Epiphany 6 Leadership in the Body of Christ

[HKHaugan]

Epiphany 6 Leadership in the Body of Christ

The church is not like a corporation. Corporations are product-defined, institutionally organized with man-made principles and based on productivity for profit. In a corporation leaders are chosen in terms of the world’s profit making principles. CEO’s and board members are only as good as the profits they make. Many are self-promoting ‘go-getters’ with measurably high economic intelligence, earned degrees, desire to make money and eager to ‘rise above the masses’ acquiring status and possessions. They can be competitive, manipulative, cautiously observant, willing to do anything to win the world’s trophies of upper level acceptance, club memberships, fancy neighborhoods and prestigious perks. While all corporate leaders are not necessarily like this there are enough to distort what the word corporate means.

Quite to the contrary, ‘church’ is the spiritually corporate Body of Christ, that is, believers in Jesus Christ, the gathered minds and hearts of faithful people, submitted to spiritual community as revealed in Jesus Christ. Leadership in a local spiritual community of believers is based on the leadership of Jesus as witnessed in His Word. Neither competitive nor self-absorbed, neither fearful nor currying favor, neither playing to the upper classes nor manipulating the crowds with feigned eloquence, Jesus always reacted with His Father in mind, His Father’s will, His Father’s Word and to please His Father. He didn’t want the world to see Him as thinking and acting alone but as an obedient Son motivated to please His Father by doing His Father’s will in the power of the Holy Spirit. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the ultimate definition of community in motive, mission and ministry.

Of Jesus’ many leadership attributes here are ten to consider. Add more if you like.

First, Jesus was the exemplary leader. You see His leadership all through Scripture. There He is free and open, hiding nothing from His disciples. Everything in the open for all the world to see. There were no backroom politics, no manipulation of disciples or followers. No secret financial, institutional or relational dealings. No jockeying for status and position. No playing the ambitions of His disciples, trying to get them to compete for His approval. He denied the ambitions of those who attempted it. When He chose His disciples He didn’t choose those who agreed with Him or were socially or economically fixed. He wanted ordinary everyday people, warts and all, people conscious of their sin, needing forgiveness and desiring to serve God. He knew if the going got rough they would leave Him and even betray and deny Him. Regardless, He was open with everyone and held nothing back. He treated everyone as though they were worth everything.

Second, Jesus was committed for the long haul. He did not see Himself as being with His disciples and believers for a short time but for eternity. He told them He would be with them until everything in this world ended and then permanently in Heaven. He lived that way among them. He lived and died for their future not His.

Third, in Jesus you saw truth and He was what you dealt with, always. He was never arrogant or imposing His will. In the presence of everyone He was always submissive to His Father and the Word. His humility before His Father toward others was the essence of leadership. His love for others was first because that was His Father’s will.

Fourth, Jesus was fully acquainted with His disciples and the state of the fallen human heart. He was the One who called them, saw and knew what was in them and gave every day to training them in terms of what He saw as their need for growth and maturity. When correction was necessary He gave it but direction was His forte. He never asked His disciples or followers to go or do what He wouldn’t do first. He enabled them to be leaders by sharing with them everything about Himself.

Fifth, Jesus always made Himself available. He went to where the people were. He roamed the countryside and the towns. His itinerary was set in the context of being ready at any moment to respond in the Spirit because that is the essence of leadership. He was nourished by the Spirit through the Word where He found His overall purpose and mission. For Jesus each moment was an opportunity to teach, heal, react and serve. No circumstance was beyond Him, only before Him. His perceptions of each moment and His reactions in them were perfect. This spiritual context is the one He gave to all believers. In this context all believers are leaders right where they are.

Sixth, Jesus saw Himself as a servant to everyone. He gave of Himself to each of His followers. He never imposed His will but shared Himself on every level. While He was the final definition and authority of what humanity was supposed to be and live like He was never officiously authoritative, dictatorial, proud or arrogant. He didn’t come here to be ministered to but to minister.

Seventh, Jesus encouraged His disciples and followers to minister, sending them out in total reliance on the Spirit who would empower them. He was their focus and He trusted them in the Spirit to work in the Spirit. The fact that He told them they would see greater things happen meant that He would let them experience His Spirit by being able to freely and creatively operate His mission and ministry in the Spirit. He didn’t have to be there physically. He said He would have to go away in order for the Spirit to bring His presence into each heart. Leadership is enabling and leading the people to experience Jesus as their leader by the power of the Holy Spirit. Leadership points to Jesus, to His Word and to the spiritual gifts they have been given to lead.

Eighth, Jesus wanted to know everyone, their minds, hearts and souls. After He returned to Heaven He sent His Spirit to be His personal presence among them. They were His Body and He indwelt each of them personally. They became His Body to act out who He was, a servant. As the Body, those in whom He endowed His leadership were those in whom He entrusted the teachings, the attitude and the mission of servanthood He embodied. This to the degree, that as each believer followed Him, they found themselves all to be leaders who led others to serve Jesus and to serve others. To sum up they were not leaders apart from Jesus but His servants who let Him be seen in and through them as the leader. They served because He was seen serving them.

Ninth, most importantly, Jesus saw the past as a gift from His Father. He was here not to change it, deny it or reject it but, on the contrary, to fulfill it. His saw His Jewish heritage paving the way for His coming to earth, Scripture as the structural guide for living, His calling and identity as Messiah authenticated by the Scripture, and His humanity lived relationally and sacrificially according to His Father’s will. He saw those who came before Him as pioneers. The patriarchs, the people and the structures His Father initiated for their benefit laid the groundwork for the restoration of fallen mankind. They were given to be fulfilled, a job only He could accomplish and that, only through the Cross and Resurrection.

Tenth, Jesus didn’t ‘run’ things. He shared who He was with His disciples so that they would trust His presence to do through them what they couldn’t do themselves without Him. That was why He gave them His Holy Spirit. The Spirit was the Third Person of God who would live in the hearts of believers gifting them with spiritual abilities He knew would enable them to act out God’s will as He had lived it. In fact He said that they would accomplish even greater things.

No pastor, priest, bishop, archbishop or pope should ever be or try to be in control. He never presents Himself as the only one who hears from God or tells people what they should do. He really has no other task than to point to Jesus and His Word, to let Jesus be in control through His Spirit. By being personally available and accessible, teaching and relying on the gifts of the Spirit in all the believers, committed first to the Body of Christ, not institutional forms, what we know as leadership trusts the Spirit through the Word. The Holy Spirit will do the rest through sharing, motivating and inspiring the good works we were created to do.

“1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom.12:1-2)

Next, gifts of the Spirit. Stay tuned……..

[Melanie Kessel]

Amen!! Thank you for this, Whitey!!

[HKHaugan]

Thank you Troy, That quote from "Jesus Mean and Wild" by Mark Galli is one that pretty well sums it up, "When we try to fashion the church in our image, the result so often is anger, division, and hostility. Pastors chalk this up to the price of being prophetic leaders. But often it's merely a pandering after ecclesial success of our own image. And we sometimes end up destroying the very community we had come to save." (chp. 11, pgs. 127-128). My experience in churches that I served after retirement was the result of that very thing. New pastors come in, negate the past as though it was something to avoid, then alienate older members who were the pioneers before they got there not realizing the place would not have existed had those elders not put their hearts into its founding. It means listening to the Body, its heart, its people and the Spirit speaking through them. Some pastors come in with the idea that no one got it right before them and they are there to get it right and so nurture a group of 'yes' people who will agree with his premise. Usually it is someone with a spirit of control, fear of not being successful of some insecurity that needs meeting at the expense of the Body. I can name several churches in the Diocese of Florida that have been through this experience over the years and two still recovering. It's even worse when bishops succumb to these same dynamics. Then a whole diocese suffers. Thanks agin for your comment. ><>Whitey

[Troy Harvey]

Thank you Whitey. This is a subject that I have been studying myself for some time. Off and on since 2003. When it seems like our way of doing things has failed, to one degree or another - I start to consider why, and how can we improve. I go back to scripture (the instruction manual) and try to understand what God intended. Analysis and problem solving are what I do all day long and it is my knee jerk when anything goes awry.
I think by human nature, our structures tend to evolve away from God's design and we occasionaly have to regroup and get back to basics - just as you have laid out here. I think scripture is fairly clear about the structure and role of leadership in the Church, and we have complicated and perverted it over the ages. It pervades every level of our structure.
In a book I recently read, "Jesus Mean and Wild" by Mark Galli, the auther puts it this way: "When we try to fashion the church in our image, the result so often is anger, division, and hostility. Pastors chalk this up to the price of being prophetic leaders. But often it's merely a pandering after ecclesial success of our own image. And we sometimes end up destroying the very community we had come to save." (chp. 11, pgs. 127-128).
In the NIV new Testament, All uses of 'priest' refer to either the Levitical order or to Jesus and not otherwise directly to the church. 'Pastor' is directly related to 'teacher' and 'shepherd'. The use of the word 'shepherd' always refers directly to Jesus; except by implication to Peter, (when Jesus asks him to feed His sheep).