The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. –Isaiah 50:4
Have you ever seen something go down in your church that you knew wasn’t right, but you didn’t feel like it was your place to say anything about it? Have you ever made the observation that some activity that your church is engaged in doesn’t really work, but you kept it to yourself because you didn’t think it was your place to say anything? Have you ever had a great idea for your church that you didn’t voice because you were afraid of ruffling feathers or stepping on toes? If you’ve ever experienced any of these things, you’re not alone.
When is it ok to speak? What is ok to say and what is not ok to say? How do I share my perspective on things without offending people? Church leaders at every level struggle with a sense of verbal incompetence, and potential church leaders tend to disqualify themselves out of a fear of not knowing what to say in key situations. Even senior pastors tend to constantly wrestle with their words . . . should I say something? What should I say? Did I say that right? I should have said something! I should’ve kept my mouth shut! I should have said that differently!
The crisis of church leadership is a crisis of words; engaging in church leadership means determining what to say, when to say it, how to say it, and why. Effective leaders are leaders who know what to say, how to say it, are bold enough to say it, and know how to watch over their words to see to it that they do not return to them void, but accomplish what they send them to accomplish. This means that effective leaders are effective communicators.
Learning to lead means learning to communicate effectively within a structure. Leadership structures are nothing more than structures of communication, which give one person the right to communicate to one or more people in a particular way and for a particular purpose. Your effectiveness as a leader is dependent upon your level of clarity concerning your role within your particular place in the leadership structure of your church. If you don’t know who you are supposed to communicate with, what you are supposed to communicate to them, and/or what that communication is supposed to accomplish, you probably feel like less than a success as a leader in your church. And if you feel like less than a success, you are probably feeling frustrated, discouraged, and less than necessary.
This book is designed to help you wrap your mind around the task of church leadership. Taking on a role in the leadership of your church will require you to fully identify, understand, and embrace your right and responsibility to speak. And when we are speaking of the right and responsibility to speak, we are speaking of the quality that makes leadership what it is. That quality is what we call authority. Authority is the right and responsibility to speak to a particular people and for a particular purpose. At the end of the day, church leadership is about the appropriate exercise of legitimate forms of spiritual authority. And this is why the task is so daunting!
The great crisis of contemporary Christianity is that there has never been a time in the history of the church in which the need for men and woman of real spiritual authority to arise has been more acute. Yet, there has never been a time in the history of the church in which believers have trusted spiritual authority less, or refused to recognize and/or submit to it more consistently. Spiritual authority has been misused in the body of Christ to the point where we are beginning to believe that the only way to create safety in the church is to do away with the concepts of authority and submission, and to label those who adhere to them as cultish or abusive.
This stems from the fact that spiritual authority in the church has often been used in abusive or manipulative ways. The core function of spiritual authority is to create safety, and yet the very thing that is designed to make us feel safe now makes us feel unsafe. Without authority we will never be safe, but yet we feel that the only way to create safety in the body of Christ is to do away with spiritual authority, because authority can easily corrupt our hearts and become a bludgeon that we use to destroy the very people we are called to nurture and protect.
The fact that the leadership crisis in contemporary Christianity has become so acute is clearly illustrated in the fact that we now have many spiritual leaders in the body of Christ who are wary of spiritual leadership because they have been hurt by it somewhere in their past. When spiritual leaders are wary of spiritual authority, they are wary of their own role and responsibility in the body of Christ, and I think it’s obvious that a person who is wary of her own role cannot function properly in that role. Spiritual leaders who are wary of spiritual authority will always fear speaking abusively, and so will often fail to speak when speaking is necessary. Or their fear of speaking abusively will become a self-fulfilling prophecy as they find themselves inadvertently doing unto others what was done unto them.
We need to heal of our self-inflicted wounds. We need to rediscover the biblical picture of church leadership and perceive it through a new lens. We cannot cling to our pain and skepticism indefinitely. To do so would result in our ultimate neglect of the commission that Jesus gave us, and we are already feeling the pain of that neglect. At some point we must get up, brush the dust from our garments, anoint our wounds, and move forward. This book is offered in the hopes of helping the church begin that healing process so that we might finish the work and complete the task that our Lord delivered to us on the day of his departure.
Church leadership is the exercise of spiritual authority. We cannot soften it by refusing to use terms like authority and submission. There is no church leadership without authority and submission. Someone must have the right to speak and must be willing to use that right for the building up of the body of Christ, and someone must be willing to hear that word and submit to it with all their hearts. If these two fundamental events do not transpire, we are left with something less than the entity that Jesus called his church.
It is high time for a new generation of men and women of God to arise whose tongues have been adequately instructed to speak a word in season to those who are weary . . . who know their authority as servants of the Lord, and who know how to use that authority to build up, and not to tear down. But leaders who are wary cannot speak effectively to those who are weary. We must overcome our wariness so that we may fully embrace our role as leaders in the body of Christ. Only then will we be found faithful in the eyes of the One who calls us, that we might receive the crown of righteous that awaits us at the end of our course.
