Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-026 (Leadership Issues)

THE SIMPLICITY OF MINISTRY (Part 1)

by Glenn Daman (from Mikros Vol. 9, No. 1)

We lose the very essence of biblical leadership if we reduce leadership to solely strategic planning, organizational vision casting and program development. In our quest to build the church we often overlook the most important element that defines church leadership, an element that defies management and organization. To understand what it means to be a pastor we need to understand that the church is a living organism. To be effective within the church we must recognize that the church is fundamentally different, for it is a spiritual organism that functions as the body of Christ.

One of the reasons we overcomplicate the nature of leadership is because we look at leadership from an organizational standpoint. The leader is the one who leads the organization. However, the Biblical mandate of a leader is not organizational, but spiritual, it is not programmatic, but dynamic, it is not functional but transformational. Biblical leadership is not complicated in its operation, rather it is simple in its focus. The reason it is simple is because effectiveness in leadership is ultimately not dependent upon the qualities and talents of the pastoral leader. The pastoral leader is not the most important element in successful churches simply because the church is the work of Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Eugene Peterson rightly points out that to be effective as a leader we must first see ourselves as unnecessary. This does not mean that we are irrelevant, but that we need to recognize there is “no necessitas in God” (Peterson and Dawn, The Unnecessary Pastor, p. 5). God does not need us to build his church rather he chooses to use us and he uses us not by being organizational leaders, but by being spiritual leaders. Spiritual leadership is transformational leadership. The two most important elements in transforming people is the power of the Word of God (Hebrews 4:12) and the power of a living model, primarily revealed in the living person of Christ (1 Peter 2:21) but also revealed in the life of the leader (1 Timothy 4:12; 1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1;).

However to understand this simplicity of successful ministry, we need to understand the mystery of spiritual leadership. For all our knowledge gained through studies, polls, and organizational analysis, there remains a mystery in ministry that resists explanation and even avoids understanding. As Peterson goes on to point out “Unnecessary pastors need not figure everything out but live in the awe of the God of mystery, glad to know that there is more going on than they see or can get their minds around” (Peterson and Dawn, The Unnecessary Pastor, p. 70).

The message of Ecclesiastes is applicable to our approach to the church. The sage continually reminds us that no matter how much wisdom a person gains, there remains a mystery beyond the human mind’s ability to perceive and understand. Life is lived in a paradox. While a person is to strive to become wise and gain wisdom, there is much that happens in life that evades wisdom (e.g. 9:11). In the end a person does not know what will succeed and what will not (11:6). However, this mystery is not the arbitrariness of chance, but the mystery of God (3:11). The same is true regarding the church. Even with our insight into church and organizational leadership there always remains a mystery, an incomprehensible working within the church that cannot be rationalized and explained, that cannot be packaged in a neat program and methodology guaranteeing success to those who apply it.

To understand leadership we need to recognize the mystery of God’s work.

Christ gives us a hint of the mysterious working of God when he states, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). God’s work is ultimately incomprehensible to humanity (see also Romans 11:33-36). Scriptures continually warns against trying to decipher the vastness of God and his work. This is true individually and corporately as well. It is not so much that we need to understand and accomplish God’s purposes, his will or vision for the church, but that God will accomplish his vision for the church and in the mysteries of his grace he may use us in the process.

While it is valuable to determine direction for the church, the danger of “vision casting” is that we can become anthropocentric in our approach, where the focus is upon what we do rather than what God is doing. Our participation is not necessary for God to accomplish his plan any more than our resistance can thwart his purposes. The most important element in participating in God’s purposes is not a clear vision but a submissive will in which we become willing vessels for God to use in whatever capacity he chooses. When we are obeying his word and submitting to him, God accomplishes his purpose through us whether we understand or comprehend that purpose or not. Christ is not a cosmic cheerleader rooting us on, hoping that we will “win” in building the church. He is sovereignly active, taking personal responsibility for the health of the church. In the process he may use us or remove us, but he will build his church (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 5:11-16). We give ourselves far too much credit in running the church. The church ultimately is the work of God ‘s sovereignty not man’s efforts and strategies.

Sometimes God accomplishes his purposes by revealing his will in very dramatic and comprehendible ways. At other times God accomplishes his purpose when we are confused and unclear about what his way is. Often in the pages of scripture we find individuals accomplishing God’s purposes without any clue that they were doing so. Instead of understanding God’s “vision,” they stumbled through confused and in the dark. Paul did not understand why God prevented him from going to Bithynia. Job failed to grasp why God was allowing him to suffer. The disciples were proverbially clueless about Christ until after his resurrection. Joseph of Aremetha sought to give Jesus a burial place, not because he desired to fulfill prophecy or provide a location for the resurrection to occur, but because he wanted to provide dignity to the dead messiah. Sometimes God accomplished his purposes even when they sought to do that which was opposite of what was planned.

God used the apparent rift between Paul and Barnabas to expand the kingdom. Elijah had a grand vision of the people of Israel repenting after his astounding victory on Mount Carmel. When that did not happen, he felt defeated, but God reminded him that he had accomplished his purpose. For all our research, studies, and statistics, the bottom line is that we do not know why some churches grow and some do not. We cannot even adequately define success in ministry. This is the mystery of God.

We forget that God cannot be reduced to programs, strategies and methodologies. He often uses them but he is not controlled by them. In the small church we often get discouraged because our visions do not materialize and the people do not embrace them. We become discouraged when one outreach program after another fails to attract new people. What we forget is the mystery of God. Perhaps God’s purpose is not found in the fulfillment of our “vision” but in the failure of them. Perhaps God’s purposes are accomplished when we think we have been the least successful (see Isaiah 6:9-13; Ezekiel 2:5-8). Perhaps God purposes are not being accomplished through us but in us. This is the mystery of God that we often forget. As C.S. Lewis reminds us in the children’s fable, “Chronicles of Narnia,” God is not a tame God, he is wild, but he is good.

To understand leadership we need to recognize the mystery of spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth cannot be programmed or manipulated. While it is our goal in leadership to assist people in attaining spiritual growth (Ephesians 4:11-13), ultimately we have no control over its accomplishment. The reasons is because spiritual growth is not the work of the leader, but the work of the triune God operating in the heart, mind, and will of the person (Philippians 1:6; 1 Corinthians 1:8; 3:7). The marvel of spiritual leadership is that God uses us to do that which we cannot explain or accomplish on our own. While we recognize that God uses us to change people into the image of his Son, we recognize that we can do nothing in ourselves to bring about those changes. Such is the mystery.

We can see when a person has experienced substantial spiritual growth in their lives, we can recognize a person who is spiritual mature, but we cannot explain how they attained that growth. Sometimes, if we are close to the person and have intimate knowledge of their life, we can even see how God achieves some of the growth, but for the greater extent, what God used to bring about the desired change remains an enigma.

To realize this, all we have to do is look at the effect our preaching has in the lives of people. Sometimes the message that we have spent the most time preparing, the ones we communicated the most effectively, the ones we thought were “sure-fire” successes, elicit only a casual yawn from the people. At other times, the messages we hurriedly put together, stumbled through when preaching and walked down from the pulpit thinking the message was a colossal flop is the one that has the greatest impact upon the lives of people. Even more mysterious are the times people attribute their spiritual growth to a truth they learned in a recent message, yet there remains no apparent connection between what we said and the impact it has upon their life. They are transformed in an area of life that we had no intention of addressing. Such is the wonder of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Often we become stressed in ministry because we take responsibility for the lack of spiritual growth in the lives of people, or we become arrogant because we attribute the growth of the people to our abilities and talents. We can rest in the simplicity of ministry simply because spiritual growth cannot be programmed. Programs, organization, visions and strategies, while they are helpful, never guarantee growth in the people nor does the lack of them guarantee the spiritual stagnation of the people. The growth of people lies beyond our control, for it remains in the control of God. While God has called us to transformational ministry, we must also recognize that the transformation comes not from us but from him, who uses us in the process. The way we become involved in the process is through the proclamation of biblical truth (Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:16).

To understand the leadership we need to recognize the mystery of God using sinful people to accomplish his purpose.

[Continued with Part 2 in CLM-3-027]