social engagements on a certain evening because he wants to develop the reputation for being a wellversed insurance man. No one invites him anywhere on that night because they know he’s studying life insurance. He has become a veritable authority; and being known for studying one night a week has helped his reputation.
A minister must explain what he is supposed to be doing for his people. He is supposed to be expounding the Word to them. He can’t expound without studying. If he’s going to let secondary matters take over, no matter how important they might be, he would be like the merchant who was so bent on trying to keep the store clean he would never unlock the front door. The real reason for running the store is to have customers come in, not to clean it up. Anybody’s time can be completely used up.
We find this in Parkinson’s Law-if you have only one letter to write, it will take all day to do it. If you have twenty letters to do, you’ll get them done in one day. The most efficient time of life is the week before vacation. Why can’t we run our lives like the week before vacation . . . make decisions . . . clean off the desk . . . return the calls? A pastor needs to put himself under that same type of time limit from Sunday to Sunday. When Sunday comes he has to be prepared. I don’t know of a single successful minister who does all the administrative knick-knacks. It’s one of the differences between good and poor administration systems. A man with priorities learns how to teach people priorities.
For example, take the use of a secretary. I meet a lot of executives who do) not know how to use a secretary. If I want people to deal with my secretary on important matters, I must build her up to where they feel she’s capable. Therefore, every once in awhile, I’ll say, “You’ll find she is great on that. She can do that wonderfully well; in fact, she’s better at that than I am.” And they will feel it is an honor to deal with her. But she has to be good. You can’t kid about it. You have to build your assistants up and make people feel that they’re getting credible service-that the job is getting done.
If the pastor wants somebody else to do visitation, he’d better use illustrations in his sermons about the great things that have happened because someone besides himself did the visiting. If the only time his illustrations are about when he visited, the congregation will always expect his presence. Building up other people is an important part of leadership. People will accept direction by illustration, comment, private conversation, by the way you handle your own family, by the way you model what you believe to be true.
Back in 1965 we heard you give a talk at a Youth for Christ convention in Pittsburgh on various aspects of stress. Do you still think about this?
Well, stress is one of the “in” subjects right now, especially in management circles. Recently I had a visit with Dr. David Morrison who is a national authority on the subject. It’s interesting that he considers stress to be part of a healthy person. He spends his time with corporate executives. Incidentally, he told me that city management, which is one of the most stressful of all jobs, has one of the lowest divorce rates.
One of the important things about stress is being able to define the areas in which you are helped by having stress. The first step toward healthy stress is to define the problem. The best definition I’ve heard of a problem is a problem is something I can do something about. If I can’t do anything about it, it is not my problem. It doesn’t become my problem until I can do something about it. If I can’t do anything about it, it’s my fact of life. And I have to constantly be able to recognize facts of life, accept them, live with them, and not consider them problems. I can’t solve things that can’t be solved; therefore I don’t spend time thinking about them.
 A young executive came up to me one morning and asked, “May I see you?” I stepped over to the side of the room to talk with him and noticed he just trembled all over. He said, “Last night was the most meaningful night of my life. Do you notice anything wrong with me?” I said, “You’re trembling.” “Yes. I was listening last night when you were talking about problems and facts of life. All my life I’ve trembled, and I guess I’ll tremble the rest of my life. But last night I went up to my room and I came to peace with it. It’s not my problem any more; it’s my fact of life.”
Many people call things problems that aren’t problems. Company policy isn’t an employee’s problem. It’s his fact of life. People who are small in stature say their problem is that they are short. No, that’s a fact of life. In stress, health comes from being able to say, “I will not be oppressed or anxious about things I can do nothing about.”
How would you apply this concept to a church environment?
It often applies to denominational hierarchy, or differences in local congregations. There are lots of things one can do nothing about. To meddle with a problem in which you are not involved, and to which you can’t really make any contribution . . . well, it seems to me that there is a verse in Proverbs that says something like, “To meddle with a problem that is not your own is to take a dog by the ears.” That was humorous to me until I started thinking about it. How do you turn a dog loose after you’ve grabbed him by both ears and made him mad? And which hand do you turn loose first, and which arm will he bite first? If you turn loose with both arms, he’ll get you in the seat of the pants! That’s a very practical picture of what happens when you are just passing by and then inject yourself into a problem. The best way to get whipped is to try to separate a man and his wife who want to fight. They’ll both thrash you and then go back to fighting. Be sure you can make a contribution to something before you begin to meddle.
It boils down to healthy stress or unhealthy stress. Some stress is desirable and healthy. For example, stage fright. I never want to speak if I’m not scared; when I’m not scared I tend not to care enough about what the listener thinks. I don’t care whether I get the subject across or not; all I want to do is get done and go home. But if I’m scared, I know I’ll have the proper tension to do the right kind of job. I know of nothing that will give the energy and creativity that healthy tension and stress will give.
The world is generally in the hands of the energetic. You see this economically-Japan, West Germany, Israel. America is getting less energetic. I’m talking about human energy, mental energy, physical energy, psychological energy. And a great deal of this energy comes from healthy tension.
It is more-or-less accepted that an executive job is a stressful job. I kid some of my friends and say that there really is not that much stress in it. We want to say it’s stressful because it’s a psychological justification for the high salaries we get. After all, no one should have a job where you can be healthy, happy, and everything else-you ought to pay a price for it The assumed price is ulcers, heart attacks, and things like that despite the fact there’s little medical validation for it. But we always assume you must sacrifice your health.
Actually, it’s the person in middle management who gets crunched. The medical statistics about him are pretty gruesome compared to the person on top.
Don’t ask, “Is this a tense se job?” That’s the wrong question. The right question is whether or not I’m tense. If I were expected to walk a tightwire, I would be filled with stress. For the Wallendas, it doesn’t seem to be nearly as stressful. On this point people say to me, “How do I know what my talents are?” I think stress provides some of the best clues.
For example, I did a television show with Roger Staubach. As we were talking I asked, “Roger, how do you feel about throwing an interception?” He said, “Man, when I throw one I can’t wait to get my hands on that football. I can’t wait to throw another pass.” “What if there’s a second interception?” “It makes it even worse; I really want to throw that ball.” Roger’s strong at throwing a football. When he makes a mistake, he’s challenged to try again. The person who is not nearly that good gets scared when he throws an interception.
You see, mistakes that challenge you show the areas of your strength. Mistakes that threaten you show the areas of your weakness. I somewhat facetiously say that humiliation is the porthole through which God can bring you blessing. There is just nothing like making a poor speech to challenge me to make ten good ones.
If we remember correctly, during your YFC lecture you made interesting distinctions between vertical and horizontal tensions. Would you touch on the differences?
It’s easy with stress to differentiate. Vertical tensions I call healthy because they have a tendency to pull you together rather than pull you apart. For example, selflessness is a vertical tension. A horizontal which tends to pull you apart is just the opposite-selfishness. Tension in the selfish person is always self-oriented and will destroy him. A sense of responsibility is a vertical tension. Always looking for “my rights” is a horizontal tension. The fear of God is a vertical tension. The fear of man is a horizontal tension.
When you identify and put controls on your tensions (and I think you can control your tensions a great deal), you turn the horizontal or the harmful tensions into healthy tensions by an act of the will. When I am being selfish, by an act of the will I can do some selfless things and change my tensions. Or, if I will stop thinking about my rights and start thinking about my responsibilities I change my tensions. It is no secret that a good way to get into a fight with your wife is to start talking about your rights. (You’ll get more than your rights. You’ll get lefts.) But the whole scene changes if you go home and say, “Honey, I’d like to talk about my responsibilities.”
How would you speak to deeper stress in each of us, our drives for fulfillment which bring on stress?
Recently a customer in an insurance company asked me how I harmonized Christian humility and good self-image, which he identified as ego appreciation of one’s self. His question came from a concern about a young person who needed to develop a better image of himself and was having problems trying to correlate ego appreciation with Christian
humility. I’ve been thinking about this ever since and I think that I have at least a piece of an answer. What we’re really talking about is identification of worth. In ego we establish our own worth. In the Christian context we let God establish our worth. How does he establish our worth? First, he made us unique; then he died for us. This fact is incomprehensible. I cannot grasp that Christ, the son of God, died for me. I can intellectually tell you that God died for me, but I cannot comprehend it. If I could, it would absolutely revolutionize my self-i image.
If the President of the United States offered to die for me, I would expect to be interviewed by every member of the media and asked why and how it was to happen, and so forth. That would just be on his offer to die. If he actually was willing, his mentality would be checked out; there would be weeks of psychological studies on him and then there would be all kinds of studies on me. It would be one of the great events of history-that a President was willing to die for one of the citizens.
Well, we’re dealing with the same concept when we talk about God dying for man. It’s too big to comprehend. Even if we had an inkling of it, it would give us self-worth. Egomania-horizontal tension-gives relative value; Christianity-vertical tension-gives absolute value. It seems to me that I would be a total fool not to exchange my evaluation of myself for God’s, if I really believed he existed. For if a person could see his worth by God’s evaluation rather than by his own selfevaluation or somebody else’s, it would give him absolute, eternal worth.
Now apply this to a pastor who has only a hundred members in his church, or perhaps the pastor who is intimidated by his congregation. He often preaches to people who are more educated, better traveled, better paid, and more sophisticated than he may feel he is. He looks at the “status measurement” charts in the magazines and finds that pastors don’t rank very high on the “most highly admired profession” lists.
If I were a pastor I would hope to look out at an audience that might be superior to me in everything you can name-looks, stature, money, background, family, society, education, anything-and I could in great peace say, “I really believe it is God’s will for me to tell you about hi n, because I may believe more in the reality of God than any one of you. And that’s all I’m trying to help you understand-the reality of God and your relationship to him. I’m trying to be a specialist in relationships with God.” As long as he can stand up in the pulpit and say, “I know God; I’ve spent time with him,” I doubt if he would have self-consciousness about talking to anybody. If he hasn’t been dabbling in these other horizontal areas but has concentrated on the vertical-his relationship with God-then he doesn’t have to be afraid of anybody.
What about the effect of unhealthy stress physically? ,I have great respect for the human body. I think it has a marvelous way of warning us, of repairing itself, and adapting itself. I try to accept a physical pain and discomfort as if it were a phone call. Something down inside is saying, “Buddy, there’s a little problem here.”
Everyone goes through times of depression, of feeling low. Life is a cycle, and there will always be lows and highs; they are normal and natural. t accept them. Sometimes I will arrive at a meeting and say, “Hey, folks, I hope you’re going to pep me up. Don’t move too fast at the start because I’m slow today. I won’t be able to keep a fast pace.” You don’t have to be superior in mind, body, spirit, or anything else to be a leader. You have to be willing to accept responsibility and do a good job with it.
We can often tell when we’re under stress, for we can’t see the funny side anymore. We lose our sense of humor.
I think of a sense of humor exactly as I do the little lead balance on an automobile rim. It doesn’t cost much, but you can’t run very fast without it being in the right place. It holds that wheel right in balance, and if it doesn’t, you wear the tire out and do a lot of wobbling.
You mentioned depression. When you get it, how do you handle it?
We all have touches of depression. I’ve found a sure cure for mild depression and a guarantee for its continuation. The guarantee for its continuation is inactivity. The sure cure for its cessation is activity. If I feel the least bit depressed, I don’t dare sit and meditate, although I’m always tempted to meditate my way out of depression. That’s as impossible as Joseph trying to meditate his way out of the bedroom of Potiphar’s wife. Certain things just do not go together. Meditating your way out of depression doesn’t work.
Most people in a state of depression say, “Leave me alone, I need to think about this.”
Yes, you want to stew about it. If I immediately get busy, particularly with something that makes me physically tired-something that I enjoy doing-I find any kind of mild depression will leave. You’ve got to use your will power in various ways to change unhealthy stress.
We could probably center this whole interview on stress. But let’s go back to prioritizing for a moment, which relates to it. We often hear pastors say, “O.K., if I’m going to be the ‘great’ preacher, someone else must do the administration.” Doesn’t the average congregation expect the pastor to carry the ball?
One time I became interested in trying to find a job in the Bible like our preacher has. You can’t find one like the modern preacher to save your life. There’s no job in there like that! We don’t have a Scriptural set-up. We have one that’s grown up out of tradition. And I’m not too sure but that ministers haven’t developed it themselves. Like everyone else, they reached for more and more authority, more and more prestige, more and more power, and created for themselves a job which nobody else can do. It takes an absolute genius to adequately do the pastor’s job.
One morning I thought, “What if today I were a pastor instead of a corporation president?” That idea scared me to death. I am totally inadequate to really fulfill the job that most pastors have. I’m afraid many of them are inadequate, also.
In other conversations we’ve had with you, we’ve heard you allude to three different organizational systems. Could you talk about that?
Yes, I call them the poor human system, the good human system, and the spiritual system. Presently I am involved in studying the spiritual system. I’ve had a great deal of experience with the poor human system and some with the good human system; and not until rather recently did I see a different type of church management that intrigued me. I’ve been studying it-not fully understanding it-but seeing that there is a difference, not in degree, but in kind.
Would you briefly describe these three systems of management for us?
I can give you some identifying marks. This is a very personal opinion that comes from observing and participating in many churches for over fifty years. Most churches are run on the poor human system, a kind of system you’d run a marginal business with. In a marginal church you have a “Mom and Pop” operation and both ‘Mom and Pop” are tired, harassed, and limited. One may serve different functions than the other, sometimes not even identified functions. Sometimes Mom is a better financier than Pop so she handles the cash register. Pop may have more energy than Mom and so when he’s on the premises, he keeps the store open longer. He may sit at the front door while she sits at the back, or they may reverse it. I see churches run this way. The pastor and his wife are running a “Mom and Pop” operation. The church will not pay Mom, although they expect her to work. She runs the missionary society, helps with the catering, makes calls with Pop, and usually plays the organ. If she’s really strong she may teach a class and even quietly help him prepare the sermon. Though she is not paid, she comes under the same review as “Pop.” These “Mom and Pop” operations never grow very big because Mom and Pop have to see to everything and do everything.
Some insidious things usually start to happen. Mom and Pop often learn to like this management style and they become attached to the location, or at least they don’t know another place to go. And, being human, security becomes very important to them. If Cop isn’t the greatest preacher on earth, then the people he invites in to preach have to preach worse than he does-Mom’s going to see to that! This is so human that we can quickly appreciate it and understand it.
Now, what happens? Mom and Pop, inadvertently form a small clique. They want a hand in who is on the board of deacons, who is doing everything-even the janitoring-so the janitor will be sure to come and tell them what he heard from the members who didn’t know he was listening. This control system is initiated out of desire for security. It is one of the most limiting factors that can exist in an organization. Directly or indirectly, many smaller churches are controlled by Mom and Pop, and you’ll find they come in varying degrees of attractiveness. Sometimes Mom and Pop are pretty hard to get along with, sometimes they’re great, sometimes they fight with each other, sometimes they are a wonderful team.
The poor human administration has nothing to do with doctrine. The spread can be anything from super-fundamentalist to liberal. The poor human system is a management style . . . a style that can be spotted the moment you walk in the front door. Pop leads the singing, makes the announcements, prays the prayer, preaches the sermon, pronounces the benediction, and runs down the aisle to shake hands with the people at the door. He does everything-just like a small businessman- because it is his little operation. It’s the only system he knows. And God bless Mom and Pop! A vast number of Christians would not be blessed if they didn’t exist.
I’ve often wanted to sit down and say to them, “Do you know there’s another system? Do you know there’s a way to do all this and not work yourself to death?”
Lay people help in perpetrating this human system. They enjoy the familiarity with Mom and Pop. It helps them know where their place is in the congregational mix. They like the paternalistic, benevolent feel that comes from Mom and Pop, and they develop their own form of “clout” by being part of Mom and Pop’s personal family.
We have to be very careful when we talk about the poor human system in a church. Poor human system doesn’t mean poor Christian experience. Some of the finest, most meaningful Christian experiences one can possibly have will be found in a church run by the poor human administration.
But if the poor human system is so inefficient and security oriented, how can you say that the “most meaningful Christian experience possible” can come out of this kind of an environment?
Remember, when I say system, I’m talking about the administrative system, I’m not talking about theology or Spirit. We must make the distinction that there is no system where humans can accomplish what only God can do. One of the great failures of the church is that we often try to accomplish with a human system (good or poor) what only God can do.
For example, we cannot accomplish with a revival activity or renewal program the salvation of souls. Whenever we substitute people walking down an aisle, or new church members, or numerical growth for spiritual transformation, we’re trying to do through a human system what cannot be done.
Regardless of the system, one of the most important things to learn is to delegate to God as well as to your support staff. If I were a minister, one of the first things I would declare is that God is my boss. My boss could not be the chairman of the board or trustees. The day that I genuinely quit believing God was my boss, I’d get out of the ministry.
Of course, this too has problems. God is often viewed as an absentee boss. Branch offices get into trouble when there’s an absentee manager. Some corporate officers get carried away and do very self-serving things that get the company into trouble because the stockholders are absentee owners. The closer the relationship between the owner and the manager, the better the place will be run. In the same way, the more God’s presence is felt in any church, the better it will be run. The quality of spiritual blessing comes not from the system, but from God.
Would you describe the good human system?
The key to a good human system is a dynamic leader. This is a man who could make it in business, ministry, or almost anything. He has that rare combination of abilities to preach, teach, and administer. When I say good human system, I’m talking about good human management, the kind that can be taught through an MBA program.
What are the characteristics of this system?
Good human managers are organized and understand organization. They understand human nature. For example, Napoleon’s strength was that he understood what men would do in war. A good human system preacher understands what people will do in a religious context as well as in a human context. Thus he knows how to motivate them. A good human leader understands that any successful operation is run by a small oligarchy, and that the oligarchy is controlled by one man. Egotism plays a big part in the human system.
You’re saying that he understands power?
He understands how things get done! He doesn’t argue with it or philosophize about it; he accepts it.
He isn’t always apologizing, “Well, I hate to get things done this way, but. … ” He genuinely believes that he knows the way to get things done, and he sees it happen time and time again. He knows how to utilize people’s strengths and buttress their weaknesses. He knows that people don’t basically change. People enthusiastically do what they can do well, and drag their feet on what they can’t do well.
For example, the good human system requires that you divide work into its logical parts. Then, you put somebody in charge who has the capability of doing it. When the good human leader starts using a new person, he always assigns rather than delegates to him. Assigning means telling him what you want, what time you want it, and how you want it done. And you expect him to do it himself while you watch the task get done. As you develop experience with this person, you find there are certain things you can delegate to him. Delegating is the second step; you simply tell him what problem you’d like to have solved and he develops and implements the solution. But you must have working experience with somebody in order to move from assignment to delegation. I’ve seen people who bypassed the assignment process, delegated prematurely, and then damned the delegation system. We have all seen new Christians, particularly wealthy or famous ones, hurt by overuse before they mature-God can wait for them to mature; it’s the rest of us who get overanxious to use them in our programs.
Many clergy as well as lay leaders have asked us to speak about the concepts of power and authority in this issue of LEADERSHIP. How do you view power and authority in the good human system?
In the good human system your capacity to organize is often based upon the recognized authority you possess. The different kinds of authority are an increasing study. On one level you have people who feel that God has endowed them in such a special way that they can tell people what to do. It’s a kind of messianic complex. There are leaders who really believe they were given the priestly role at birth, and that whether they exercise it or not, it still exists. People are to be subordinate to them whether they will admit it or not.
Another kind of authority is given authority. You give a man a title or an office. The title carries certain authority. It’s probably the most vulnerable kind of authority because people will often subtly test it. If all he has is the title of authority, pretty soon the testing will produce a breakdown and that person will be forced to compromise.
Then you have authority by means of dedication.
 In any organization those who are the most dedicated have a tendency to rise to levels of authority . . . even though it may be “behind-the-scenes” authority. They work harder and stay longer.
Superior knowledge is a form of authority. If you know more than anybody in the group, they will turn to you. But the moment somebody with superior knowledge enters the scene, you lose all of your authority to him. That’s why the pastor has to be very careful about building his authority on a superior knowledge of a theme in the Bible; he could be dropped if a better teacher or a more dramatic theme came along. This we see in the rise-and-fall of “current” Bible themes, all overemphasized, such as civil religion, tongues, the second coming, small groups, and so forth.
Franklin D. Roosevelt had the image of providing benefits for people. This gave him unparalleled political power. The people wanted him to be their four-term boss because they could expect good things from him. Few preachers can give things, but they can overdo “good feelings” and develop authority over many.
One of the things I like to do is write down on paper the basis of my authority. If my authority is ownership, that’s pretty recognizable. If I own a business, people recognize my ownership rights, but I must attend. If I don’t watch it, if I’m not exercising my ownership function, somebody will try to take it over. Squatters are not all poor. They are squatters on unoccupied authority. I have seen choirs form a “squatters rights” clique.
The way Henry Ford lost control of the Ford Foundation. …
Owning it doesn’t mean you’re going to remain in authority. In fact, one of the perils of the good human system is related to ownership. Ownership may mean you can throw others out, but then you’re faced with the terrible problem of how you’re going to run the system once they are gone.
One of the German philosophers told me that Hitler came to power in a power vacuum. There came that pause when nobody wanted to run the place and he was the only one who did and everyone else said, “Let him.” As soon as he was in power he set up a means to keep others from challenging him.
I don’t believe a Christian can have a conscience for that kind of power. But in the church I’ve seen key people get tired of serving in major capacities (and they all seem to get tired at the same time), and suddenly mediocre people are in power simply because the others defaulted or decided they wanted to rest. Power is not an inert thing . . . it’s like mercury . . . it flows. A capable leader, like a good coach, looks to the bench for continuity in winning.
You’ve talked about the more readily identifiable uses and abuses of power in the good human system. Would you speak about the less obvious forms?
I have yet to find a man of great power and staying ability who didn’t operate on a mandate. There are many kinds of mandates and most of them are spurious. Men who understand the use of power know that power is resented in its raw form. You have to clothe it. And you clothe it with a mandate. We continue in a history-filled tradition of mandates. “The imminent coming of the Lord demands our immediate attention.” That’s a mandate. “Fear must be conquered ” That’s a mandate; And holding the reins of the mandate will be a man . .. sometimes a demigod, but usually a well meaning individual who sincerely believes, “To accomplish this mandate, I of necessity must exercise such-and-such power.”
“We must evangelize ten thousand souls this next year?”
That’s a mandate! If anyone came out and said I’m going to show you how I, and I alone, can reach the world this next year, we’d say, “That’s pure arrogance.” So such power is usually hidden under a mandate to get people to accept it.
How would you summarize the characteristics of the good human system?
 Motivation in the good human system is identical to the motivation used in any other successful human process. Participation, recognition, rotation, the feeling of belonging, moving up through the ranks, one title after the other-all of these principles are the same anywhere.
Rotation?
Right. A person gets tired of teaching one grade level so you move him to another grade level so he won’t lose interest in teaching. If a person’s tired of being on one committee, you put him on another committee to keep him excited. Also, you protect the organization by rotation. You keep someone from sitting in a job until he thinks he owns it (squatters).
With a good system you must set up feed-back systems. You must find your troublemaker and remove him. However, the good human system leader never goes head to head with him. You develop people whose specialty is removal procedures. In business they are called hatchetmen. Transferred to the church, this process takes on more of a “spiritual” tone. It’s like a hive. The queen might want a drone removed, but she never stings the drone. The other bees do. The whole transaction may be couched in very pious tones, involving even public prayer.
Privately, the men I know in the good human system are very candid with their close associates.
However, they take a long time to move a person into the “inside” group. I noticed that John Connally said, “I have very few close friends and I take a long time to make one.” What he may be saying is, there are parts to my life or organization I don’t want anyone to see until I trust them.
Good human leaders are lonely, but they don’t necessarily try to avoid loneliness-they accept it as “part of the price.” I mentioned this one time to the president of an architectural firm and he said, “You’ve just identified all my problems. Because I hate to be lonely and I’m always telling my associates about my half-baked plans, bad things begin to happen to me.” He didn’t realize that everyone who would be helped by his half-baked plan began to support it, and everyone who would be hurt by it started to work against it . . . before it was even formulated! Confusion and polarization were born out of his desire to talk.
I sat one night with a young president of an electronics company, and he said, “Fred, it gets very lonely in this office. I’m glad to have the chance just to sit and talk.” It was 2:00 a.m. when he said that.
In the good human system, people who share everything with everybody tend to be less than great leaders. Most great leaders appear open, but are often closed. In fact, in the good human system, hypocrisy is often a requirement. This is one of the reasons I do not feel it is a system that God would prefer to use. For example, if the leader wanted Deacon Smith removed, he would publicly shed great tears about the “trouble” in the Body, and how the Lord had helped him to identify this problem, and how the Lord needed to help him help these people.” Invoking the Lord is a smoke screen. It is the “good” human system working in its best and worst fashion. And this is the hypocrisy that bothers me. But keep in mind that I’m convinced that God’s going to use whatever system is around. I think this is part of his sovereignty. I also think it is part of his humor. Remember the old saw, “God can use any kind of vessel except a dirty one”? Well, from my experience, that is the only kind he can use. We are sinners.
As an aside, there are certain principles I have accepted that have given me a kind of relaxation about these matters.; I am convinced of the sovereignty of God. God doesn’t need me. God loves me. This is so different from human ways because we only love people or things we need. God doesn’t need us and still loves us. That’s another thought too big for my mind. It can be understood only by my heart. When I really believe in the sovereignty of God, and that God doesn’t need me or anybody else, and that his plan is going to be ultimately successful, it gives me a relaxation that cancels a lot of fear and anxiety. People inevitably say, “Well, how are you going to get God’s work done? How are you going to motivate people to evangelize?” You see, they’re humanizing. What is really being said is that God’s work cannot be done any way except by the human plan. It’s part of our love of legalism; it’s part of our humanizing of God; it’s part of our lack of belief in the sovereignty of God.
The motivations in the good human system are absolutely human. The politics are human. You bring in the people that you can count on. You never let a person into the inner circle until you have his vote in your pocket. You never take a chance on a person who might vote on an issue as he sees it. The system admits a person who will question the issue but is sure to vote with the group. Questioning the issue is a safeguard, but you don’t take a chance of him voting against you. After he does that once or twice he’s out.
Now wait a minute! You’re saying this is a description of how good and great leaders lead? How is the person reading this supposed to respond to these descriptions?
I’m not saying “great” leaders. There are those with solidness of character, strength of spirit, and dedication to a cause. They are the great exceptions we all long to follow but see so seldom. I know the danger of naming anyone, but it helps to personify types. Whenever I have been around Hudson Armerding he has impressed me as a man who truly wants to be a good man. Most of us want to be recognized as good, but few truly want to pay the price. In corporate life Howard Pew approached this type, as does Maxey Jarman. I feel safe in naming these because each would castigate me for putting them up as examples. Those who would enjoy being named are like the man who won an award for humility, and then when he wore it had it taken away from him. I won’t name any of those who might typify the wrong, because more and more I am convicted about criticizing the servants of God. They are his, and his to criticize. Anyone going to heaven is my brother and part of the body of Christ; so if I have to live with him in heaven I might as well get on with it down here. In this interview we’re talking about systems.
There is always a subtle relationship between motivation and manipulation in effective human leadership. Motivation is moving along together in mutual advantage. Manipulation is moving along together for my advantage. If I were going to write a book on motivation and expected it to be a big seller, I would title it, “How to Get People to Do What I Want Them To.” It wouldn’t be about motivation, it would be about manipulation. Motivation is letting people recognize joint interest, and then moving together toward that mutual interest. In the spiritual system, you only need motivation. In the good human system, often manipulation and motivation are combined.
It all boils down to this. God is not as interested in the end as he is in the means. Man is more interested in the end than in the means. We value the end over the means. God values the means over the end. The means is the method by which he is maturing us. His purpose for us isn’t that we “succeed.” His purpose is that we mature, and we mature by the process. Therefore, the process must be pure.
But man doesn’t see it this way. Man says the end is a successful church. The end is numbers, the end is respect, the end is “stars for the crown.” And in all of these varying concerns about the end, we become very careless about the means, because we don’t recognize that the means is the method by which God is developing us. His end is our maturity, not our “success.” For example if you ask any pastor, “Will money make any difference in the hereafter?” he would say no. And yet in subtle, almost subconscious ways, many pastors will snuggle up to the rich in the church because they represent the means to achieve certain ends. I can almost hear some rich person say, “Pastor, will my wealth make any difference in the hereafter?”
“Absolutely not.” If the rich were open enough they would then ask, “Then why does it make so much difference here in the church if not in the hereafter?”
What you are saying is that the means is the maturation process.
I believe God wants to get us as close to maturity as he possibly can. Here in America we are basing a great deal of our Christian success on the good human system-a system taken right out of industry and entertainment. In many cases ministers could be replaced with non-Christian executives. This scares me.
What are your views on the spiritual system?
While the good human system is based upon a dynamic, highly-motivated, competent leader, the spiritual system is built around-not upon-a shepherd whose purpose is to develop mature Christians-not a facility, a memorial, or a human organization. He looks at a facility as helpful but not vital. Organization is part of the process . . . for himself as well as for the flock. In human systems the individual leader doesn’t tend to mature spiritually because his purpose mitigates against spiritual maturity. In the maneuvering and the manipulations and the passing out of the accolades, the human system leader is forced to claim more spiritual maturity than he has.
That’s sobering. It could be a trap for any of us.
Spiritual system leaders push the dynamics of growth and leadership toward their people for the people’s benefit, rather than pull from the people the dynamics of “growth and leadership” that will ultimately benefit themselves.
You watch a human system leader and he will often slowly start to satisfy his ego off of the organization instead of sacrificing his ego to the organization. He eventually comes to that dangerous turning point where he goes from cause orientation to self orientation. When he begins his leadership he may be very cause oriented, but as he sees the cause prosper he starts to embezzle from the cause- either praise, credit, position, or money. The things that should have gone to God he starts to take. His actions say, “I’m motivating these people to bring these things to the altar, therefore I ought to have a little of it. I ought to get a commission.” Once he starts this process his commission begins to climb, and soon he has gone from 1 percent to 15 percent to 50 percent. In extreme cases he finally says, “Well, God really doesn’t need it and since I’m God’s man I’ll just take it all.” Thank God these people are few in number.
Fred, you’ve been coming down very hard on the leader. Isn’t it possible he gets caught up in the momentum of the system?
Of course this is possible. However, he can’t effectively lead any system unless he has a natural tendency, understanding, and love for that system.
The human system is built on ego. For example: it almost always removes time for meditation and time for God. When you talk to many of these human system leaders they seriously and sincerely decry their need for more time to personally pray and study the Bible. They study the Bible to preach, but they don’t study it in order to live. I find that when I’m studying to speak, it’s an entirely different situation than when I’m digging for myself. These leaders have a great tendency to never find this kind of time because of “the system.” They have committees to attend and meetings to run. Have you ever noticed how these people have a great dramatic sense for appearing at every committee meeting as though it was the Second Coming? They have this sixth sense for dropping in and blessing the place with their presence.
The people of India have a word “darshan”-that blesses-where the spiritual leader stands and the people walk under his shadow. The human system leader has many ways of doing this. Have you ever heard someone say, “At three this morning I awoke and the presence of God was upon me and God was saying to me. … “? You see, everyone who hears this tends to think, “Stupid me, I was sound asleep. No wonder this man is a man of God-he’s talking to God at three in the morning.” This is a means of establishing authority. Or he says, “I am convinced that building this edifice to God is God’s will.” And the followers meekly put in marble the date and the name of the pastor. And if that doesn’t get the job done, they’ll also chisel in the committee names. You can go to the airport and find the same thing. Good human leadership qualities always leave the same identifying marks, whether they be found in industry, politics, or the church.
But the leader of the spiritual system is different. By definition, he is not an administrator. He’s a shepherd. The shepherd is involved in administration, but it’s one of the functions of the church-not his personal function. He doesn’t train the sheep to walk in tens and twenties or by age groups with the separation of men and women because he knows that isn’t too important. He knows how many sheep there are, and he is prepared to take drastic action if one is missing. But, his function does not revolve around personal power. A function that is saturated with responsibility is very different from a function that is saturated with power.
A pastor told me he was going to Africa with his staff, and I asked him how many he was going to take. He said, “All of them. All the personnel- eleven ministers.” I said, “Who’s going to run the church?” He said, “The same lay people who are running it when we’re here.”
His job wasn’t to run the church. His job was to minister to people. I don’t know of very many human systems that could stand the strain of every paid worker being gone for six weeks. The place would fold up.
When I speak to American Management Association meetings I can always tell the insecure corporate presidents whose offices have not called as often as they would like. They are scared to death that the business is running without them. You find parents like this-scared to death the kids are going to get along without them.
 The spiritual system utilizes people by their gifts. Its function is ministry and its object is maturation.
I overheard some preachers talking about membership a short time ago. “How many members do you have?” one asked the other. He answered, “One thousand.” He turned to another preacher and said, “And how many do you have?” He answered, “Three thousand.” They all turned to me and asked, “How many members do you have in your church?” I said, “A lot more than either of you. Do I get on top of the totem pole?”
What significance do numbers have? The thing in the human system we’re most proud of, we should be most ashamed of. In the First Century it was impossible to unite thousands of Christians in one body and fail to revolutionize, not a city, not a state, but a country.-The very fact that we can proudly put thousands of born-again people together and not make much more than a ripple on the life of a neighborhood shows our weakness, not our strength. What is our pride, should be our shame.
It’s like the question that the German press posed to Billy Graham when they asked something like, “We keep hearing about the tremendous strength of American evangelicals If this is true, why does America have so many problems?”
There’s only one answer for it. We’re spiritually weak. We’re spiritually immature. It’s like a phrase I often think about when I’m speaking-“While the audience laughed, the angels cried.” The church’s vitality can not be measured in the number of meetings, the number of people, or the things that can be accomplished by human means. The church cannot be evaluated by any human scale.
You know, it is very unusual to hear a man from corporate life talk with such intensity and conviction about something besides the “bottom line.”
Well, if we really believed the church belonged to God we wouldn’t want to “bottom line” it. But because we really believe it belongs to both God and us, we want to numerically evaluate it. We want to see how we’re doing so we can be proud of it. We all know the temptation on figures. I’ve never met anyone in religious life who underestimated numbers pertaining to his organization. It’s an accepted practice to “puff a little air” into the numbers.
Wouldn’t it be different to hear a preacher say, “I want a church whose size will be determined by the maturity of the individual members.” It would mean that he has control of his ego. He can’t have his eye on the “big” church or the bishop’s job. Both pastors and laymen have become so busy and so traditional and so habit-bound, that we don’t stop and ask, “Is this God’s or is it mine? Am I treating it as God’s or am I treating it as mine? Am I motivated by ministry, or am I motivated by desire and human ambition?”
You mentioned before that the spiritual system is built upon the gifts of the people around a pastor rather than upon the pastor. Can you conceive of this happening?
Do you mean a church that isn’t a pyramid with the senior pastor on top? I haven’t thought about it long enough. Ray Stedman has asked me to think about it. And I think some of the things Ray is doing, maybe unconsciously, have a tendency to accomplish this. For example, he leans away from building a sanctuary large enough to accommodate the entire membership, because he wants them to meet all over town. A church large enough to accommodate everyone at 11 a.m. would help to create a pyramid with a visible peak.
Another way to help prevent the development of a pyramid structure would be to develop ministers who do not have specialized functions. If four men share the preaching you break some of “the pecking order.” Humanly speaking, such a concept is undesirable, for many pastors work all their lives to become the senior minister.
When I read Ray’s book, Body Life, I didn’t think it was a complete statement of what went on. While riding with Ray back to an airport I said, “You left the heart out of Body Life. What you have written won’t work.” Naturally Ray was surprised and he said, “I tried to be honest.” You can’t make Ray defensive, which to me is one of the saintly qualities. “What you have left out is what most of us can’t do,” I told him. “You have gained control of your ego. And without control of your ego, the Body Life system won’t work.”
I have a suspicion that at some time in Ray’s life he dedicated his ego to God. This is not saying Ray isn’t human. It’s simply saying that I believe he has come to the place of saying, “This ministry is God’s.” I don’t think it would disturb Ray if he were to be called into business or medicine or anything else. I think he could walk away from The Peninsula Bible Church and not expect them to build a big building and name it the Stedman Memorial Auditorium. t
Would you for a moment assume the perspective of a pastor and comment about the working relationship you would try to establish with the lay leadership of a church?
It’s very difficult for me to project myself into the ministerial role. I’ve always said that God would have to call me audibly to get me to take that job. One of the things I’ve been grateful for is that I have never really felt called. I’m sure there are churches that are grateful for the same thing!
If l were pastor of a church I would have to take as my first concern the spiritual vitality of the leadership, not the political vitality. I would try to see that the lay leadership took seriously what we together claimed to profess. If I saw that they did not take it seriously-and I don’t think it’s very difficult to find out whether a man takes seriously his faith- then I would see it as my task to individually help them. I would not pour guilt on them, because I’ve become convinced that I can make a man feel dirty, but I can’t make him want to be clean. Only the Spirit can make him want to be clean. I would make every effort to help each one come to a genuine belief in the hereafter, the judgment of God, and the relationship and the availability of God.
Ray Stedman does something that I never understood until recently. Their elders’ hoard makes no major decision until they get absolute unanimity. Not a majority vote, but a unanimous vote. I told him that was totally impractical. Then I started to see what was happening. Think of the tremendous responsibility of being the only person who kept something from being done. If you really believe in the judgment of God and the hereafter, and this belief affects your day-to-day relation with God, you will take your lay leadership quite seriously. So I see a totally new reason for this kind of decision making I had never seen before.
I think Ray does it because he feels it’s scriptural; but I see the practical reality. It wouldn’t work if the people didn’t have a spiritual vitality, because they would get a great satisfaction out of having the power to stop the whole process. Here, instead of having the right to stop it, they have the responsibility for stopping it. It’s a totally different dynamic.
As a pastor I would also ask the lay leaders to be monitors of my spiritual vitality. I can’t assume, because I’m the pastor, that I will always have spiritual vitality. I would appreciate it if one of my leaders came to me and said, “Pastor, I sense that you’re a little low. I came to pray with you. May I read Scripture with you?”
That is really “becoming one of the boys,” when you are close enough to your lay leadership for them to talk to you about your spiritual vitality, and you to talk to them about theirs. That would be the heart of a successful church operated on a spiritual basis.
Copyright © 1980 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
