Paraklesis
[‘encouragement’, ‘exhortation’, for life and ministry]
February 2025
Peter Adam
Dear fellow-workers,
Here is the first of a series on ‘leadership’, a complicated and challenging aspect of ministry today. Church leaders need to be both proactive and reactive. It is a narrow path to work, being proactive in what we decide, hope and plan, and also reactive to the expectations and needs of the congregation and lay leaders. It is easy to be proactive and not reactive! You just push ahead with your plans whatever the outcome. It is easy to be reactive and not proactive! You just do what other people expect you to do. The challenge is to manage both. This is to ask ‘What is God already doing’ and how can I support it? And to ask, ‘What does God want to do, and how can I participate in it?
Our assumed model of leadership may come from a minister who has influenced us, or whom we admire. It will also be influenced by the kind of leadership we have done or not done in our previous employment or training, if we have moved from another kind of work.
Consider what kind of leadership you will have exercised if you have been the manager of a supermarket; a General in the Army; a specialist surgeon leading a team in the operating theatre; a CEO of a large company; the coach of an amateur sports team; or led a group of voluntary members of the Country Fire Brigade.
It will make a big difference if you have led paid employees, or if you have led volunteers.
Or you may have had no experience of leadership, because you have been self-employed, one member of a team, done house-work, been a volunteer in a charity, or one of a team in which people work independently.
We are also influenced by our culture and background. White Australians have been suspicious of ‘tall poppies’, yet we are increasingly shaped by ‘influencers’. People from authoritarian cultures are likely to practise that kind of leadership. Others have an ideal of wide consultation, and this will shape their leadership.
I don’t think that there is only one possible application of Biblical teaching on leadership, and that leadership should rightly be expressed in different ways in different cultures. Enculturalisation is the right response to God’s creation of and love of different ethnicities, different nationalities, and different cultures.[1]
But of course, any culture’s assumptions about leadership will be influenced both by the common sins of the culture, as well as the common-grace wisdom of God, given to all peoples.
I remember visiting one country, and hearing that the person who was Chairman of the local Christian Convention had taken that role by bringing a gun to the meeting at which he was elected! [No, it was not USA!]. I was shocked, but the local missionary whom I was visiting reminded me that Christians are influenced by the culture in which they live: their ‘worldliness’ mirrors their ‘world’. And he told me that Christians from that country would be shocked by some aspects of Australian Christianity which we Australians don’t recognise. ‘Christians are corrupt in the ways their society is corrupt’.
Let’s think leadership of Australia! As is common the Western world, we in churches and Christian organisations have often adopted the ‘business model’ of leadership, with corresponding roles for ’the Board’, ‘the CEO’, and ‘the employees’. The ‘business model’ expresses a helpful priority on financial management and accountability: it also echoes the destructive aspects of the worship of mammon, in which money rules our perception of value, aim, and purpose. For example, when the Government is accused of neglecting an area of need, the reply is frequently that they have allocated lots of money in the budget, as if that is a sufficient reply. And governments often focus on ‘the economy’ when they should focus on ‘the society’. You can have a good economy without having a good society!
The ‘business model’ is now not only applied to businesses, but also to hospitals, schools, universities, colleges, dioceses, Christian organisations, and churches. Hence the focus on productivity, efficiency, profit, and key performance indicators.
I think that the ‘business model’ is a good servant, but a bad master. On its own, it is woefully insufficient and inadequate, because it ignores the most important aspects of our humanity and of human value. The business model is useful if your product is baked beans: it cannot estimate growth in godliness, transformation into the likeness of Christ, or that deep internal sanctification which will result in a life-time of humble service. of course the ‘business’ must be run well.
Like the ‘academic model’ for Bible and theological colleges, it is a useful servant, but must not rule the roost! Both of these models distort our perception of the ministry, its demands, methods, and goals. We can easily count the number of students in a College, the fees they pay, and their academic results. But those categories don’t take into account the godliness of the students, their formation for long-term vital ministry, the depth of their learning, or their growth in ministry usefulness in the long term.
Leadership and management in the Bible
We see both the place of the business model and its limitations in the Bible’s requirement that an elder in a church must be ‘able to manage their household well’ so the elder can ‘manage God’s household well [1 Timothy 3:4, Titus 1:7]. A ‘household’ at that time include both the family, and the family business. So the householder had to relate well to the family, and the slaves. The family had to flourish, and the business had to flourish! We see the value placed on these mutual relationships in the New Testament: husbands, wives, children, masters, and slaves. Church elders needed to be people of personal morality and stability, and emotional and relational wisdom as well as financial wisdom. They also needed to be people of theological clarity, and the ability to declare the teach the truth, and recognise and refute error [‘He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message … so he can encourage others by sound doctrine, and refute those who oppose it’ Titus 1:9]. Good business sense is only part of the package! And the outcome is not balancing the books but a healthy family, then a healthy church. And the predominant image is the relational one of ‘father’, not the functional one of ‘manager’.
Good management is as essential when managing money and productivity with resources which are not our own. But life and ministry and leadership are so much more than good management!
In the rest of this series on ‘leadership’ we will uncover more vital Biblical insights into the important issue for the church of Jesus Christ today.
Next month we will investigate ‘leadership’ according to Hebrews 13:7. ‘Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.’ [NIV 11]. A different and more challenging mode of leadership!!!
May God correct, enrich, form and grow our Christian leadership by what he tells us in his word, the Bible, in the name of Christ, Amen.
Yours in the fellowship of Christ and the ministry of his gospel,
This general point is explained in Steven M Bryant, Cultural Identity and the Purposes of God: A Biblical Theology of Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race, Wheaton, Crossway, 2022. ↑