I recently wrote an article entitled “No More Top-Down Leadership” in which we saw the typical leadership structure being turned upside down as the leaders become the servants.

I’d like to get more specific with a Biblical example of leading from the bottom. Consider these words that James uses to open his epistle…

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.

Notice how James describes himself? As a servant. Here is James, the half-brother of Jesus and the head of the church in Jerusalem. But he does not appeal to his authority as the brother of Christ or to his position as the head of the church in Jerusalem. Most of us appeal to our position to justify our authority. But not James. He calms himself a servant. And because has both Christ and the Church, they listen.

Notice how Paul does the same thing in verses 8-9 of his letter to Philemon concerning the runaway slave Onesimus…

Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love.

Paul goes out of his way to say to Philemon that “you owe me and I could demand you to listen” (many believe the Philemon came to faith through the ministry of Paul, thus Philemon would be spiritually indebted to Paul). But he does not . He appeals “on the basis of love.”

As leaders, we are called to be visionaries, self-starters, encouragers and so much more. Yet, as leaders, we need to guard our hearts from pride. We have been entrusted with an amazing task, to take the gospel to the nations. But we are to do so not as prideful, arrogant dictators, but as loving servants.

Following up on my previous article on the Church and Web 2.0, I would like to begin to look at some of the implications this discussion has/will have on the future of the way we do church.

One of the key dynamics of Web 2.0 services is that they interactive and participative. That is, the users create the content. Wikipedia and YouTube are just two examples of sites where the content is generated by users of the site, not by the site itself.

So what does this mean for the church? Most churches operate in a very top-down hierarchical manner. Like a pyramid, the church builds from the pews to the leadership (staff, board) and reaches its pinnacle with the senior pastor. I’m sure that one of the primary reasons for the development of this model was to protect orthodoxy. The pastor, the theologically trained leader, had to maintain absolute authority to make sure that the church didn’t veer into apostasy or heresy.

Consider these words from Mark 10:42-45…

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Maybe, just maybe, this whole “Web 2.0″ and “Church 2.0″ could hold the key for living out this servant leadership style that Jesus advocates to his followers. Instead of leading from the top, the leaders become the servants. Instead of doing all the ministry, the leaders takes seriously the call of Ephesians 4 to be equip the people for ministry.

In most churches, lay people come, sit in their pews (with some standing and maybe some kneeling thrown in there) where they are spoken to, preached at and, in general, are passive observers. Sure, they join in the singing, but that is as participative as gets. The teaching and preaching of the Word of God is a primary hallmark of Christian worship (as it should be). But too many preachers approach the task thinking they speak from Sinai and the people better listen.

Mike Yaconelli tells a story in his book, Dangerous Wonder, about a girl who visited the church he was pastoring. She was too green and naive to know any better, so, in the middle of his sermon, she raised her hand to ask a question about something she didn’t understand. It took him (and all those conditioned to the way we do church) by surprise. But it changed the way things worked in his church. From that time on, if he said something that was unclear or confusing, the people in his congregation interacted with him.

That is a small step, but with each question asked, that church became more interactive and participative rather than passive for the congregants. Pastors are scared that if they allow “user created content,” heresy will prevail. And that is a real danger which pastors must combat. In fact, in his letters to Timothy, Paul is quick to put limits on who can speak at certain parts of their worship services. But if it teaches us anything, it should be that it was the normal practice that several people were involved with speaking, teaching and praying in their services. The early Christian services were interactive and participative. Maybe we need to learn from Web 2.0 and transition our churches to more participation and interaction as well.

Jacob was a deceiver. He deceived Esau and took his birthright. He deceived his father and received the blessing from Isaac instead of Esau. He deceived his father-in-law Laban to accumulate wealth. All his life he deceived people to get what he wanted.

But something changed one fateful day. Years after running away from Esau, he packs up everything he has and sets off toward Esau, hoping for restoration. The night before he meets Esau, with his family and possessions already sent on ahead, Jacob wrestles a mysterious visitor. During the course of their wrestling match we read, “When the man saw that he could not overpower him [Jacob], he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man” (Gen. 32:25).

Something changed that night for Jacob. And it was not just his name (which became Israel). As a tennis coach, I constantly am teaching people about rotating their hips and using their core to produce more power, precisely because the hips and core are the strongest part of your body. But not so anymore for Jacob, for the man dislocated his hip.

He couldn’t hide his weakness. That he was limping was obvious to all who saw him. That his hip was dislocated was a powerful, daily reminder that his strength and pride were gone. The prideful arrogant deceiver was gone. In his place stood a new man, Israel, whose limp would serve as the basis of his leadership. His leadership became, in the words of Dan Allender, “leading with a limp.”

The leadership principle is powerful. We all have flaws and weaknesses. Yet we all, leaders especially, spend so much of our time trying to hide our weaknesses. We don’t want people to know that we can’t do it all and that we’re not good at everything. We only accept responsibilities that will highlight our strengths and skills, wanting to make sure that we always look good.

Like Jacob, each of us called to be a leader must do so with a limp. All of us have something that requires dependence upon God’s strength when we are too weak, and if you don’t, just wait. God will send something to break you of your strength and pride. Even Paul, the great apostle, had a thorn in his side that followed him till the end of his days (2 Cor. 12). But Paul found his hope in the promise that “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (vs 9).

There is a tendency to want to control everything. We want to look good all the time. Yet that is not the way of Biblical leadership. Rather, Biblical leadership is the way of weakness, humility and authenticity. Imagine what it must have been like when Israel met up with his family later that day. They saw him limping and must have been worried. But he knew that limp came on the night he encountered God face to face. Like Jacob, when we embrace our weakness and share the story of encountering God in the midst of it, we allow people to see that we are flawed and in need of God’s grace and we give them permission to need God’s grace too. And that is what Christian leadership is all about – helping people see their need for grace and a God so anxious to entend it.

In my last post, I mentioned the questionnaire I received from a prospective church and a couple of the questions included. It was one of the other questions that provided the opportunity for part 2 of my 434 (or at least 3) part series on Biblical leadership principles…

God, in His sovereignty, has given His church two different accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. Each of these accounts teaches us about humanity and our relation both to God and to the world into which we were placed.

Genesis 1 emphasizes man as one created with authority. Consider Gen. 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” God created humanity with authority and commissioned them to rule of his creation. Man and Woman were to serve as the vice-regents of God’s kingdom here on earth.

Compare that with the picture of Genesis 2, which emphasizes man as one under authority. In verses 16-17 we read, “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’” Man, for all the authority given to him to rule over creation in Genesis 1, is not the ultimate authority. Man is subject to God.

There is an important leadership principle in there. Leaders are given authority, sometimes positional authority and sometimes authority that falls outside of any formal organizational structures. Yet, for all their authority and influence, they are never the “final answer.” They always remain under God’s authority.

Too many leaders, especially Christian leaders, have fallen into sin. And it is usually precisely because they begin to believe their own hype and begin to see themselves as the ultimate. But they aren’t. They are accountable to God himself and their should always be other humans to whom they report (be it an elder board or a pastoral team). When a Christian leader falls, it is almost without fail the case that they have no accountability.

Leaders are given incredible authority to rule in the particular area into which God has called them. Yet leaders with authority are always to be leaders under God’s authority.

1 Timothy 3:1 applauds the pursuit of leadership saying, “Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer (elder), he desires a noble task.” Compare that with the words of James 3:1 where it warns that “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” Leadership is a sticky issue. On the one side, it is a noble task and those who desire to lead should be commended. Yet leaders are held to a higher standard and judged accordingly.

As such, those who would consider being leaders should do so thoughtfully and humbly, because the cost is very high. This is the first in a series (assuming I ever get around to writing down others) of reflections on Biblical leadership and its cost.

Last night in our devotionals, Kim and I read 2 Samuel 24. This chapter is the retelling of a story where David authorizes Joab and the army commanders to go throughout all the land of Israel and count the fighting men (all males of age to fight in the army). Upon returning from a nearly 10 month trip around Israel, they returned to King David with their report.

Then verse 10 states, “David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.’” See, while the Lord commanded David to take a census, it was a very different thing to take a census of just the fighting men. That count was driven by David’s pride in the greatness of his kingdom and desire to take satisfaction in the security of the strength of his army, not by obedience to a command of the Lord.

David confesses his sin, but still must pay the consequences. The Lord sends Gad, the prophet, to David with the choice of three punishments. “So God went to David and said to him, ‘Shall there come upon you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me’” (verse 13).

Now, you may be thinking, those are all really terrible punishments for something as seemingly miniscule as taking a census of the fighting men. But even if David must be punished for his sin, all three of these punishments are not just directed against David, but against all of Israel. How is that fair of God to punish all Israel for David’s sin?

Yet that is exactly the leadership lesson to be learned. Just as Israel was punished for the sin of David, so also when leaders fail, all those under the leader pay the price. Like I said at the beginning, leaders should take inventory of the costs associated with their leadership to decide whether or not this is something they are interested in. Because if and when you screw up, confess though you might, those under you will suffer.

As Uncle Ben told Peter Parker in Spiderman (and then the line was repeated several times), “With great power comes great responsibility.” Leaders are responsible for those under them. When they fail, all pay the price.

Without a doubt the biggest buzz in the Church (not to mention the secular media) in the US right now is the fall of Ted Haggard. It was revealed that the (now former) pastor of a 14000 member church and president of the National Association of Evangelicals had employed the services of a male prostitute for the three years. I can’t even begin to understand what is going on in his heart, his family and in the church, but I can tell you this – we shouldn’t really be surprised!

See, he’s a sinner! Maybe the particular sin of which he is guilty is shocking, but it shouldn’t shock us that he is a sinner. A while back I wrote an article on the heroes of the faith. If you look back at the lives of Augustine, Luther, Wesley or any of the great men that have walked before us you will find one major thing in common. They were all sinners. Vile wretched sinners.

It’s not a surprise that he is a sinner. It’s not a surprise that he messed up. It’s not even a surprise that he fell. It’s a shame, not a surprise.

Each of us that God has placed in positions of leadership in the church need to heed this warning. James 3:1 is clear in declaring that “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” If God has called you into spiritual leadership, you must find occasion all the more to reflect on the state of your heart. Because you are a sinner too! Spiritual leaders are in a public position. You can try and hide your sin, but it may (and probably will) be found out. Instead, find a couple of brothers or sisters that you trust dearly and confess to them.

Pray for Ted and his family. You can recover from a lot of sins in the church, but I’m not sure if you can recover from this. I don’t know if he could ever be restored to ministry, but pray that his family will experiencing healing and that he repentance will be genuine and real.
I hate when leaders in the church fall. I’m not surprised, but I still hate it. But thank God that His mercy and grace given to us in His Son on the cross is greater still.
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For more information on Ted Haggard and this whole situation, I’d recommend two resources for godly thoughts.
Gordon MacDonald has an article on LeadershipJournal.net responding to this. Few people understand falling from the heights in Christian leadership like Gordon.
Mark Driscoll on his blog reflects on the situation and provides a powerful challenge for leaders to reflect on their own hearts.