Lecture

In lecture four we want to come to team leadership, an organism and organization. May I emphasize, however, that you should have carefully studied the document in your syllabus called “Biblical Theology of Leadership.” That fits in here. It fits in before these two lectures. It actually fits in after the first two and before the third lecture. This is the fourth that you are listening to now. But if you haven’t read it yet, I want to emphasize that that needs to be a part of the background work here as we lay these theological foundations.

We’ve already noted that the church is both organism and organization. Organismically it is the body of Christ. It partakes of the spiritual qualities of that mystical assembly. Organizationally, it partakes of many of the same characteristics that mark other organizations: institutional goals, trained personnel, budgets, hierarchy of leadership, basic organizational structures. The major difference comes in the understanding of leadership. One must maintain one’s attitude of serving in this unique organism-organization. Contrast this with the secular response of the kings of the Gentiles that we talked about in the last lecture in Luke 22. Despite the many points of similarity between Christian and secular leadership, the differences are much more important. In this chapter we will look at four of those differences: the source of authority, the historical precedent of biblical examples, the uniqueness of spiritual dynamic, and the analysis of bureaucracy. So this lecture will include those four themes which, of course, you see on the outline before you.

In the source of authority we can go back before the Christian era and note that the great philosophers of ancient Greece grappled with the question of authority. Plato in The Republic, and Aristotle in Politics concern themselves with the question of leadership, even though their interest related largely to questions of leadership in the kind of democracy Greece operated at that time. When we analyze Plato’s brand of philosophy, for example, we find that the platonic concept views the leader as possessed of some kind of special knowledge, not the knowledge of the cobbler or the pilot of the shepherd; for those things had to do with a particular craft or art. We might call on the river pilot to sail us safely across the water because his skill and knowledge are precisely proportionate to that task. But it would be foolish to ask him to mend a pair of shoes or to train horses or to till the earth or to take care of sheep, and even more foolish to ask his advice on how to conduct the policy of the state or determine laws. So in short, the platonic source of authority is the particular task or relationship one has to the total operation of the state. And we do well to remember this emphasis, because leadership is always situational. In the Middle Ages, you have the concept of Roman Catholic leadership arising. Leadership takes its authority from the church as its source. The doctrine of apostolic succession reflects this concept. It carries through the entire hierarchical system of church leadership. People become leaders of others because the church appoints them to that office. And the church appoints them to that office because it has resident within it the authority to make such appointments.

Another view, however, is the scriptural view, or at least what I would call the scriptural view. Obviously others would refer to other views as scriptural. It holds the principle of sola scriptura recaptured for the church by Luther at the time of the Reformation. And I think it must be the governing source of authority for Christians today. To determine what Christian leadership is then, how people can be prepared for it, how one exercises it within the community of the redeemed, we must go directly to the inscripturated Word. Obviously that’s what we’ve been doing in all of the lectures thus far in trying to develop underlying theological assumptions, such as our commitment to plenary inspiration and special revelation. In his book Basic Christian Doctrines, Addison Leitch clearly states the nature of this authority. And it may be worthwhile to review this piece of Bibliology.

This is the Bible record, he says, of God’s mighty acts and His authoritative Word about the revelatory acts and about Himself. This is the climax and the fulfillment of God’s Word to us in the living Word, even Jesus Christ. Natural revelation gives us direction and confidence in our search for God.

God’s special revelation gives us final authority and assurance regarding His own nature and His will for man. As Calvin suggests in the Bible, we have the divine spectacles which bring the truths of natural theology into focus.

As I said, those are the words of Addison Leitch. We see from this paragraph that Christian leadership must take its cue from the Bible, the only acceptable source of authority by which its definition and function can be determined. However, true Christian leadership is more than just adherence to a printed page. It embodies the Spirit and the truth of God Himself. I don’t think everybody accepts that kind of a high view of Scripture that we have been talking about and that Leitch identifies in the quote that I just used. And certainly, even those who would take a high view of Scripture would not necessarily apply the passages we have been using to the authority of Christian leadership. Some attempt to reverse the position by making the quality of life a judging factor for truth rather than allowing the truth of God’s revelation to shine upon the life of leadership.

I think it’s important that we have to recognize that around us we will find, and certainly be involved with reading, lots of pieces of information, articles, and books and what not on the subject of leadership that will not take into consideration Biblicism and biblical theology and scriptural concerns. And that’s the warning I’m trying to issue at this point. We recognize that God is the producer of leadership in the lives of people, that leadership is learned behavior, and that the Christian leader learns it largely from the pages of Scripture. There are a number of biblical examples. I want to identify three even though we’ve looked at Paul previously very briefly. First of all Moses, as a slave child who became prince and lawgiver, possessed almost all the natural and educable attributes desirable in effective leadership. He grew up in Pharaoh’s court. He stood in the line of heirship to the Egyptian throne. The hand of God reached down and snatched him from the royalties of the palace and thrust him by divine sovereignty into a position he didn’t really want. William Sanford LaSor, an Old Testament scholar, pinpoints several leadership qualities of Moses such as singleness of purpose, organizational ability, faith, obedience, faithfulness, and service. And he notes that leadership potential was demonstrated early in Moses. He says,

He was able to gather around him the elders of the people of Israel who by this time had been in Egypt many years. Yet Moses was able to fire the imagination of these people and elders of Israel. He was able to convince them that God was bent upon their deliverance, and he made them follow him. That is leadership.

Now I’m not convinced that that’s true for the modern time. Yes, that does describe what happened with Moses, although I’m not sure he made them follow him. I suspect God was involved dramatically in that whole process. Certainly today to say that a leader makes other people follow him is hardly a biblical description.

What about Joshua? Well, the characteristics of godly leadership resident in Joshua clearly appear in verses one through eight of the book that bears his name. Let’s just sample a few of those verses. “Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun Moses’ servant saying, ‘Moses my servant is dead. Now, therefore, arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. Every place in which the sole of your foot treads I have given it to you just as I have to Moses.’” And then he describes it geographically and then talks specifically to Joshua. “Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Be strong and courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Don’t turn from it to the right or the left so that you may have success wherever you go.”

A number of elements in the above verses that we just heard deserve delineation. First of all, Joshua is called to the task that he faced. He did not seek to advance himself in the ranks of Israel. He had been around for a long time. He had held various subordinate positions of authority, but there is no indication whatsoever that he was pushing to become Moses’ successor. As in all authentic cases of Christian leadership, God reached down and selected a person to fulfill the ministry necessary to advance His cause at that time. This man, Joshua, heard the call of God because he had been Moses’ minister. He paid the price of preparation. We don’t really know exactly what it meant to be Moses’ minister in those days. Undoubtedly such a role included subordination and followership, and that’s always important in preparation for leadership. But he had years of toil and service. And he had prepared now for the task of leadership which God had before him. God prepared Moses alone in a remote area of the desert. He chose to prepare Joshua through constant apprenticeship so that his leadership with the people of Israel would be an extension of Jehovah’s work through Moses. Obviously there is no one way to prepare leaders.

Another thing here is absolute dependence upon the Lord. From the beginning, God allowed Joshua to harbor no thoughts of self-sufficiency. Frequently throughout the verses I read you have this sovereign manipulation of the situation. I am about to do this. I will give you. I will be with you. I will never leave you. I think team leadership requires that we always recognize our place of subordination within the spiritual line-staff relationships of the kingdom. One final note about Joshua is his relationship to the Word, to special revelation as it had progressed to his time. Verse eight clearly indicates that Joshua should operate within the framework of the Mosaic Law. That’s all he had. His leadership, in other words, was governed by the authority of revelation. Joshua’s orders didn’t come from his own ability and creativity but from a higher source, the world plan of the living God.

Now we’ve talked about Paul before, but he’s always a great example in anything that you do with leadership. There’s an excellent article in an old issue of Christianity Today entitled “The Marks of Leadership.” James Taylor, a Scottish pastor, writes, “We are looking for Christians who are developing the same traits of character that made the apostle Paul such a dynamic leader in the early days of the Christian church. He was God’s man for the church to lead her forward in outreach and understanding. What can he tell us centuries later of the essential characteristics of leadership?” Taylor delineates several specific characteristics which should be found in Christian leadership today. He talks about tenacity of mind. He talks about specific objectives and aims which governed the apostle’s life and so on. These are all important. Taylor also finds conviction of belief an important mark of Paul’s leadership. Paul knew that his message was an offense to many, that its proclamation threatened his own life; yet he would not compromise nor would he shirk the responsibility that God had given him. He was characterized, says Taylor by “breadth and largeness of vision.” Today we’d call him creative. We’d say he’s a visionary. He talks about communicating the gospel to the world, to Spain, to Rome. He put no stock in the view of those who would contain truth within the narrow confines of Judaism and carry over Old Testament legalism into the new life of grace.

Taylor also indicates two behavioral patterns in the apostle which point to distinctive team leadership. He was a man of deep affection. He had a genius for friendship. His ability to relate to people, to draw them to himself and to his Lord, demonstrated inner motivation so essential to the Christian leader. Now we could multiply examples of leadership in Old and New Testament days and go on and on about this. I have an entire book called Lessons in Leadership from the Bible which just identifies character after character after character. I don’t even know how many there are, maybe twenty-four different characters in that book described. But you get the idea. God works with people. He calls them. He gives them background and preparation and so on.

Let’s move on to talk a bit about the dynamic of spiritual leadership. The experiences of Joshua and Paul demonstrate some obvious spiritual characteristics—or qualities of Christian leadership—which take precedence over all sociological aspects of the leader’s role. So in reality, Christian leadership ought to be characterized by all the legitimate earmarks of effective secular leadership plus factors which make it distinctively Christian. The obvious spiritual elements are such things as faith, reliance upon prayer, the reality of the Holy Spirit in the lives of leaders, and the absolute authority of God’s inerrant Word. But there are some less obvious factors which mark a given exercise of leadership as spiritual rather than natural or carnal, and I want to deal with some of those.

Acceptance of responsibility is one. Accepting responsibility is a basic discipline of all leadership which takes on added dimensions in terms of God’s call upon a life. Every team leader should strive to earn a reputation for being a person other people can count on. Somebody has suggested that the best ability is dependability. As a woman settles finally to one man who becomes her husband, so Christian leaders settle in the ministry to which God has called them. Sometimes this decision may push other legitimate and desirable things out of our lives. Such are the demands of leadership. During the days following the resurrection, Peter may have thought fishing a more attractive occupation as we have noted already. However, he had to ultimately face the claims of discipleship upon his life as the Master said, “Follow Me.”

The second quality is one that I’ve talked about before, but I want to come back to it repeatedly throughout our entire study. Meekness and humility are not exactly the same, but they’re close enough that we can deal with them together here. The more mature we become in Christian life and service, the more we realize that when we have done the best job we possibly can and exerted all efforts to the task, we remain, when compared with the absolute perfection of God, dispensable servants (Luke 17). I’ll come back to that. Team leaders can’t indulge themselves in self-pity or dislike for others. We must minimize personality conflict. We must allow the Holy Spirit to work out an attitude of meekness before the Lord. Christian leaders pattern their lives after God’s Word. There we find countless examples of meekness in attitude and leadership. Moses disciplined himself for years to patiently listen to the murmuring and complaining of the children of Israel. The Hebrew children in Babylon renounced all possible political advantage to say that they would not be defiled with the king’s meat. Daniel laid power and prestige on the line in prayer despite his high governmental position. Paul’s missionary endeavors frequently took him into hard places, caused him to renounce himself and place himself in danger, resulting in a complete commitment to Jesus Christ and His will.

The third quality is teachability. Someone has aptly remarked that the teacher who ceases to learn ceases to teach. We might say the leader who ceases to learn ceases to lead. Here are some passages from Psalm 25 reflecting David’s attitude about this matter.

Make me know Thy ways O Lord. Teach me Thy paths. Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me for Thou art the God of my salvation. For Thee I wait all day. Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore, He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, and He teaches the humble His way. Who is the man who fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. His soul will abide in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land.

And then, finally, leaders care for followers. The team leader exercises an agape relationship, not a passive feeling but an aggressive commitment to the welfare of other people. Such concern does not wither when people fail to do what the leader expects them to do. Let’s remember that. We don’t turn off the love when people turn off the following. It can weather disappointments and disillusionments in the difficult process of leadership. It reflects Moses’ concern for the people of Israel. Talk about a guy who was disappointed over and over again. But it shows an even greater example in the life and ministry of Jesus.

Bureaucracy is an interesting idea. I want to talk about bureaucracy and biblical leadership. And you might immediately ask what does bureaucracy have to do with a Christian organization? Well, first of all let’s recognize that bureaucracy is not the horrible specter of demonic control some people portray it to be. In a discussion, a pastor friend of mine indicated that the church was becoming too bureaucratic. I asked him if he had ever read anything which attempted to deal with bureaucracy in a theological context. And he said he had never read anything about bureaucracy at all. So it’s one of those convenient words that we have learned to use when we want to speak out against something too big for us to understand, much less to handle. Well, bureaucracy is necessary in the kind of society in which we live, in a participatory democracy, and in a participatory organization.

It’s not bureaucracy that gives us the trouble but rather the misuse and abuse of bureaucracy to the point that it becomes a hindrance rather than a help. Like a lot of other tools of accomplishment it makes the proverbial good servant but bad master. Contrary to popular notions, bureaucracy can be very efficient and an almost necessary tool to productivity. Peter Blau suggests that the term describes a type of organization designed to accomplish large-scale administrative tasks by systematically coordinating the work of many individuals. Well, there are a lot of Christian organizations that are exactly like that. So bureaucracy itself doesn’t cause our problems, but rather a misunderstanding of its evils. It occurred to me then that our study might take the form of pitting bureaucracy against several concepts generally considered contrary to it in order to see the tension created when bureaucratic concentration of power destroys group processes.

Here we go with bureaucracy and a “professional” view of work. Now the word professional appears in quotation marks you notice, because it represents a technical term when used in the jargon of management, science, and leadership studies. Studies by Corwin in The Educational Administration Quarterly indicate a distinction between the behavior of what Corwin calls a bureaucratic person and a professional person. Now this is not exactly a contrasting relationship, but there are some differences which exist between the outlooks regarding an employee’s relationship to an institution. To be more bureaucratic does not necessarily mean to be less professional. I want to state that clearly.

The same person could be oriented toward both bureaucratic and professional goals. But the double orientation necessitates a constant struggle to bring together two things which tend to polarize themselves. A professional administrator tends to emphasize people, research, freedom of relationships, skill development, training, decentralization of decision-making, and team leadership rather than the constant serving of organizational goals. Do you get the difference there? Corwin would argue that administrators in a college or seminary tend to be more bureaucratic and serve the organization, whereas faculty tend to be more professional, serving their academic disciplines. And quite frankly, I agree with that. It should be easy for us to understand that a person serving her academic discipline can also serve the organization and, if a Christian, serving Christ above either one of those. So this is the distinction that’s important, but certainly one that doesn’t enforce us into any kind of a polarization on these things.

On the other hand, notice how often a professional faculty member becomes a bureaucratic administrator when appointed to a post as dean. This is horribly convicting. As I tape this lecture, I am serving as a vice-president and dean of faculty at Dallas Seminary. And having come up through the faculty ranks, maybe I’m describing myself here. Certainly I’m possessed of the kind of experience which enables one to understand this change that can take place. Or how about a professional pastor whose prior concerns have always been for the autonomy of the local congregation? Now they make him a district superintendent, and all he seems to care about are the goals and interests of the denomination. My point, of course, is it doesn’t have to happen in either case. Professionalism can continue even within the realm of bureaucracy. They are not mutually exclusive.

What about bureaucracy and effectiveness? Most research done on the subject of bureaucracy tends to conclude that a purely bureaucratic administrative structure from a technical point of view is capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency. The catch comes when we notice that efficiency is measured in terms of product output and achieving the goals of the organization. So at this point, Drucker helps us. He candidly offers a marked distinction between efficiency and effectiveness by suggesting that the former deals with doing things right and the latter focuses on doing the right things: one more time, efficiency, doing things right, effectiveness, doing the right things. And then Drucker pinpoints, this is from his book The Effective Executive, it’s not a new book but it’s my favorite Drucker book. Drucker pinpoints what he calls “five practices of the effective executive.” One, effective executives know where their time goes. Two, effective executives focus on outward contribution. Three, effective executives build on strengths. Four, effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. And five, effective executives make effective decisions. It shouldn’t be difficult to note that bureaucracy tends to emphasize efficiency, focusing on doing things right, tasks, specialization, standardization, and so on. Effectiveness concerns itself much more with achievement than with process.

What about bureaucracy and participatory view of organization? Well, there are profound implications which accompany a comparison of bureaucracy with democracy in organizational structure, since bureaucracy is primarily concerned with the systemization of the process of how one’s work fits together with the work of other people. In bureaucracy in modern society, Blau identifies three types of associations, all of which describe the church and every other kind of Christian organization. Listen to these. First of all, the association which exists to produce certain end products and which, therefore, must concern itself with efficiency. Certainly that’s true of the church. Secondly, the association which is established for the purpose of finding intrinsic satisfaction in common activities. Here efficiency is less relevant, but we call this koinonia and do it all the time. Three, the association which exists for the purpose of deciding upon common goals and courses of action; I think this also describes the church. To the extent that it has a job to do and a right way to do it, the church must of necessity be a bureaucratic organization. So let’s recognize bureaucracy, understand it, live within it, and not just go around criticizing something that we don’t really understand.

Well, bureaucracy in a Christian view of society is also important for us in our understanding of leadership. In his once famous book, The Lonely Crowd, David Riesman delineated three periods in the development of any culture: the high growth potential period characterized by tradition and direction; the transitional growth period characterized by inner direction; and the insipient decline of population characterized by other direction. The essential point of the book is that American society in the last and later part of the twentieth century is living in other-directed period. Therefore, the culture faces the responsibility to preserve individualism in the face of mass standardization. So team leaders in Christian organizations should focus on the real issue involving people in a genuine and meaningful way rather than glossing over the whole situation with some thin veneer of human relationism. When we pour Riesman’s theories through the sieve of special revelation, we find ourselves committed to a direction of children in the home, parishioners in the church, and students in a school. And this direction receives its impetus from a power outside and beyond leadership in those organizations, not some kind of psychological gyroscope set in motion by some sociologists.

Well finally, we have a bureaucracy and a biblical view of humanity. If we stay with Riesman just a bit longer, one’s philosophy of anything always grows out of his theology. That’s very clear to me at least. And the inner direction of which Riesman speaks is not generated from the turbulent waters of the social system itself. It arises from moving and influencing the hearts of Christians both individually and collectively so that their work in process of association transcends the norms and standards of society rather than constantly being formed and controlled by them. In other words, living above the world; you’re in the world but you’re not of it, says the Lord Jesus in John 17 as He prays to the Father about the disciples. Living according to absolutes in a relativistic, cultural system is not easy; but it is definitely possible and it is definitely necessary for Christian leaders.

So when translated from a set of principles to a more formal definition, team leadership can be considered to be the exercise by a group member of certain qualities and abilities given by the Spirit of God. It is based in Christian character which, in a time acting upon the call of God and the authority of His Word, he or she will offer in loving service to the group for the sake of Christ. Now I’m not trying necessarily to make that our final definition. As a matter of fact, the definition I’d prefer for us to think about throughout the course is the one which you read at the end of the article in the syllabus—biblical theology of leadership. That’s much more thorough going.

But here I’m trying to pick up the concept of bureaucracy and how we respond in this whole framework of leadership in organism and organization. Then we are able to transcend what we see in society around us.

Then we can function in the church and in Christian organizations and para-church organizations in ways which really reflect the Bible, and in ways that really demonstrate that we understand systems like bureaucracy. But we’re not trapped into them. And we’re not limited by them. And we’re not confused by what we see. We understand the surrounding milieu in which we must work. We understand bureaucracy. We understand organization. We understand organism. And from all of that mix, what we understand most of all is the meekness and humility and servanthood of what Christian leadership must be.