Powerful Leaders?

When Christian Leadership Goes Wrong

Marcus Honeysett

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781789743227
• eBook ISBN: 9781789743456
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Nonprofit Organizations & Charities

As understanding and awareness of abuse has grown, many revelations of church leaders abusing their power have come to light. How did the church get here? Is there a way we can address both individual and institutional failings to counter the misuse of power and, more importantly, prevent it in first place?

Powerful Leaders? exposes and explores how leaders are tempted away from a biblical model of leadership into illegitimate - and in the worst cases abusive - use of authority and power. Director of Living Leadership, a charity that focuses on healthy leadership and church culture, Marcus Honeysett traces how leaders move along a spectrum of healthy to unhealthy uses of power and position and offers practical wisdom for countering and preventing harmful leadership.

Drawing on his years of experience in the local church and working with leaders and congregations, Honeysett unpacks how to spot danger signs of abuse in the church and provides advice on what to do if you see or are under unhealthy leadership. He also explores why people don't blow the whistle and encourages critical self-examination in existing leaders to ensure they maintain a healthy use of power - and offers guidance to help leaders improve their skills and move back towards healthy, biblically-based leadership.

For anyone concerned about improving safeguarding in the church, Powerful Leaders? will prove a valuable resource. It challenges and equips both those in leadership and those in a position to hold leaders accountable, and will empower them to take the necessary steps forward to create healthier church cultures in which everyone can thrive.

Part 1

BIBLICAL PATTERNS OF HEALTHY LEADERSHIP

1

Servant leadership for the good of others

[Jesus] asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.’ He took a little child and had him stand among them.

(Mark 9:33–36a)

I wonder if you have ever attended a conference or watched a video online in which a passionate and motivated speaker has enthused about the successes of their church or movement. You were inspired by accounts of people being saved, baptized and discipled, and were challenged by the vision, strategies and tough choices the leader had made.

We are easily drawn in by energy, drive, charisma and what seems like success. But how can we tell if what we are seeing is healthy, biblical leadership? How can we look beyond charisma to character and submission to Scripture? And if you yourself are that leader up on stage, how can you ensure you are modelling healthy leadership?

Before we explore the trajectory that leads away from healthy biblical leadership and into danger, we first need to establish a plumb line: what does the New Testament say about authentic, healthy Christian leadership?

Disciples getting it wrong

James and John asked Jesus to give them the most glorious places in his kingdom. In return Jesus gave them an extended telling-off for wanting to exercise leadership in the same way as the world. ‘[The] rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,’ he said. ‘Not so with you.’ He presented himself as their model to emulate: ‘even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:42–43, 45). The world says that leadership is about power, status, accomplishment, climbing the ladder and being the boss. Leaders are at the top of the pile. The fact that James and John’s request is recorded shows that Christians are far from immune from this temptation.

For several years I taught a course in church leadership, for which I read much of the work published in the UK over a thirty-year period. By far the most common definition of leadership was ‘leadership is influence’, a definition you will struggle to find in the Bible. It is a pragmatic, secular definition, baptized and used in the church, and labelled therefore as ‘Christian leadership’, not dissimilar to the role and skill set of a CEO or company director, only exercised in a Christian context.

However, Christian leadership is of a completely different kind. We have a different goal: God being glorified through people coming to Jesus and becoming worshipping disciples. We have different motivation, power, methods and character. Leadership is not merely the exercise of influence or a set of skills and competencies.

Leadership is servanthood

Of course, the other main definition of leadership is servanthood. But even then, it is reasonably rare to find it explained and explored in leadership books rather than just assumed. Let’s examine a few passages to help us put flesh on the bones of what ‘servant leadership’ means.

1 What is Christian leadership?

Christian leadership is a spiritual gift. ‘We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is . . . leadership, let him govern diligently’ (Romans 12:6, 8).

In 1 Corinthians 12:7 the spiritual gifts are described as manifestations of the Holy Spirit for the common good. A manifestation is a showing or demonstration of the Holy Spirit. He gives gifts to Christians so that God will be seen. The apostle Peter expands on how grace gifts from God (of which every Christian has at least one) are to be used: ‘Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms’ (1 Peter 4:10).

Spiritual gifts then, including leadership, are given to each believer, not for ourselves but for serving others, in the common good. When we use our spiritual gifts to serve in this way, we are stewards of God’s grace. Peter highlights the overall purpose: ‘so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen’ (1 Peter 4:11).

2 What is the point of Christian leadership?

The point of Christian leadership is to build up the body in maturity, love and effectiveness. We serve, stewarding grace gifts from God, so that he is known, worshipped and glorified through Jesus. The context in which leadership is exercised is the church, which is God’s worshipping, witnessing community, the body of Christ. In Ephesians 4 we discover that ‘to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it’ (verse 7). ‘It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service’ (verses 11–12).

God gives leaders to help everyone else to use their own gifts in his service. The aim is that ‘the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ’ (verses 12–13).

This maturity is experienced by not being blown around by false teaching: ‘Then we will no longer be infants . . . blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming’ (verse 14) and by the body growing in love and doing its work effectively:

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

(verses 15–16)

The point of Christian leadership is to shepherd the body, and all the disciples within it, to play their part in God’s great purposes. Leaders are given to equip and nurture all the disciples in their ministries, not to do all the ministry of the church for them.

3 How do Christian leaders do this?

Christian leaders shepherd the body by working with people for their progress and joy in the faith. The apostle Paul told the church in Philippi what he wanted to do upon his release from prison: ‘I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me’ (Philippians 1:25–26). His aim is that they will glory abundantly in Jesus, being full of joy in him. Christian joy is the experience of gladness or happiness, not in plans or possessions or ambitions, but in God. When we become Christians, we are saved into a relationship in which he gives his joy to us. In John 15:11, Jesus tells the disciples to remain in him, and thereby in the love of the Father, so that his joy may be in them and their joy may be complete. The core focus of Christian leaders, therefore, is that disciples will know and enjoy God as they obey and follow Jesus.

The heartbeat of all discipleship and all leadership is the joy of the Lord, of which experiencing his grace is the wellspring. The Bible is clear that the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). And yet it can come as a surprise, even to seasoned leaders. One church leader told me, ‘I have never seen that my job is to be a worker who helps other people overflow with joy in God. That revolutionizes everything.’ When a church is full of joy in God it is easy to see why it attracts people to Christ. Similarly, when it isn’t, we can see easily why there is little attraction.

James and John got it wrong. Christian leaders are not Jesus’ top generals. They are under-shepherds helping the flock enjoy and feed on God, out of which flows firm and secure faith: ‘Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by faith you stand firm’ (2 Corinthians 1:24).

4 What does this look like in practice?

In practice this involves teaching, shepherding, modelling and spiritual parenting. The church in Thessalonica, whose founding provoked a riot (Acts 17:1–8), was a great source of joy to the apostle Paul, because they were imitators: ‘You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit’ (1 Thessalonians 1:6).

The modelling and example they received included hearing the gospel and witnessing leaders who were genuine (1 Thessalonians 2:5). Paul and his team were gentle and caring, encouraging like mothers (2:7), sharing their lives as well as the gospel (2:8). Like spiritual fathers they comforted, encouraged and urged the new disciples to live for God (2:11–12). All with the aim that God would

make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

(1 Thessalonians 3:12–13)

5 In what do authentic leaders boast?

Authentic Christian leaders boast in weakness, not strength. In 2 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul talks about his famous ‘thorn in the flesh’. We don’t know what it was, but it was distressing and he pleaded three times with the Lord to take it away. The Lord did not remove it, but instead used it to teach him a vital lesson about grace, power and weakness: ‘But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”’ (verse 9). Note the connection between God’s grace and power and Paul’s weakness. It is when we are weak that God’s power is manifest, not when we are strong. His grace is sufficient. Paul continues:

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

(verses 9–10)

The trouble for many of us as Christian leaders is that we simply don’t like it! Or we think that our churches don’t wa...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Part 1
• 1
• 2
• Part 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• Part 3
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• Afterword: The peaceful fruit of righteousness
• Appendix: A note on the terminology of ‘spiritual abuse’
• Bibliography
• Notes