Thursday, June 24, 2010

CEO Leadership?



For at least the last decade there's been a movement within The Church to model church leadership / government after the structures often found in Fortune 500 companies in place of the model laid out in the Bible.

Instead of Pastors who are servant leaders like Jesus, you see more of a CEO with an executive board of directors model. Instead of Pastor/Edlers, and Deacons, you see CEO's, VP's and Directors.

Many conferences have sprung up with the latest fad led by keynote speakers who are seen as the sought after or up-and-coming leaders you "just got to be like", focusing on taking your leadership to the "next level". Unfortunately many of those conferences do not focus on the Biblical model. They often connected these sessions sometimes about strategies, not necessarily for evangelism and not on how to be a Biblical Shepherd, but how to increase your congregation size. They connect this with leadership as if the size of congregation truly has anything to do with leadership. You can have a small or a large congregation and can either be or not be an effective Biblical leader - size doesn't matter but the ability to teach God's Word, your character, your giftedness, your integrity and more are what truly matter.

I work for a fortune 500 company and I know first hand that there's a constant push to bring more and more shareholder value (Increased Profits) every year and it's this same push I see in similar form in the new "leadership" model. In the churches that focus on the new leadership strategies, instead of profits, it's increased congregations size plus increased giving to build a "business" um, I mean a church congregation/ministry. Granted there are obvious "business" aspect of a church but none-the-less the church isn't a business as the world would define rather, it is to be about God's business and we should tirelessly work to make it about Him - Keep the main things the main things!

Don't take me wrong, there are some good conferences out there where pastors can glean a lot from in order to be a more effective pastor and we ought to strive to grow continually be a good and effective shepherd as God Has called us to do so. We need to remember that none of this has anything to do with the latest fad or coolest new strategy. Leadership in the church should focus on and should be about the Bible - What God has to say about leadership. Let's pray that we'd be found doing His will and building His kingdom and not our own.

In Closing, here's another Blog entry that speaks to this and gives some examples of some of the conferences that are typically not truly building or raising up the right leadership in the church. Let's pray that those who choose to attend these conferences will not compromise or sell out to man's wisdom but stick solely with God's Wisdom.

http://www.alittleleaven.com/2010/06/leadership-idol.html

In Christ,

rlk