The Shaping of Things to Come (part II)

"...it's one of the core tasks of leadership to help the community to dream again. It's a disturbing trait of the more gung-ho Christian leader today to believe that he (usually male) is the sole visionary and the people are mere receivers of teh vision and must adhere to it because of the position of the leader in the organization...A much more wholesome view of vision and visionary leadership is contained in the idea of the management of meaning. Considered philosophically, all that a great visionary leader does is awaken and harness the dreams and visions of the members of a given community and give them deeper coherence by means of a grand vision that ties together all the 'little visions' of the members of the group."
-page 188

Working now in my second mega-church, I'm beginning to realize how silly our modernistic, heirarchichal conceptions of a visionary leader really are and have always been. Some yuppie male stands up in front of 2 to 30 thousand people and tells them he knows where God is taking them for the next year, 5 years, or even 30 years. Typically one of two things happen in the time to come; either he sets too bold of a vision and ends up leaving or replacing it later on and proving it was not God's vision because it didn't even come close, or else he sets a bland, broad, generic vision that is easy to fulfill because it just isn't from the Lord at all. Luckily, all the mega-churchateers are blind followers and stick with him no matter what.

Frost and Hirsch have a different idea for leadership, as was shown in the initial quote above.

The implications of that paragraph are enormous. First, it means pastors have to really know their church. By "really know," I mean a pastor spending a minimum of half of his or her work week with the people of the church, listening to their needs, hearing their dreams and visions and imaginations and hurts and frustrations and pasts and everything else. I think this is a big reason why Eugene Peterson chose to never lead a mega-church; he wanted to know the visions of his congregants!

Secondly, the hierarchical model of church is toppled. Few people deny that there will not still be some sort of leadership structure, but it is changed now. A real priesthood of all believers becomes possible when the pastor becomes a shepherd and vision sharer rather than a celebrity and lead salesman. Only in a non-heirarchical church can the body of Christ have only one head rather than two.

Lastly, people are able to really become disciples of Christ in the church. Honestly, I think the church makes it hard right now for this to happen. Like the Pharisees, we travel across the world to convert one person, then make it impossible for them to actually follow Christ in a true life of discipleship. Our current way of "making" disciples is to talk at them on Sunday mornings then have them go to a small group where they do Bible study and learn more. If knowledge is all it takes, why don't we just make Satan our lead pastor? Obviously there's something missing. I do not think discipleship is possible in the church unless people are aloud and invited to fully participate in everything.

All this being said, I would only add how much I love this view of leadership. It's like creating a song, pulling together all of the instruments to make something beautiful. Currently we have one man trying to entertain everybody as he attempts to play 10 instruments well at once (there is a guy in Seattle who does that quite well by the way). I look forward to a time where everybody is invited to join in. Isn't that what being part of the body is all about anyway?

Peace,
Matt