Part 4

People today spend several hours a day watching television compared to minutes reading a book or newspaper.  Surfing the Internet is becoming a favorite pastime.   –George Cladis

IMAGES

   Having regained some fresh insight into God’s purpose for the church, I also began to understand just how important metaphors are.  According to George Cladis, “The flow of images across our brains is training our minds to think more in images than in words.  And these images have an effect on how we order the world around us and conceive of human community” (3).  He goes on to add:

   A master image of the Book of Exodus is Moses and the Hebrew people marching down a path with a wall of water on either side of them.  The master image for Judaism is the Star of David and for Christianity it is the cross.  Master images can have a profound, though sometimes subtle effect on how we perceive reality (4 my emphasis).

   The following illustrations will hopefully help clarify the subtle effects that images really have.  We have embraced, in our denominational culture, what I consider inexact images, which are counterproductive to fulfilling God’s and our Fellowship’s mission.  The first is the notion that the pastor is the shepherd of the congregation.  While it is obvious that the term shepherd is used throughout scripture, the problem lies in the strong representation we attach to the word.   Paul Borden, in his book Hit the Bullseye argues,

   Our understanding of what shepherds are to be and do, in our congregations, is far more romantic than who shepherds were or what they did in biblical times.  Shepherds were entrepreneurs who raised sheep for their livelihood, for food, and clothing.  Good shepherds led their sheep into green pastures and by still waters in order to obtain three results.  They sheared the sheep (not fleeced the sheep), ate the sheep, or mated the sheep for reproduction.  Sheep were led into zones of comfort in order to be prepared for zones of discomfort.  In other words, sheep were expected to produce a profit for the shepherd. …Our declining [churches] think that shepherds take care of the sheep for the sheep’s benefit, rather than to benefit the Chief Shepherd by accomplishing God’s mission.  The paradox of Christianity is that sheep are most fulfilled when they are risking life for the Chief Shepherd rather than being pampered by appointed shepherds (21 my emphasis).

   Making the notion of shepherd our master image, leads to the misdirection of kingdom objectives.  We teach our pastors to function as shepherds, meaning they are chaplains to their congregations.  We have adopted and universally used the term pastoral care while actually meaning shepherd care.  The term pastoral care equates to feeding, caring, serving, and meeting the spiritual needs of the flock.  The result is that our pastors see themselves as shepherds not leaders.  At the same time congregants see pastors as shepherds who are called (and paid) to look after their needs—their primary task after that of preaching and teaching.  This mindset is the foundation to what I have often heard described as a “small church mentality.”  Pastors, who see their roles in this traditional light, even if they do well, will seldom be able to lead significantly larger numbers of sheep.  Ephesians 4:10-16 sheds an entirely different light on a pastor’s job description: 

He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:10-16 KJV).

   In verses eleven and twelve the Contemporary English Version says, “Christ chose some of us to be apostles, prophets, missionaries, pastors, and teachers, so that his people would learn to serve and his body would grow strong” (my emphasis).  I believe it is more biblically correct to speak of congregational care than it is pastoral care.  I believe God’s plan is for a pastor to train mature sheep who in turn minister to the needs of the other sheep. 

   I had previously learned this lesson as a senior pastor.  My last congregation grew from two hundred to over nine hundred in approximately seven years.  As the congregation grew, it was obvious that I could not minister to all the needs.   Therefore, I made it a priority to develop a process of leadership training, including not only my staff and associates, but also my deacon board and the broader leadership team.  I did this on a monthly or quarterly basis (depending on which level of leadership I was addressing) with the specific goal of training and empowering them to provide congregational care to the broader constituency. 

   As I look back at my transition to district leadership the initial mistake I made was not shifting this congregational care concept into my role as a district superintendent.  As a pastor, I interacted regularly with my congregation and leadership core.  Interaction and training opportunities were frequent.  In district work, opportunities for interaction are infrequent and training was met with, what I perceived as indifference or perhaps passive resistance. 

   It took me a long time to realize that, while similar in some respects, a district functions quite differently from how churches function.  Therefore, instead of continuing to promote the empowering principles I had practiced while pastoring, I regressed to the old approach of seeing my staff and myself as shepherds or chaplains.  Only now we became chaplains of pastors rather than parishioners—listening to their issues, comforting them, and helping them through difficult times.  In regard to superintending, I really had no other pattern to emulate.  While encouraging pastors to produce healthy, growing churches on one hand, I was also endorsing, by my example, a model of ministry that, according to Paul Borden “keeps the congregation relatively small, inwardly focused on its needs, and one that often produces a co-dependent relationship between the pastor and the congregation (22).  Borden goes on to say:

   When pastors begin to lead change and move toward health and growth, resistance is raised under the excuse that new commitments of the leader’s focus and time will interfere with care ministries.  People resist growth by saying we have a hard time caring for our current congregation. …The consumer mindset in congregations assumes that the pastor is hired to provide special care for members.  It goes with the job because, after all, the pastor is the shepherd (22 my emphasis).

   The second image that has the potential for being unhealthy is that of family.  Again, here is an excellent metaphor with roots throughout the scriptures.  While the scriptures, especially the New Testament, speak of believers as brothers and sisters, with God as Father and Jesus Christ as our brother, the master image of the church is not that of family.  The primary New Testament image of the congregation is that of an army with Jesus Christ as our leader, attacking the strongholds of Satan.  Primarily, the church is on a combative mission and engaged in constant battle for the souls of mankind.  The mission of every congregation should be to move men and women from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of Light.

   “Military leaders for thousands of years have learned that soldiers will fight more for comrades than for country, flag, or ideals.  Heroes in battle perform courageous acts of foolhardy bravery because they have been trained in small groups where strong family relationships have been developed.  Family ties in battle enable the mission to be accomplished as long as soldiers realize that they are on a mission and not attending a family reunion.  In this culture we see family as the epitome of human relationships, when in reality the congregation is to be a community on a mission. …Our current concept of family ends at care, with too little thought of what the group will accomplish (Borden, 24).

   A third image that needs to be addressed is that of leadership.  In his book Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels says, “The local church is the hope of the world and its future rests primarily in the hands of it leaders” (27).  He goes on to say:

   Romans 12:8 tells those who have the gift of leadership that we had better sit up and take notice, we had better “lead with diligence.”  Why?  Because the Church, the bride of Christ, upon which the eternal destiny of the world depends, will flourish or falter largely on the basis of how we lead…. The church will never reach her full redemptive potential until men and women with the leadership gift step up and lead.

   People supernaturally gifted to lead must yield themselves fully to God.  They must cast powerful, biblical, God-honoring visions.  They must build effective, loving, clearly focused teams. (27).

   George Barna, on the other hand observes, “The problem is not our leaders but the unhealthy expectations we have of them” (1).  He goes on to elaborate:

   Most of us have bought into an unhealthy understanding of leadership.  We have been taught that leadership is about one individual’s performing of all an organization’s critical tasks—motivating, mobilizing, directing, and resourcing people to fulfill a vision—at a level of excellence and influence that separates him or her from the bulk of humanity (The Power of Team Leadership, 1).

   How do we arrive at such unhealthy expectations?  In a survey conducted among 1,005 adults, people identified those things they feel are “very important” for a leader to do.  Barna gathered the following results:

• 87 percent expect leaders to motivate people to get in involved in meaningful causes and activity

• 78 percent believe leaders should negotiate compromises and resolve conflicts when they arrive

• 77 percent look to leaders to determine and convey the course of action that people should take in order to produce desirable conditions and outcomes

• 76 percent rely on leaders to identify and implement courses of action that are in the best interests of society, even if some of those choices are unpopular

• 75 percent expect leaders to invest their time and energy in training more leaders who will help bring the vision to reality

• 63 percent want leaders to communicate vision so that they know where things are headed and what it takes to get there

• 61 percent say leaders are responsible for the direction and production of employees associated with the leader’s organization or cause

• 61 percent think leaders should analyze situations and create the strategies and plans that direct the resources of those who follow them

• 56 percent hold leaders responsible for managing the day-to-day detail of the operation

   Would you not agree that a person would have to be superhuman to accomplish all of those tasks?  Yet that’s what we expect a leader to do (2-5).

   Is it possible that the traditional leadership master image we have adopted doesn’t actually work?  What would the ideal master image for leadership look like?  Could it be that of team leadership?

George Cladis says:

   [Leaders] need to change to be effective in the twenty-first century.  Traditional methods of doing ministry, in most cases, simply do not communicate across the chasm that has opened between the modern world in which traditional churches thrived and the postmodern world in which leaders and organizations are required to do something entirely new.  Although this causes much stress and strain for the traditional churches, the good news is that in many areas the changes required work to reform the church to a more biblical model.  And one of those areas is leadership, where we must attend to the higher value placed today on participatory, collaborative, team leadership (29).

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