toxic leadership and what may be next

April 4, 2008

Grace, @ Kingdom Grace, hosts some of the best dialogues. Today there is a great thread on power, politic and the abuse of both in the church. Clearly, many are exposed to these as a predominant experience of “church.” I began a short response and had to continue it here so that she didn’t think I was some blog freak intent on abusing my comment power ; )

Once the church moved from a movement of the converted to a movement of disciples, trouble started. And yet, the early apostles went around purposely creating communities of believers and even later establishing order for the inevitable choas that ensued. We’ve been searching for Utopia ever since.

People are political.
People are powerful.
Power and politics are exercised within the context of relationship (I’m in agreement).
No one is exempt from either.

Jesus didn’t teach that these were inherently evil characteristics. He took power and politic from the static practice of the 1st century and reformed it, redeemed it. The main thrust of his instruction was “learn to do it differently.” I love how Peterson paraphrases MT 11:28-30 “Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”

I spend alot of time thinking about what that looks like today. The discussion in the Kingdom Grace thread dominates the communication between ministers that I speak to everyday. How do we reform power and politic in 21st century? No one seems to be happy with the way power interacts with the church and yet power is necessary within it. How can the power of God transform how we experience leadership and how we lead? How can leaders structure our methods around 1 Cor 13 (as mentioned above)? How do we re-form the church and at the same time prepare ourselves for the next evolution?

We know that the present model is bankrupt. How can we kick start a new economy in Christian leadership?

In his book, “Leadership Next,” Eddie Gibbs makes so many potent observations about leadership in the church that is emerging that to quote them all would basically be to rewrite the whole book. I’ll post a couple of thoughts and then maybe address some more at another time.

“Warren Bennis, considering the challenges the organizations face in the wake of the knowledge revolution and globalization, insists that we need new leaders — not just younger leaders, but leaders with new competencies. In fact, he urges all of us to listen to the under thirties and over seventies*. The younger generation brings a fresh perspective, whereas the old folk bring insights without the temptation to grasp power, being content for younger people to take their lead.”

As I reflect, Gibbs is saying that the church needs to step back from “running the business” and make room for passionate innovation and matured experience. This is dangerous, it’s threatening. What it means it that someone loses control so that others can exercise it. Ultimately, it means that Christians must regain a long lost secret of the Christian tradition:

Faith.

Do we believe that the church is God’s continuing presence in history?
Do we believe that God still loves the world?
Do we believe that God has a plan for salvation for the world?
Do we have faith that if we trust the church to God, the good news will transform the world? The church? Ourselves?

We ask alot, “How can I be a church builder?” when perhaps a better question for today is, “How can I be a faith builder?”

While I have further thoughts on the answer, I finish for now with Gibbs:

“Whereas theology of mission was once taught as a specialist course, we now need to teach our entire repertoire of Bible, theology and church history courses from a missional perspective.”

Addition: After checking out scotthodge.org, I had to post this video from his blog. This is reason that we have to weather the toxic church. This is why we have to zip up the HazMat suit of faith and ask new questions.