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Up to the Challenge
Nowhere are the demands and rewards of leadership greater than in the church.
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After twenty-four years of leadership, I have come to believe five truths about leadership in the church. 1. I believe the church is the most leadership-intensive enterprise in society.My friend runs a company with about 3,000 employees. He says he wants to relax after retirement and lead a church. He said, "It doesn't have to be a Willow Creek-sized church. Maybe just 7,000 or 8,000 with some growth potential." I told him that leading a church will ruin his retirement, because the church demands a higher and more complex form of leadership than business does. I've been on both sides. Running a business is challenging, but the leader of a company has a clearly defined playing field and enormous leverage with his or her employees. The business leader delivers a product or service through paid staff who either get it done or get replaced. Church leadership is far more complex than that. The redeeming and rebuilding of human lives is exceedingly more difficult than building widgets or delivering predictable services. Here's why: -Every life requires a custom mold. You don't stop the line in a factory every time a product comes down it. In church work, we're developing individual, custom-made lives. We stop the line for every life. I've read books about Napoleon, de Gaulle, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton-all the great military leaders. I don't want to minimize their capabilities or the courage it takes to charge a hill in time of battle, but I've wondered, What it would be like for some of those leaders to have to work it out with deacons before they charged up a hill? How well would they do if they had to subject their plans to a vote involving the very people they're going to lead up the hill? How would the whole military system work if you took away the leadership leverage of the court-martial? Anyone could build a church with that kind of leverage! "Teach a Sunday school class or go to the brig." "You call that an offering? Give me fifty push-ups right now." That's leverage! -The church is utterly voluntary. In the final analysis, we have little or no leverage, no real power over anybody we lead. At Willow Creek we've had people attend our services week after week, create trouble throughout the church, and tap every resource we have. Then, when they cross one too many lines and the elders bring correction or discipline, they bail out of the church or even sue. To mobilize an utterly volunteer organization requires the highest kind of leadership. -The church is utterly altruistic. When leading a business, you can hire a bright, energetic, young employee and say, "Here's our vision. Here's your part in it. Here's your salary, your perks, your car, your phone, your fax, your computer, your secretary, your office, your vacation plan. If you work hard, in five or eight years we're going to make you a partner or invite you into the profit-sharing plan. Down the road, you'll probably make big money. There will be more perks, more time off. And when we sell this place in fifteen or twenty years, we're all going to walk away transcendently wealthy. Are you interested?" |             |
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