\nAfter twenty-four years of leadership, I have come to believe five truths\nabout leadership in the church.\n<\/p>\n\n
\nMy friend runs a company with about 3,000 employees. He says he wants to\nrelax after retirement and lead a church. He said, “It doesn’t have to be\na Willow Creek-sized church. Maybe just 7,000 or 8,000 with some growth\npotential.” I told him that leading a church will ruin his retirement, because\nthe church demands a higher and more complex form of leadership than business\ndoes.<\/p>\n\n
\nI’ve been on both sides. Running a business is challenging, but the leader\nof a company has a clearly defined playing field and enormous leverage with\nhis or her employees. The business leader delivers a product or service through\npaid staff who either get it done or get replaced.<\/p>\n\n
\nChurch leadership is far more complex than that. The redeeming and rebuilding\nof human lives is exceedingly more difficult than building widgets or delivering\npredictable services. Here’s why:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You don’t stop the line\nin a factory every time a product comes down it. In church work, we’re developing\nindividual, custom-made lives. We stop the line for every life.<\/p>\n\n
\nI’ve read books about Napoleon, de Gaulle, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton-all\nthe great military leaders. I don’t want to minimize their capabilities or\nthe courage it takes to charge a hill in time of battle, but I’ve wondered,\nWhat it would be like for some of those leaders to have to work it out\nwith deacons before they charged up a hill? How well would they do if they\nhad to subject their plans to a vote involving the very people they’re going\nto lead up the hill? How would the whole military system work if you took\naway the leadership leverage of the court-martial?<\/em><\/p>\n \nAnyone could build a church with that kind of leverage! “Teach a Sunday school\nclass or go to the brig.” “You call that an offering? Give me fifty push-ups\nright now.” That’s<\/em> leverage!\n<\/p>\n In the final analysis, we\nhave little or no leverage, no real power over anybody we lead. At Willow\nCreek we’ve had people attend our services week after week, create trouble\nthroughout the church, and tap every resource we have. Then, when they cross\none too many lines and the elders bring correction or discipline, they bail\nout of the church or even sue.<\/p>\n\n \nTo mobilize an utterly volunteer organization requires the highest kind of\nleadership.<\/p>\n\n\n When leading a business,\nyou can hire a bright, energetic, young employee and say, “Here’s our vision.\nHere’s your part in it. Here’s your salary, your perks, your car, your phone,\nyour fax, your computer, your secretary, your office, your vacation plan.\nIf you work hard, in five or eight years we’re going to make you a partner\nor invite you into the profit-sharing plan. Down the road, you’ll probably\nmake big money. There will be more perks, more time off. And when we sell\nthis place in fifteen or twenty years, we’re all going to walk away\ntranscendently wealthy. Are you interested?”<\/p>\n\n \nWho wouldn’t be?<\/p>\n\n \nAs church leaders, what do we tell prospective church members? “You’re a\ndepraved, degenerate sinner who’s in trouble for all eternity unless you\nget squared away with Christ.” (And that’s the good news. We call it the\ngospel.<\/em>)<\/p>\n \nThen we say, “We’re going to ask you to commit five or six hours a week to\nservice and two or three additional hours for training and discipleship.\nWe’re going to ask you to get in a small group where your character flaws\nare going to get exposed and chiseled at. We’re going to ask you to come\nunder the authority of the elders of the church and give a minimum of 10\npercent of your money. Oh, yeah, you get no parking place, no reserved seats,\nno special privileges, no voting rights, no vacation or retirement program.\nYou serve till you die. But trust us: God’s going to make it right in eternity.”<\/p>\n\n \nIn church work, people must be motivated internally. The Scripture says unless\nthe Lord builds the house, unless people have an internal want to,<\/em>\nleaders have no power, no leverage, no buttons to push.<\/p>\n\n \nWhen business people in our churches give free advice-how we should be doing\nit right-we need to say, with no malice, “It’s not that easy, and it’s not\nthe same. It’s apples and oranges.”<\/p>\n\n \nSome people have it, some people don’t.<\/p>\n\n \nIn one of the spiritual gifts lists, Romans 12:8, the apostle Paul essentially\nsays, “If you have the spiritual gift of leadership, lead with it, and lead\nwith all diligence.” God alone decides who gets this gift and in what measure.<\/p>\n\n \nI’ve come up with a partial list of what spiritually gifted leaders do if\nthey develop and use their leadership gifts.\n<\/p>\n Spiritually gifted leaders\nlive in such a way that God invariably ignites within their hearts a compelling\nidea, a heartfelt yearning for some part of God’s kingdom to advance. They\nstart thinking about it, dreaming about it, and praying about it. Pretty\nsoon, they start talking about it. They have lunch with someone and say,\n“Could you imagine what this part of the kingdom would be like if\n. . .?”<\/p>\n\n \nNot long ago, I took the board of directors at Willow Creek to some inner-city\nministries that we’re funding and providing volunteer help for. We were in\nan empty warehouse; it must have been 95 degrees. The humidity was incredible.\nBut the person leading this ministry stood and said, “Imagine that corner\nof this warehouse filled with electrical supplies. A skilled worker from\na church could stop here, pick up all the supplies he or she needs, then\ngo over to the home of someone in need and fix the wiring.<\/p>\n \n“Imagine pallets stacked high with drywall compound. Whenever there are walls\nto be patched in the home of someone who can’t afford to fix them, a volunteer\ncould stop here to pick up the drywall and then go fix the holes.<\/p>\n\n \n“Imagine a pallet over there stacked high with blankets. In the winter, when\nthe heat in people’s apartments doesn’t work, we could pass out blankets.”<\/p>\n\n \nI was reaching for my wallet! That<\/em> is vision casting.<\/p>\n\n \nIf you have the gift of leadership, God ignites in your heart a vision. You\ncannot not <\/em>talk about it.<\/p>\n\n \nThere is so much power released when leaders start casting a godly vision.\nIt draws people out of the woodwork. It gets bored spectators out onto the\nplaying field.<\/p>\n\n\n Spiritually gifted leaders have that God-given capacity to\nattract, challenge, and persuade people. Then they assist them in finding\ntheir niche in the achievement of the vision.<\/p>\n\n \nSpiritually gifted leaders are almost shameless in the boldness with which\nthey approach people. They can’t understand why anyone isn’t already on board\nwith them. People catch their enthusiasm.<\/p>\n\n \nNext, the leader says, “I’m going to find a role that fits who you are. You’re\ngoing to grow and develop as an individual while all of us grow together\nin the achievement of the vision. This is a win-win deal.”<\/p>\n\n \nLeaders are not users of people. Leaders are those who cast a vision until\nthey find those who want to join with that vision. Then the leader commits\nto developing that person while together they achieve their dream. That kind\nof synergy and unity and teamwork is powerful.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n Motivation\nmakes work fun. It can make thankless tasks exciting. It can make beaten-down\npeople feel renewed and rejuvenated. People with the spiritual gift of leadership\nhave a God-given ability to know what to say and how to inspire different\npeople.<\/p>\n\n \nI had an eighth-grade basketball coach who knew how to inspire me. I went\nto North Christian Grade School; on the other side of town was South Christian\nGrade School. We wanted to beat the stuffing out of those Christians on the\nother side of town.<\/p>\n\n \nI was just a little guy; my trunks came up to my armpits. In an important\ngame, we were behind by a few points. As we players were walking back on\nthe court after a timeout, the coach encouraged us, “Okay, let’s go get ’em.”<\/p>\n\n \nBut then he said, “Hybels, get back here.” I came dutifully back.<\/p>\n\n \n“I think you’re the only one with the guts to go out there and take that\nball to the basket.”<\/p>\n\n \nI thought my heart was going to explode. I knocked people over to get the\nball to the rim.<\/p>\n\n \nThat night they called me “His Airness.” (Michael Jordan cashed in on the\nterm, but it was first said about me that night!)<\/p>\n\n \nGifted leaders have the ability to motivate and inspire.<\/p>\n\n\n I do a lot of my summer study in a Burger King restaurant\nin South Haven, Michigan. Right behind where I sit is a side entrance door,\na heavy steel door with a broken hamper mechanism. When every customer comes\nin, the door loudly bangs shut. It is metal on metal. The staff working the\ncounter look at each other after every customer leaves and say, “Gee, that’s\nan aggravating sound. Why do people keep doing that?”<\/p>\n\n \nThen there is the temperature in the restaurant, which stays around 62 degrees.\nIt’s way too cold for the average human. Customers walk up to the counter\nand say, “Do you know it’s freezing in here?” After they leave, the people\nbehind the counter say, “If they knew how hot it was back here working over\nthe stove, they wouldn’t complain so much.”<\/p>\n\n \nI was reminded every day that there was no leader in sight. A leader would\nsay, “Fix the door!” A leader would say, “Set the air conditioner for the\ncustomer. If we need some fans for the employees back here, if we have to\nrearrange some duct work or something, we’ll do it. Don’t freeze the customer\nout. He or she pays our salaries.”<\/p>\n\n \nLeaders have a nose for how to bring change constructively.\n<\/p>\n Leaders not only\nremind their co-laborers of what the mission is, but leaders hold up certain\nstandards and values. They lay out certain ground rules. A great leader says\nto her team, “Okay, here’s the hill we’re trying to take. Here’s the role\nall of you are going to play. And along the way, here’s how we’re going to\ncommunicate with each other. Here’s how we’re going to treat each other.\nHere are the values we’re going to hold up so that the the process of taking\nthe hill is a wonderful process.”<\/p>\n\n\n A good\nleader is always resource-conscious. A good leader asks, “What do we have\nin the quiver? What tools, what funds, what talents, what techniques? How\ncan we strategically invest these toward the fulfillment of the vision?”<\/p>\n\n \nHistorically, the whole resource function of kingdom work has been viewed\nwith suspicion. People say, “Aw, let’s not talk money.” Leaders say, “It’s\na big part of the game, and we can’t ignore it.”\n<\/p>\n And they usually identify\nit in its earliest stages. A leader is vigilant twenty-four hours a day.\nHe or she walks around and asks, “Where are the wheels starting to wobble?\nWhere is this organization starting to weaken? If we can identify it and\nfind a solution before<\/em> the wheels fall off, we can maintain momentum.”\n<\/p>\n This is absolutely counterintuitive. One would think\nthat strong, gifted leaders would make sure that no emerging leader would\nmature to the point where his or her own leadership might be threatened.\nActually, the exact opposite is true of a spiritually gifted leader.<\/p>\n \nThe greatest thrill a mature, gifted leader can experience is the gradual\nachievement of the God-given vision through the combined efforts of developing\nyounger leaders who some day will carry the kingdom baton.<\/p>\n\n \nAt Willow Creek, we host an annual leadership summit conference. I get choked\nup when I go from classroom to classroom, watching Willow Creek leaders stand\nin front of groups of people and cast vision, inspire, and motivate about\neverything from programming to children’s ministries. I go home on those\nnights thinking, It doesn’t get better than this.<\/em><\/p>\n \nThat’s at the heart of leading an organization. A leader creates a culture\nwhere more and more people can rise to the surface and lead.<\/p>\n\n\n \nThere’s nothing sinister going on, but churches do this in at least two ways.<\/p>\n\n \nFirst, they undermine the expression of the leadership gift when they fail\nto teach about it. Young men and women with the leadership gift reason they\nmight as well use it in the marketplace. After all, they think, If this\ngift were valued in the church, people would be talking about it.<\/em><\/p>\n \nWhy isn’t the gift of leadership taught? Most of the instruction that flows\nfrom our pulpits tends to come from people with teaching gifts, but few teachers\nreally understand the leadership gift and how it works.<\/p>\n\n \nLeaders don’t usually talk about leadership much, either, because they don’t\nhave the reflective qualities necessary to sit down and analyze it. And most\nleaders don’t have much of a teaching gift, so no one teaches about it.<\/p>\n\n \nSecond, churches undermine the leadership gift by implementing church governance\nsystems that frustrate gifted leaders into oblivion. Leaders need a certain\namount of room to operate, a certain amount of trust from the church or the\norganization in order to express their skill or gift. If you take away those\nthings, the leader will just bail out, and no one should blame her.<\/p>\n\n \nI’m not suggesting we do away with boards and elders and deacons and by-laws.\nBut within certain parameters, pastors and staff and lay leaders with leadership\ngifts must be given real challenges, real hills to take, real problems to\nsolve. Emerging leaders must be given enough room and enough trust from the\nchurch to be able to go out, spread their wings, and develop their gifts.<\/p>\n\n \nAnd, yes, some mistakes will be made now and then. But the kingdom will,\nover-all, make huge gains.\n<\/p>\n\n \nIn Matthew 9:36, Jesus weeps for the people in Jerusalem\nbecause they’re wandering “like sheep without a shepherd.” They’re aimless.\nThey’re purposeless. Jesus is speaking primarily of people’s need for a savior\nand sovereign leader. But the imagery can also apply to a wider range of\nsituations.<\/p>\n\n \nLeaderless people are a sad lot. I feel sad when I see impoverished, exploited\ncitizens in leaderless countries, such as Haiti, a place I’ve visited often.\nWhat a mess. I even feel sad for listless students in leaderless classrooms.\nIt’s not much fun to wander and to wonder and to drift and eventually to\nself-destruct. God never made us to flounder in those kinds of circumstances.<\/p>\n\n \nIt’s not much fun to be under-valued, under-challenged, under-developed,\nunder-nurtured. If you’ve ever worked in a leaderless company, it’s no fun.\nHave you ever played on a leaderless athletic team? It’s no fun.<\/p>\n\n \nBut have you ever played on a great team for a great coach? Have you ever\nworked for a great company? That<\/em> is fun.<\/p>\n\n \nI used to play on a park district touch football team led by Don Cousins,\nmy associate pastor for seventeen years. We played against construction workers\nwho came after work, semi-inebriated, with the sole purpose of hurting people.\nIn one game, my job was to try to sack the quarterback; I lined up across\nfrom a guy who was supposed to prevent me from doing that. I thought, I’m\ngoing to run right over the top of you.<\/em> I was breathing hard, getting\nall pumped, when I looked up. This guy’s eyes were bloodshot, and he was\ndrooling. I thought, Maybe I’ll just drop back in case the quarterback\npasses this time.<\/em><\/p>\n \nWe were smaller than most of our opponents, but we won almost every game\nwe played. Don Cousins led<\/em> that team. At the end of the season, if\nwe had said, “Anybody want to play next season under the leadership of Don\nCousins?” every person in the league would have signed on.<\/p>\n\n \nOne great writer about leadership says, “Most people are just waiting for\nsomeone to call them out so they can rise above their petty preoccupations.”<\/p>\n\n \nWe can no longer afford to leave people leaderless in the arena of the church.\nMay the church be the one place where people who come out of leaderless homes\nand schools and jobs and athletic teams discover, maybe for the first time\nin their life, the excitement of being valued, of being included, of being\ntold that they are indispensable for the achievement of a common vision.\n<\/p>\n\n \nWilliam Bennett, former secretary of education, said some time ago, “I submit\nto you that the real crisis of our time is spiritual. What afflicts us is\na corruption of the heart and a turning away of the soul. Nothing has been\nmore consequential in this societal demise than large segments of American\nsociety privately turning away from God. And to turn things around, there\nmust come a widespread personal spiritual renewal.”<\/p>\n\n \nI have to believe that’s true. Who traffics in the spiritual-transformation\nbusiness? The church. I have come to see with crystal clarity that the church\npossesses the single ray of hope left in the darkening skies of human depravity.<\/p>\n\n \nThe church has the life-transforming message of the love of Christ. The church\nhas the instruction manual, the Bible, the guidebook for relationships and\nethics and morality. The church has the gift of community to offer wayward\nand wandering and lonely people. The church can give people purpose by inviting\nthem to become part of the transcendently powerful mission of world redemption.<\/p>\n\n \nBut for the church ever to reach its redemptive, life-giving potential, it\nmust be well led. It must be powerfully envisioned, strategically focused,\nand internally aligned. Members must be motivated; the message must be preached.\nProblems have to be addressed; values must be established and enforced. Resources\nneed to be leveraged.<\/p>\n\n \nThese things are the business of leaders. Which is why Paul cried out in\nRomans 12:8, “Men and women, if you’ve been given the gift of leadership,\nfor God’s sake, lead.” For the world’s sake, lead. For the sake of lost people,\nlead.\n<\/p>\n\n Bill Hybels is pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.<\/p>\nThe church is utterly voluntary.<\/h2>
The church is utterly altruistic.<\/h2>
2. I believe there is a spiritual gift of\nleadership.<\/h2>\n
They cast a God-honoring vision.<\/h2>
They gather and align people for the achievement of the\nvision.<\/h2>
They can motivate their co-workers.<\/h2>
They sense the need for positive change and then constructively bring\nit about.<\/h2>
They establish core values.<\/h2>
They allocate resources effectively.<\/h2>
They identify entropy.<\/h2>
They create a leadership culture in their\norganization.<\/h2>
3. I believe that most churches unintentionally undermine\nthe expression of the leadership gift.<\/h2>\n
4. I believe that almost everybody wants to be led.<\/h2>\n
5. I believe that the church is the hope of the world,\nand its renewal rests in the hands of its leaders.<\/h2>\n