Two Complementary Leadership Cultures

Not long ago, when I was still a member of the Eastern Region's Renewal Commission, I was speaking to one of our "Pastors" about something that was potentially very important to his congregation. When I described an idea I was considering, he asked, "Can I run this by my elders?"

His question hit me like a knee to the groin.

I understand that the question is extremely reasonable. Under the circumstances, it is the question that one would expect a conscientious CGGC Pastor to ask. The moment was so dramatic for me because it was at that instant that I realized that my theology of the church has changed so radically that his question is no longer the question I would ask.

I'm one of those "missional" guys and I owe the transformation in my understanding of the church to my participation in that movement.

I'm big into Reggie McNeal's, The Present Future and his, Missional Renaissance. I am huuuuugely into Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch's, The Shaping of Things to Come and Hirsch's, The Forgotten Ways because I see, in their understanding of the church, a vision that is more consistent with the New Testament than what I see elsewhere.

I buy into what McNeal now calls "A. D. 30 Leadership" which bears a strong similarity to Frost and Hirsch's APEST (Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd and Teacher) model of leadership.

It was when I was speaking to my pastor friend that I realized how radically the missional vision of church leadership articulated by McNeal, Frost and Hirsch (and there are others) has changed me.

It has changed me so thoroughly that if someone from Renewal comes to me with an important idea for the congregation, I could not ask, Can I run this by my elders? but I would ask, Can I run it by my Apostles and Prophets?

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Even more recently, though, I have come to understand that, in the New Testament, there were two distinct cultures of leadership existing side by side and that both of them were--ARE TODAY--necessary.

One of the leadership cultures, the one that the Christendom Church has adopted to the sometimes violent exclusion of the other, is "Positional Leadership."

Positional leadership has deep roots in the New Testament. This biblical way of leading is through people who are appointed to positions of authority.

The term Elder describes one of those positions of authority. The term Deacon describes another. The term 'overseer' (Greek, episcopos) is another of the early church leadership terms that was a part of this biblical culture of Positional Leadership.

There are, as everyone who has studied the Doctrine of the Church knows, three models of polity in the Christendom view of the church: the Episcopal, the Presbyterial and the Congregational. As diverse as they are, those three models of church organization all have one thing in common: They understand positional leadership to be primary in the church.

The truth is, however that, while Positional Leadership has deep roots in the New Testament, it doesn't have the deepest roots.

Jesus did not call and mentor positional leaders. He didn't disciple the Twelve Elders or the Twelve Overseers or the Twelve Deacons. He did not prepare the Kingdom for positional leadership.

When Jesus prepared leaders, He did so from a different paradigm of leadership. Jesus designated the twelve men He called and mentored, "Apostles." (We'd do Him better justice to say that He called them "Sent Ones.") In addition to discipling twelve men to be Apostles, He spoke frequently about Prophets as a part of the Kingdom. Jesus understood the role of prophecy as being so central in the Kingdom that even the Sermon on the Mount contains instruction on how to detect a false prophet and it warns about what will happen to prophets who speak in His Name but do not do the Father's will.

The importance of the type of leader Jesus discipled is highlighted in the Book of Acts as well as in Ephesians in which Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets and in which he describes the five leadership Spiritual Gifts as being those of Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd and Teacher.

I have called the first leadership type"Positional." What to call the second? Well, biblically from the Greek, the best term would be "charismatic," but, as we know, that term is already taken. It denotes something significantly different that what I'm referring to. So, I'll call it "Gift-Empowered Leadership."

Here's what I've noticed about the two distinct leadership cultures:

1. Both of these leadership cultures are clearly deeply rooted in the New Testament.

2. Both of these leadership cultures are essential to leadership in the Church as the New Testament envisions it.

3. The two leadership cultures are intended to be complementary. And,

4. These two leadership cultures , in practice, mix like oil and water.

In all but the first few of the twenty centuries of church history the Positional Leadership Culture has dominated and all but negated the Gift-Empowered Leadeship Culture. Yet, the Word teaches that "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ," Christ will continue to give His church Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherd and Teachers. (Ephesians 4:7-13)

The New Testament reality is that little that is revolutionary was accomplished through the leadership of Elders and Deacons. The human instruments used by the Spirit to turn the world upside down and reach it with the Gospel were not the people in Positional Leadership, they were the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists--Gift-Empowered leaders.

In my entries on this blog in the past, I have often claimed that the church today is at a historic crossroads. One reason this time is so critical is that, for the first time in more than a thousand years, an attack against Positional Leadership as the dominant leadership model in the Church is taking place.

"Attack?" Strong language.

But, yes, I think so.

People today who call themselves 'missional' have discovered that there was leadership in the New Testament other than Positional Leadership. Many missional people have begun what can be understood as a war against what they see as a very tired, old, and unbiblical leadership culture.

I am sympathic with my missional friends' desire to set as the dominance of the Positional Leadership Culture, but not as much as I once was.

I agree that with the missional gang that Gift-Empowered Leadership has deeper roots in the New Testament than Positional Leadership. With them, I am convinced that the early church reached the world through the Gift-Empowered Leadership Culture and not Positional Leadership. However, I also believe that Positional Leadership is biblical and in still important.

The sad truth is that many missional people don't treat the Positional Leadership Culture with any greater respect than the Christendom gang treats its Apostles and Prophets. And, that is wrong.

Those who seek the dominance of either Gift-Empowered or Positional Leadership are wrong.

I believe that the early church didn't promote the dominance of either leadership culture but that it carefully fostered balance between the two cultures.

For about a year I've been trying to make APEST leadership work in my own ministry setting and it's beginning to happen. I'm excited about it.

But the lesson I have learned most recently is that people who are Gift-Empowered and those whose leadership calling is Positional don't, in their human nature, get along easily.

I'm not sure that my description of what makes up the tension between the two is entirely accurate but this is what I'm seeing: Positional Leaders see Apostles, Prophets and Evangelists as being, perhaps, too dramatic, too caught up in passions of the moment, too hot one moment and cold the next. Gift-Empowered Leaders, especially the APEs regard Positional Leaders as staid and moderate, lacking enthusiasm and spirituality.

The Gift-Empowered distrust those who are Positional because they appear lukewarm. Positional Leaders fear that the Gift-Empowered might just possibly be insane. (I get that all the time.)

I am convinced that both cultures of leadership are of the Lord and that both are critical to Spirit-led ministry, that neither culture can be permitted to dominate the other and that balance between the two ways of leading must constantly be cultivated.

I am also convinced that it will be impossible for the two cultures to co-exist unless we put into practice the love described in 1 Corinthians 13. "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking..."

Two different paradigms of leadership empowered by the Lord, two distinctly different models, two sets of leadership callings exist that are, by nature, so dissimilar that they can easily and naturally, from a human perspective, oppose each other.

They always will oppose each other if the people who possess those callings don't understand that there are people called to lead in the church in a way that seems at odds with their own calling.

Acts 6:1-7 details the creation of the Positional Leadership model by the first practitioners of Gift-Empowered Leadership.

The Apostles were confronted with the issue of the neglect of Greek-speaking widows in the daily distribution of food. They understood that if they were to be true to their callings, they could not deal with that problem. For them to feed even these starving widows would be to exist outside the mandate passed on to them by the Lord's Great Commission. Yet, to allow these sisters to starve could not have possibly pleased the Lord.

So they instructed the congregation to select seven men to fill positions, positions in which they had would have authority to feed those widows. The Apostles' reasoning is clearly stated. "It would not be right for us to leave the ministry of the word to wait on tables...We will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word."

From the beginning, Gift-Empowered Leadership and Positional Leadership were intended to complement each other.

What is the result of our lack of understanding that there are two systems of leadership in the church that are to complement each other?

We simply do not empower APEST people to be who they are in their callings. We demand that they wait on tables. We prevent them from devoting themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

And, we take people who have a calling to organize and oversee the feeding widows and the care for the poor--essential minstries in the Body of Christ--and confuse them with issues of spirituality that may well be separate from what the Spirit has empowered them to do.

One way to understand the Pastor-focused leadership culture that the CGGC has adopted in recent decades is that it is an ill-conceived attempt to force individual leaders into a Positional Leadership role that also demands that they be Gift-Empowered.

The role of 'Pastor' fits no one naturally. The notion of a 'Pastor' is so foreign to the New Testament that there is no Greek word for it. Those who find it a fairly comfortable fit are almost exclusively those with the Gift-Empowered calling to be a Shepherd. Hence we have fallen into a Shepherd Dominated Leadership culture which has no precedent in Scripture.

In the West, the Church is losing its culture.

One reason for that is that we have a confused and conflicted leadership community.

The time has come for us to allow those who are Gift-Empowered to live within their empowerment and those who are called to positional leadership to fill those positions.

Talk about needing repentance...