RECENTLY I ATTENDED A WIDELY ADVERTISED, elite conference for Christian leaders preparing for the future. It was well presented, well attended, and impressive. When they asked for my evaluation, I pointed out that the material presented was the same material I had presented years before in speaking to the presidents’ conference of the American Management Association. It was good management and leadership methodology but not spiritual.
No one at that conference discussed maintaining the spiritual vitality of the leader, the most important element in Christian leadership. The new methodology does not depend on the presence of the Holy Spirit but upon research and human leadership.
The church is a spiritual organization, not a human one. Human methods work in business but eventually drain the power and effectiveness of a spiritual endeavor. Human methods can grow a church, build an impressive facility, create exciting programs, and develop strong leadership, but not spiritual leadership.
If we define the church’s success by human criteria, then human methods work, and work well. However, if the church’s success is measured by new birth, not new members; by maturity, not activity; and by fellowship, not by member entertainment, then scriptural leadership is necessary. God is as interested in the method as he is in the results.
Human methods assume Christian leaders are ranchers, not shepherds. But those called to be shepherds are not equipped by gift or ambition to be ranchers. The danger is that the call will turn into a profession, that the spiritual leader will possess the same motivation, personality, and skills that the corporate executive does.
Human leadership is motivated by power, prestige, and money (including perks). The system is set up to provide these, which are not the motivations of a spiritual leader. Most pastors do not have the ambition, competitiveness, or toughness of most ceos, and their master is the Lord, not a board of directors or stockholders. I have spent many years in American industry, both as an officer and a board member, as well as serving many years as chairman of several national ministries. The purpose of the corporation and the purpose of the church are very different. The church is not a corporation. The church exists for relationship with God and other believers, not for profit. It is more a living organism than an organization. The members are not employees to be hired and fired based on their efficiency.
Let me define power, prestige, and money as motivation: the power to perpetuate the leader’s control as well as the life of the organization; to institute programs and procedures and see that they succeed, penalizing those who fail; to arrange people by results and reward loyalty; to combine with others in mergers or acquisitions; to influence one’s successor and, ultimately, to control one’s personal destiny.
In prestige this type of leader gets recognition, respect—for himself and his organization. This person is catered to, often attaining celebrity status. Prestige gives him social and political inclusion among the elite. He can join the best clubs, be elected to positions of power, honor, and influence. With financial reward he finds security as well as “the good life,” meaning comfort and often luxury, which often rewards such a leader much more than he deserves because he, in reality, controls the system.
Power, prestige, and money appeal to most of us, and to use methods that produce these will continue to be a temptation. I have seen spiritual leaders seduced into leaving their calling and becoming professionals in the American religious industry, which utilizes these same motivations and rewards. Unfortunately, they become ambitious, egotistical, metallic, and remote, only interested in people who advance their agenda. Self-love has taken over.
Those promoting this methodology predict dire results for those who stay with “old-fashioned, out-dated” methods. Others predict that only the megachurch will survive—that small churches may not be viable. But I think history shows small flocks will always be effective. The church’s basic functions have been and will be the salvation of the lost, the maturing of the saved, and the fellowship that encourages Christian living. This can be done in a small group as well as in a large one. The church still faces, no matter its size, two basic questions: Can Christ be Savior without being Lord? and Are members customers or distributors? The church of any size is faced with the temptation to make the irresponsible comfortable.
Spiritual leadership
In business I was taught not to criticize anything without having something better to recommend. Therefore I felt frustrated in criticizing those Christian leaders who I felt had forfeited their calling for a professional position. I’m not enough of a theologian to do an exhaustive Bible study defining spiritual leadership. Nor can I be happy coming up with a theoretical definition based on my own opinion.
As I wrestled with this problem, I suddenly thought of spiritual leaders I have known and their common denominators. I made a list of the outstanding qualities of three specific men, out of the many I have known, who are leading successful ministries (accomplishing their goals). These three with whom I have worked for years personify to me spiritual leadership.
These three would not remind you of each other if you met them separately. They are not tookie-cutter characters. They obviously have accepted their uniqueness and are not trying to portray an accepted image. I am positive, however, that if they met together, there would be instant harmony and absolutely no competitiveness. You’d be impressed by each one’s confidence yet genuine humility. They don’t talk humbly, they are humble. They have no hint of false humility. Their confidence is in their calling. When God calls, he equips with gifts and opportunities.
Each is highly intelligent; two won high academic honors, and I’m not sure about the academic achievements of the third. They have an intellectual curiosity that keeps them current yet a wisdom born of scriptural principles that keeps them wise. They do not look on their intelligence as a separation between themselves and others. Rather, they use it to serve others. Like a doctor who uses his health to serve the sick, so they use their intelligence and wisdom to serve the less knowledgeable.
All have a keen sense of personal relationship with God, both in doing his will and ultimately in being judged by him. Their goal is to hear “Well done, good and profitable servant.” Like the servants in the parable, they expect God to ask them about their profitability to him, not their personal enjoyment or celebrity status. (On the contrary, leaders seduced by power, prestige, and money may hear the Lord say, “You got your reward on earth. There is very little left for you up here.”) Their self-love has been lost in the cause of Christ.
These spiritual leaders seemingly delight in anonymity. They don’t seek honors or take time to do activities just for recognition. They, like Mother Teresa, would rather work than be honored. They quickly give any honor or recognition to others. Anonymity contributes to Christian solitude and meditation. Focus is a great time-saver.
Their vision is accreted, not impetuously arrived at by some special “three a.m. revelation” from God himself. They understand the power of genuine consensus and participation in a shared vision that all accept as having come from God. They never mandate vision on their organizations.
Each organization is exceptionally lean. Administration is a necessary evil and must be done as efficiently as possible in order to minimize the time and energy devoted to it. These spiritual leaders select associates according to gifts and passion, knowing that work delegated to people with the proper gifts and passion needs little supervision, only coordination to move the vision forward. None of them is cursed with the need to be needed. They are anxious for others to get the credit.
Each defines the intended accomplishment of the organization very specifically. It may be to change thinking, develop attitudes, influence behavior, or accomplish a specific mission. No matter what the organization is doing, it is well disciplined in getting defined results. These leaders are not interested in maintaining a program. If there’s no wheat coming out of the thresher, they shut it off. I have been impressed at how quickly they stop nonproductive activity.
Each is a creative thinker. Their minds range outside of the box. Knowing what they are trying to accomplish, they are able to see the opportunities as well as the problems.
Each has an unmistakable freshness to his life, as if the Spirit is continually pouring power into him. They have a deep peace, with no continual judging of themselves about whether they are doing what they ought to do or succeeding as they ought to succeed. There seems to be a deep spring of joy in their lives, and though they laugh very differently, they all laugh easily. They seem to have no image to protect and therefore are able to be personable on a one-on-one basis.
Something good today
Let me tell you a story I told two of these spiritual leaders:
Several years ago I had a major operation in the Methodist hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. My wife said she felt sorry for the doctors and hospital staff because she knew how executive I could be, meaning “how controlling I could be.” She knew I’d quiz the doctors about their qualifications, as pleasantly as possible, but as thoroughly as possible. For example, I had found out that the surgeon who was to operate on me had been on vacation, so I asked him to make me his second operation that day; I wanted him to get his hand back in the swing of things before he cut me. He laughed, and actually complied.
Then my wife knew I would put my management eye on the hospital, asking why they did what they did and why they arranged things the way they did, hoping to make some improvement. I was to be in the hospital a week, which would give me lots of supervising time.
But something happened that changed all that.
As I sat in the waiting room to be admitted, I was paged to the counter and asked to put all my valuables in a safety deposit box for the duration of my stay. As I put my watch, wallet, and other valuables in, it suddenly occurred to me that my ego was the asset I most valued, and I decided I would put it in the box with the other valuables. That meant I had to be totally submissive to the doctors and nurses, and cooperate with anything they asked. I kept my resolve for the entire week and never had a more enjoyable week in my life. I never knew what a relief it could be not to be establishing the pecking order with people, not to be focusing on the differences but the similarities. I found the joy of community rather than the responsibility of leadership.
Many nights I was awake, and the nurses would visit me. Other times I listened to the radio, both classical and jazz. Late one night the program was recordings of Bix Biederbeck, and the disc jockey read off the side men, including Bill Rank on trombone. It brought back a wonderful memory of finding that Bill Rank worked for me on the night shift in the plant after Dixieland jazz had lost its marketability. I remember talking to Bill about his time playing with Bix and encouraged him to get back into music. With the return of the popularity of Dixieland, he did just that.
The point of the story is that in the middle of the night, one of the nurses came in and said, “I’m going to ask something of you that I’ve never asked of another patient in my life.” When I nodded agreement, she said, “Down the hall we have a young woman who is dying, without a single flower in her room. You have nineteen arrangements. Could I take one to her? She is a black girl without anyone with her.”
I pointed to a beautiful arrangement made up of exotic flowers from Hawaii, sent to me by the Highland Park Presbyterian Church. In the middle was a beautiful bird of paradise. I suggested she take that. About thirty minutes later, the nurse came in choked with emotion and started walking around the room. She walked to the foot of my bed and squeezed my big toe and left the room. She was essentially saying, “Tonight we did something good.” I can never forget that feeling. Sometimes when I’m not sleeping at night, I wish the Lord would squeeze my toe and say, “We did something good today.”
The spiritual leaders whom I write about identified with that story. “We did something good today” is their heart’s desire.
I’m sure if I let all three leaders read this, they would not identify themselves in this chapter. They may see in it something of what they believe they try to do, but they would not be egotistical enough to chink of themselves as spiritual leaders. Spirituality is somewhat like wisdom. If you chink you’re wise, you’re not. As Oswald Chambers said, “To be spiritual by effort is a sure sign of a false relation with God.”
A flexibility born of faith
As I think about spiritual leadership, I become convinced that the key is the Holy Spirit energizing and directing the leader’s uniqueness and gifts by giving him or her a vision that creates a passion. I have never known a lazy or confused leader who had a clear sense of passion.
For twenty years I’ve been writing for Christian leaders. I’ve spoken to many groups, both large and small. I realize that it is a difficult time to be a Christian spiritual leader in an almost totally secular society whose great renewed interest in spirituality is cultish, not Christian. Christian leaders have lost much of the respect they once had in society. Burnout is common. Depression is almost epidemic. And stress seems to be growing. Immorality and divorce seem to be increasing. Short tenure is becoming too common. More and more preachers and teachers are faced with the demand for entertainment in their message and excitement in their programs.
Could a major part of the problem be that leaders have lost their vital identification with the Lord? Have they become convinced they work for the church rather than for God? Those who feel they work for a church board surrender their authority in spiritual leadership.
I believe there is a flexibility in spiritual leadership that is based on faith in God’s provision and direction. It is a calling, not a career. I have great respect for a prominent minister who privately says, “I would be glad to get out of the ministry if God would let me off the hook. In fact, if he doesn’t keep me in it, I want out of it.”
It is possible, even probable, that some in Christian leadership are misplaced. Leaders who are not endowed with gifts energized by the Spirit become easy prey to the human methodology of leadership. This opens them to the temptation of power, prestige, and money. The three individuals I have been discussing never show any signs of insecurity in what they do. They seem to have the flexibility born of faith. They didn’t manipulate their way into leadership, nor are they going to manipulate their staying there. They have a calling to fulfill, not a profession to pursue. Each has a strong feeling of stewardship but little feeling of ownership. They are great by serving. They know joy!
True to the end
My father stayed with his calling to the end. On June 1, 1959, between 12:50 and 3:15 A.M., I sat with my father’s corpse and wrote a tribute to him for a friend who didn’t know him:
I find myself unconsciously telling you about my father.
He never owned a home or a share of stock. His estate is $1,000 of life insurance. His salary range for life was from $125 to $300 per month. On this he raised five sons after tithing the gross plus a generous “gift” above the tithe, along with charity to all who asked. If he had two suits, he looked for someone who needed one. He never graduated from college or held a degree. There were no honors significant enough to mention in his obituary. He never held an office of any responsibility within his profession. Dad walked the slums like a padre, carrying home the drunks, feeding the bums until Mother hid the food, visiting convicts, riding ambulances with fighting and feuding families, visiting the sick, marrying lovers, and burying the dead.
When his neighbors were hungry, he couldn’t eat. When they were sad, he cried, and when they laughed, he out-laughed them.
Through the funeral parlor poured people of all stations and status—the poor, those energized by poverty to move out and up, from the wealthy president whom Father saw converted from a young infidel in a charity tb hospital to the widow who asked to sit alone with him and to relive his great comfort in her past sorrows. In the line were the reclaimed of the rough stuff of life, recounting their experiences with him, and those who felt his great Irish temper he self-indulgently termed “righteous indignation.” They all came and sat for hours. No tears were there … just victory. Vicariously they felt victorious over death. Because he lived, they knew heaven exists. Where else could he be? A spirit so big could not vanish.
Because he was there they felt a friend at court awaiting them. The atmosphere of triumph was great and positive. No generated hysterical quality. No tears to appease any guilt. Only love, returned to one who truly loved, loved so much that it could be described only as a gift like a talent.
Yes, I realized how great the artist of love was who had shown them the result and not; the labor. I knew how often his soul was tired, how many nights he prayed to keep from quitting, how he struggled for thirty-five years in and out of debt to feed his family, how he suffered because he couldn’t contribute to his children’s education. But there were prayer and encouragement aplenty. The family separately and unanimously decided our greatest witness to his life could be expressed by the absence of grief. If we believed the “blessed hope” he preached, we certainly needed to express it now. Temporary separation, yes—permanent, no.
Late tonight he and I were alone for the last time. I felt he was asleep. He must be asleep or we would be matching wits. I can’t remember when that started, and it never ended. He was never awake but what we were debating, his hobby and greatest achievement in school. It was my honor to be chosen his permanent adversary, even though it might have kept our personal relations in a defensive position. We neither asked nor gave quarter, or conceded defeat.
As he slept in his casket, I studied the mammoth right arm of a former blacksmith who could throw a horse and muscle out two large sledgehammers, holding each by the end of its long handle. Outstretched, his arms, like giant tree limbs, could hold his entire family of five sons, arms so large and powerful that a visitor to the hospital asked if they were swollen even though he was past seventy.
His hands were more expressive than his arms. Somehow they were more personal to me. There was the strong right hand of sudden justice, which literally broke tree limbs over my back for real or imagined breaches of parental law. His ring was off—the telltale gold initial ring that told me there was no Santa Claus when he was dressed up to play the part. Hands that were large and strong to slap me backwards or to gently break the bread of life at the Communion table. Hands that gripped a baseball and turned it loose as fast as any I’ve ever caught. Hands that pushed the door to avoid any privacy for fear of evil. Hands that helped everyone in need. To see them folded seemed unnatural. They should have been turned out: to others.
Pale and spent, his face showed the long battle of death. His great desire to be lucid in death was denied him. He wanted to die describing to his family the glories of the heavens he had “lost his life to save” for eternity. He wanted to prove the rightness of his faith, yet his family must believe as he did, accepting Christ as the bridge between life and death—man and God. This we do.
He was not a brilliant intellect or a gifted orator. However, as an artist of love he was possessed by the living presence of his Savior Jesus Christ whose Second Coming was his most ardent wish. At the funeral we bury his problem (his body), not his greatness (his soul). Crowds will come, as to the funeral of any great man; the big difference will be in the direction of their thoughts. They will be thinking of the Master of the man, not of the mastery of the man. His life and death pointed the same way, up toward God and eternity.
And now he is among that “great cloud of witnesses” who watch us run this mortal race. “Therefore let us lay aside the weight of sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” Many have joined that cloud because of him. Many more will ride ashore on the expanding ripples of his life. “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?” He now knows the truth of reality.
Copyright © 1998 Fred Smith, Sr.
