An assassin’s bullet grazes the ear of the Republican presidential nominee, the English football team coach resigns despite, (in my humble opinion) a successful 8 years at the helm. And, as I write, the King’s speech, launches a new government’s agenda upon the nation.
Leadership is in the spotlight.
Christian leadership is also under scrutiny. It’s tragic but true. Recent years have seen a motherlode of moral failures, toxic cultures and narcissism exposed. Significant and celebrity leaders have crashed and burned leaving individuals, families and church communities deeply wounded and hurting.
Whilst these events sadly occur in all kinds of churches and ministries, they are more frequent where self-appointed leaders with magnetic personalities and powerful personal appeals exercise power without much accountability. We become bedazzled by their vision, their achievements, and their testimonies, and can all too easily trade our discernment for our desire for success.
No doubt we could each heap our bad church stories on one another. No doubt we could share our conflicted reactions to people who have inspired and informed us, ministered powerfully in word and Spirit who have been shown to be deeply flawed. No doubt we are all and each, leaders and followers, sinners saved by grace who ourselves remain far from perfection.
Yet at the very least, our response must be, as far as it depends on us, to invest in healthy leadership cultures and structures and to address the heritage of hurt from our past which lives on in our souls now. A great way to begin that healing journey out of a damaging church experience would be to read Scott McKnight and Laura Barringer’s “A church called TOV”.
Caitlin Beattie helpfully defines celebrity as “social power without relational proximity”. That is influence without presence, the power of careful image management that holds our heroes high above scrutiny. That describes what can happen with Christian leaders: becoming so detached from people that they are avoidant of correction, so taken by their own popularity that they lose accountability.
So here in Hebrews 13: 17-20 we are invited to consider a different kind of leadership and followership. One that is grounded in interpersonal mutuality. A biblical social contract that frees leaders to lead with honour and respect rather than be reined in by suspicion and distrust.
Yet this also makes leaders aware (as the Hebrew writer is) that they are accountable. Accountable in the first place to God! Yet also to the Christian community. This is displayed in two remarkable leadership qualities the writer manifests, and which we would do well to imitate:
Vulnerability – “Pray for me”. This leader shows up not as an omnicompetent expert but as one reliant on the enabling power of God and the prayers of God’s people.
Love – “I urge you to pray that I might be restored to you soon”. This is someone who actually wants to be with the people they serve. This is no heartless visionary using people to achieve their goals, no insecure populist milking people’s approval to bolster their own ego but a lover of the people he is called to lead. He really wants to get among them and prays that he will be restored to them soon.
Do you love the people you lead? Your family, your colleagues at work, your life group? At the least are you trying to?
The writer to the Hebrews has some hard things to say but it’s parcelled up in love. I imagine they heard it better because they knew they were loved.
Our culture tells us that leadership is all about the heroic individual celebrity, Hebrews tells us we need one another.
Iain