New Wineskin – Visionary Leadership
This series is reviewing Rethinking The Wineskin
In my last post, I discussed elders. Specifically, that in the New Testament elders are referred to as having a position of oversight over the church.
But what about visionary leadership? What about the direction of the church?
To truly understand the function of elders, we have to discuss a little bit what they are not. They are not the visionary leaders of the church. They are not really even the “leaders” of the church.
The Bible puts great stress on the fact that leadership in the kingdom of God is drastically different from leadership in both the Gentile and Jewish worlds. Unlike the Gentile notion of authority, the Christian approach to leadership does not link authority with rank-and-file power and hierarchical structures… Unlike the Jewish notion of authority, the Christian approach to leadership does not link authority with outward ordination, office, position, title, or protocol… The Christian orientation links spiritual authority with spiritual function and maturity. It is based on the servant-leadership model that was a common them in our Savior’s teaching… In this context, the Christian model of leadership served as a safeguard to the real and living Headship of Christ. It was also a check against authoritarianism, formalism, and clericalism.
Today’s dominant church leadership design looks more like a combination of the Jewish and Gentile systems than the Christian system described in the New Testament that is supposed to reflect the Kingdom of God. Today’s model is that of a modern corporation with a CEO. Managers handle resources. We have growth strategies, statistics, and charts. We count the number of cars in the parking lot. We consider church organization as appropriate, yet the New Testament relies on the principle of a church organism.
Our primary relationship to each other is that of brothers and sisters. The modern corporation model ruins that.
Plainly stated, leadership in the early church was non-hierarchical, non-aristocratic, non-authoritarian, non-institutional, and non-clerical. More importantly, God’s idea of leadership is functional, relational, and collective.
To have the leadership of the church function according to the same principles as that of a corporate executive in a business or an aristocrat in an imperial caste-system was never our Lord’s thought. It is for this reason that the NT authors never chose to use hierarchical and imperial metaphors to describe church leadership.
Images of slaves and children depict leadership rather than lords and masters (Luke 22:25-26).
So the elders did not lead the church like a CEO. Who, then, led the church? Who provided visionary direction?
The answer is more simple than you might think. It was Christ who led the church, through the Holy Spirit.
Consider what Christ said to Peter:
On this rock I will build my church, and the power of death will not be able to defeat it. (Matthew 16:18 NCV)
He did not say that “on this rock you will build my church.” Christ said that on this rock Christ would build His church.
Paul frequently refers to the church as the body of Christ, with Him as the head. This is why it is so important to follow the New Testament model of leadership – if we put ourselves in too prominent a place of leadership, we stand in the way of Christ’s leadership as the head.
But what about practical implementation? How do we see the mind of Christ and the direction of Christ in the life of the church? It is easy enough for a leader to get up in front of the church and say that He feels Christ wants the church to do x, y, and z. But how is the church to know if this is truly the will of Christ?
The New Testament has only one answer – consensus.
The apostles, the elders, and the whole church decided to send some of their men with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch. They chose Judas Barsabbas and Silas, who were respected by the believers. (Acts 15:22 NCV)
The apostles didn’t just choose who to send. They didn’t pray with the elders and then decide who they felt “led” to send. They decided along with “the whole church.”
Numerous times in his letters, Paul begs the believers to have one mind:
I beg you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree with each other and not be split into groups. I beg that you be completely joined together by having the same kind of thinking and the same purpose. (1 Corinthians 1:10 NCV)
Why is this important? If consensus is desired, the decision making process has to model the same process discussed about gatherings – that of the Spirit being in control, moving through each believer, where each believer has the opportunity to share what God has laid on their heart.
In another example of a bad translation, someone would probably point to Hebrews 13:17 and say that leadership in the church is more authoritative:
Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Hebrews 13:17 NIV)
Viola describes what the word used for obey means:
The Greek word for obey in this passage is no hupakuo, the garden-variety word for obedience used elsewhere. It is peitho [middle-passive form] which means to yield to persuasion. The author of Hebrews is simply saying “allow yourselves to be persuaded by those who are more mature in Christ than you are.”
A better translation for Hebrews 13:17 actually supports the practice of consensus, not undermine it.
Consensus is not easy. Most of the time it will be a struggle, but it is exactly this kind of struggle that builds community. A charismatic leader pushing forward his own agenda requires others to submit to his will. A body of believers working towards consensus requires all to submit to each other. It requires love and respect for each other. Viola quotes Christian Smith:
Consensus is not strong on efficiency, if by that we mean ease and speed. It can take a long time to work through issues, which can become quite frustrating… consensus is strong on unity, communication, openness to the Spirit’s leading, and responsible participation in the Body. In achieving those values, consensus is efficient. Deciding by consensus, then, simply requires belief that unity, love, communication, and participation are more important in the Christian scheme than quick, easy decisions. It requires the understanding that, ultimately, the process is as important as the outcome.
We are not supposed to be simply pragmatic. We are supposed to be obedient. The New Testament places a great deal of emphasis on unity, and the church being of one body, under the leadership of head, which is Christ.
In summary:
The NT knows nothing of an authoritative mode of leadership. Nor does it know a “leaderless” egalitarianism. It rejects both hierarchical structures as well as rugged individualism. Instead, the NT envisions leadership as coming from the entire church! Direction and decision-making are supplied by the brothers and sisters by consensus. Oversight is supplied by the seasoned brothers.
It should be obvious why modern church leaders stand so strongly against authors like Viola and others who are calling the church back to New Testament methods and practices. They have the most to lose. Their entire career is based on a leadership model not found in scripture. If the church were to truly move back towards New Testament methods and practices, which requires a return to the New Testament model of leadership, not only would these leaders lose their position, office, and authority, they would lose their career. In a way, I feel sorry for them, because it is difficult for them to objectively evaluate these issues.
But these very leaders’ talents and gifting are actually better suited to New Testament methods and practices. Because in a more intimate, open, participatory format, leaders not only teach but they train. They not only impart their wisdom through teaching, but have a closer relationship with younger Christians through oversight.
But let’s not take the task of building and providing direction for the church away from Christ. Those who seek to further utilize the organizational structure of the modern church miss out on one of the things that made the early church so unique at that time of history – that this was the time when God finally ruled His people directly, as He had always wished to do with Israel before they sought out a king. We should seek to restore that distinctive character of the early church.
Very interesting, but I don’t quite understand what you mean by visionary leadership: If leaders persuade and advise, surely they will do so from a vision of the purposes of God? In my church it is those with a recognised prophetic gift or spontaneous but consistent prophetic messages from the church body in general that provides vision and focus, but it is interpreted by “someone” as Corinthians requires. Who? The elders. They also take the things they see are good elsewhere that are not specifically prophetic and bring them to the church, after prayer. We all then pray about it and go for it. There are generally adjustments here and there but it seems to work. We have had issues at times, and people still have reservations, but we have enough trust in each other as people to keep going, and enough honesty to admit to mistakes. So just a message of hope from an anonymous dude? Not only, as this example shows how elders can be at the center of decision making because they mostly put Jesus’s purposes before their own. Pretty visionary and directed, and still mostly involves consensus. The difference is that trust replaces total consensus. Think about Paul, how could he ask them to be unified if every decision already required total consensus? In our church we want to come to one mind, but we know we aren’t their yet, so sometimes we go along with someone we disagree with out of love, although we still try to show them their error, again out of love. At every stage we talk and discuss, but we forgive rather than bog things down in democratic politics. This means that the minority that doesn’t get the vision doesn’t scupper all motion, but does get heard. What do you think? Some sad times it hasn’t worked and people have left, but that happened among the apostles so we can’t be too surprised. But its better they honestly leave or honestly stay than backbite etc. Ahh you probably know all this already, but I thought it would be good to state it!
I don’t see a problem with that general approach, but the problem comes when the “elders” are the gatekeepers.
If each member is functioning the the church gatherings, then there’s little for people to make decisions about, actually. Most decisions in most churches today have to do with buildings, staff, or programs. All of which were absent in the New Testament.
I totally agree that consensus includes trust. This happens in marriages all the time – where one partner has a strong feeling about something, but the other is not so sure but trusts in their partner anyway. Consensus doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m 100% convinced. It means that I’m willing to submit to the rest of the group in love and unity.