Organizational Leadership

Foundations and Practices for Christians

Jack Burns, John R. Shoup, Donald C. Simmons Jr., Jack Burns, John R. Shoup, Donald C. Simmons Jr.

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830896172
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Kingdom leadership does not begin and end at the church door. Christians are called to conduct leadership in government, commerce, schools, neighborhoods, families, para-church ministries and a myriad other contexts. God has given us many gifts, and our responsibility is to be stewards of those gifts, and use them to do the King?s work.In that context, this comprehensive text explores key facets of leadership from a Christian worldview so as to equip people to conduct leadership more authentically than would be possible under alternative paradigms. The book begins with the seldom considered theological foundations of leadership while also tracing the historic roots of management, organization and leadership theories. All of this leads to a robust discussion of five essential challenges and practices--communication, negotiation, decision-making, financial stewardship and personal development.The combined efforts of these experts in the field provide a practical theology of leadership from a Christian worldview for emerging and established leaders. Here is the foundation needed for those who want to conduct leadership in a manner consistent with their faith in both religious and nonreligious organizational contexts.

Section One

Theological Foundations for Christian Leadership

1

Called to Lead

How Do I Know?

Timothy G. Dolan

I’m really struggling with the whole issue of leadership—seeing myself as a leader. The truth is, I don’t particularly aspire to be a leader, but I have to be. I am a pastor, you know. I mean, it goes with the territory.

What I could say is that I’m alerted to leadership issues. I’m seeing writing about it everywhere, and I’m listening differently. I was one of those people who used to say, “Why do we keep talking about leadership?”

Quotes from research interviews conducted by the chapter author

Introduction

One of my favorite television shows when I was a kid was The Twilight Zone. Each week, host Rod Sterling took viewers to another time and dimension with stories that were bizarre, unusual and sometimes just plain weird. As I was preparing to write this chapter, I happened to flip on the television (always a bad idea when you are trying to get some serious writing done!). The station I landed on was doing a marathon of old Twilight Zone reruns. I thought, Well, maybe I have time to watch one episode. And so I did.

The episode focuses on a financially struggling antique dealer named Arthur Castle. Arthur and his wife are barely making ends meet with their little antique shop. One day a woman comes into Arthur’s shop and sells him what looks like a worthless bottle for one dollar. Arthur knows it is probably not an antique, but he takes pity on the woman since she obviously is poor and needs the money. When Arthur’s wife finds out, she is furious. As they are fighting over the bottle, it falls to the floor and breaks. Lo and behold, out pops a genie. It is not a worthless bottle after all!

The genie offers Arthur four wishes. Arthur’s first wish is for a million dollars. Unfortunately, Arthur botches that wish and ends up owing almost all of the money to the IRS. For his second wish, Arthur decides to ask for something “foolproof”—something that cannot be taken away from him (like the million dollars). He decides that one thing is power. Arthur says to the genie, “I wish to be a leader. I wish to be the leader of a contemporary twentieth-century country—a country in which I can’t be voted out of office.” Arthur is savvy enough to know that this kind of leadership could have consequences. But the genie assures Arthur by saying, “You run the risk of consequences no matter what you wish for.” And so the genie grants Arthur his wish.

The next thing he knows, Arthur is hunkered down in a German bunker during the final days of World War II, just hours before Berlin is about to fall to the Allies. As one of his lieutenants is handing him a gun to put an end to it all, Arthur, in shocked amazement, realizes what is happening: “I can’t be voted out of office. I’m in a bunker. It is the end of World War II—I’m Adolf Hitler!” Fortunately, Arthur has two more wishes, and he quickly uses one of them to become Arthur Castle again.

Clearly, one of the main lessons of this episode of The Twilight Zone is to be careful what you wish for! But it is also a reminder that the desire to be a leader and the consequences that go along with it might not always be what we expect. Leadership, and the power and influence that accompany it, does indeed have consequences.

The two Christian leaders I quote at the beginning of this chapter illustrate the complexity and ambiguity of being a leader today. The questions they were wrestling with when I interviewed them for a research project had to do with what it means to be a leader and what effective leadership really looks like. In this chapter, I want to consider two questions Christians need to ask when they are considering leading, either formally or informally: (1) How does one know if he or she is called to be a Christian leader? and (2) What are some of the personal qualities and characteristics that are helpful for a person to possess when aspiring to be a Christian leader?

The Primary and Secondary Calling of God

Discerning one’s call to Christian leadership involves understanding the distinction between one’s primary and secondary calling.

The primary call of God. Christians frequently use the word call to describe the process of being summoned by God to do specific tasks. Often when Christians hear the word, they think of one’s work, one’s vocation, what we are called to do to make a living. The word vocation comes from the Latin vocare and simply means “call” or “calling.” In his book The Call, Os Guinness suggests that all Christians have both a primary and secondary calling. Our primary and most important call is to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Guinness writes, “Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him, and for him” (1998, p. 31). Kevin and Kay Brennflick, in Live Your Calling, believe that this primary call is to “a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ” (2005, p. 5). Before we are called to do something, we are called to be someone: a disciple of Jesus Christ (John 10:27).

I am sure many of us have a story regarding God’s primary call on our lives. My own experience of this primary call happened when I was a freshman in college. Prior to that time, I saw God as one who was a great unknown—someone I knew was real, but not someone I could know personally. I had a picture of God as someone who was aloof, uncaring and uninterested in me as a person. Over a period of time, I had come to totally reject God, believing that I could make it on my own. Yet, even though I turned my back on God, he never turned his back on me. When I went to college, it so happened that my closest friends turned out to be committed Christians. Looking back now, I know that this was not by my choosing, but by God’s divine plan. Slowly, during my freshman year, the Lord softened my heart toward him.

I still remember the night one of these Christian friends explained to me, in simple language, that I was a sinner in need of a Savior—Jesus Christ. He told me that God was not distant and uninterested in me as I had thought all along, but he loved me and had a plan and purpose for me. Soon afterward, I committed my life to Christ, and as I grew closer to him, I knew God was speaking to me. I knew my life had changed forever and I knew in my heart that God had chosen me. That was my primary call; to love, follow and glorify him.

Guinness defines God’s calling as “the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service” (1998, p. 29). Ruth Haley Barton, in Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, defines this biblical idea of “call” as simply “one being (God) reaching out and establishing connection with another (us)” (2008, p. 79). It is important at the outset to remember that most of what God “calls” Christians to be and do is not mysterious; it has already been clearly revealed to us in the Scriptures. For example, in response to the Pharisee’s question regarding which is the greatest commandment, Jesus replies, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39). In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples they are to be salt and light to others. They are to forgive those who hurt them and not lust after others. They are to love their enemies and pray for those who hurt them. They are not to store up treasures on earth, or worry about food or clothes, or judge others (Matthew 5–7). The real issue for most Christians is not discovering what God is calling us to be and do but faithfully being and doing what has already been clearly commanded.

In The Other Six Days, R. Paul Stevens affirms this idea of our primary calling to God when he writes that “the Christian doctrine of vocation—so central to the theology of the whole people of God—starts with being called to Someone before we are called to do something. And it is not something we choose like a career. We are chosen” (1999, p. 72). The truth is, all Christians are called to be disciples. For some, it is a slow and gradual process; for others, it is more like the apostle Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). However it happens for us individually, God is the one calling and our task is to respond.

The secondary call of God. The secondary or vocational call focuses more on the particular tasks, functions, work and activities God calls us to carry out. Ruth Haley Barton writes, “God calls us first and foremost to belong to him, but our secondary calling is to answer God’s personal address to us. It is to say yes to his summons to serve him in a particular way at a particular point in history” (2008, p. 79). The New Testament makes clear that Jesus calls all Christians, not only to faith in him, but also to serve him in some capacity (Ephesians 2:10).

Sometimes, this secondary calling is to both informal and formal positions as leaders in the church or other organizations. Some well-known examples from the Old Testament of individuals who were called by God specifically to be leaders include: Moses being called to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt (Exodus 3:4-10); Samuel being called to become a prophet to Israel during a time of great sin and apostasy (1 Samuel 3); David being called to be the second king of Israel after the failure of King Saul (1 Samuel 16). In the New Testament, John the Baptist was called to be the unique forerunner of Jesus (Luke 1:11-17); twelve ordinary men were called to be Jesus’ disciples and to establish the early church (Mark 1:14-20); the apostle Paul was called to lead God’s special mission to the Gentiles (Acts 9:1-19). In each of these instances, and in many others, God has chosen and called specific people, most of whom are quite ordinary, to lead others in doing something specific and unique for him. The call to be a leader has always been contextualized for a particular role, task or function.

The difference between primary and secondary calling is not always as distinct and unambiguous as the above paragraphs might indicate. In reality, these two callings deeply intersect with one another and are usually tightly interwoven in a person’s life. One mistake Christians often make when they think about calling is to forget that their first and most significant call is to a person, Jesus Christ, and not to a position. I am convinced that God is more interested in developing us as persons than he is in the particular work we do. A second mistake is the belief that only those engaged in distinctly “Christian” work (e.g., pastors, missionaries, evangel­­­ists) are the ones who are really “called.” It is unfortunate that many people think that any vocation (e.g., doctor, plumber, carpenter, businessperson, social worker) that is not distinctly Christian is not considered a calling from God. But the Bible reminds us that all work that is useful and honoring to God and others is good work. God’s call to be a nurse at a local hospital is just as important as the call to be the pastor of a local congregation (Colossians 3:23; 1 Thessalonians 4:11).

Discerning God’s Call to Leadership

How do you know if God is calling you to be a leader? It is important to remember that one does not discern their secondary calling in a vacuum. Rather, this call is discerned and validated by others in the body of Christ. Discerning one’s calling is meant to be a communal activity. If one is being called to be a leader it will be obvious, not only to that individual but also to other members of the body. Sometimes people say, “God is calling me to do this or that.” And that may be. But input and confirmation from other members of the body helps ground a calling in the larger needs, expectations and judgments of the community to which one belongs.

Whitworth University, where I used to serve, has placed a major emphasis on helping students discover their vocational callings and specifically what it means to be a leader in God’s kingdom. For several years my colleagues were involved in a multiyear program funded by the Lilly Endowment that focuses on calling and vocation. They concentrated their attention on five areas where vocation and calling most often get fleshed out: work, family, church, community and the world. Each of these areas is an important setting in which a sense of vocation emerges. In order to help students think about their vocational calling in these various areas, my colleagues developed a list of questions for students to ask themselves as they consider their calling. I believe several of these questions are relevant to our discussion regarding how one knows the context of their calling. These questions focus on spiritual gifts, passions, skills, purposes and convictions.

Spiritual gifts. The New Testament teaches that all believers are gifted by God for some kind of ministry in the church and/or in the world (Romans 12:6-8; 1 Corinthians 12:7). When we discover, develop and use the gifts God has given us, we not only glorify God and build up the body of Christ, but we also understand more fully our “spiritual job description.” The first set of questions developed by my colleagues has to do with spiritual gifts. They are: What gifts do you think God has given you? Do other mature believers agree with your assessment?

Os Guinness comments that God normally calls us along the lines of the way he has gifted us. “A sense of calling should precede a choice of job and career, and the main way to discover calling is along the line of what we are each created and gifted to be. Instead of ‘You are what you do’ calling says: ‘Do what you are’” (1998, p. 46). Greg Ogden, in his seminal book Unfinished Business, believes that the gifting of the Holy Spirit is critical to understanding where an individual fits in the body of Christ. He says, “The first criteria for identifying equipping leaders is the recognition by the body that the appropriate spiritual gifts . . . are operating under the anointing of the Holy Spirit” (2003, p. 190).

While I was serving as a pastor in my second congregation, we decided to start a Stephen Ministry program. Stephen Ministry uses trained lay “Stephen Ministers” to provide care and support to persons in a particular congregation who are hurting or have special needs. I traveled to Berkeley, California, for two weeks of intensive training, but I was not able to convince anyone else in the church to go for the training with me. While I was at the training, it became obvious to me that I would not be able to lead this ministry effectively on my own; it would need the support and involvement of other church members. When I returned home, I determined not to begin this ministry until God called someone to partner with me. As I remember, after nearly a year and a half of praying about this and discussing it with members of the church community, one middle-aged couple in our congregation felt the call to lead this ministry. As a result, they too went for the training in Berkeley and then returned to use their gifts to begin the program.

That was almost twenty years ago. Only in the last year or so has this couple finally passed the Stephen Ministry baton on to others in the congregation and community. Because they made themselves available to God’s calling, the ministry grew from a program that was focused exclusively on the needs of our congregation to a ministry that now reaches out to the entire community (and county) where the church is located. And here’s the point: it was the willingness of this one couple to heed the call of God and use their God-given gifts of service and leadership that has enabled this ministry to flourish in the way it has. Because they responded to God’s call, they became a blessing not only to our congregation, but to the entire community.

While it is essential to listen well to God’s voice in discerning God’s secondary call on your life, i...