To The Saints is partnering with 3rdRace.org!. We are doing another topic in our reframing series. We are doing a podcast on reframing Leadership to kick off a series of blog posts on what is leadership according to Christ.

Intro/Background:

* All of us speaking today have been in some type of institutional church/parachurch leadership

* Each of us has experience in traditional church leadership

* When believers in Christ leave the IC there are usually two responses

* Find a group with a better leader or a leader that I can follow or learn from

* Reject leadership altogether

* We believe that there is a third approach to leadership for believers meeting outside of the institution

What is leadership according to the world standards?

* Man does the leading

* Individual-Focused (self-centered)

* Force, fear, tyranny, oppression, and deception

* Trying to be the top dog; cutthroat (me first)

* Based on natural abilities

* typically naturally charismatic people end up leading

* Character flaws ignored (ex: Presidents)

* Hierarchy–climbing the corporate ladder

* Idea that I can do the most “good” by being in the highest place

* Titles

* Visible expression of man

* A select individual or group of individuals make decisions for the rest of the community

* Much more concerned with efficiency (or control) which is why there can’t be too many cooks in the kitchen.

What is leadership according to modern Christianity?

* Job description (titles)

* Pastor, Associate Pastor, Doctor, Reverend, Bishop, Apostle, Evangelist, etc.

* Can be education-based, personality-based (natural abilities)

* Appointed or “called” (trying to be top dog)

* Servant leadership

* Committee (select group of individuals makes decisions for the rest of the community)

Problems with bringing worldly view of leadership into the body of Christ

* Stunted and/or abnormal growth

* Underdeveloped or nonexistent spiritual instincts

* Spiritual senses are underdeveloped, nonexistent or abnormal

* They become lazy and apathetic

* Pastor upset church because he didn’t do everything the previous pastor did

* Does not prepare them to co-reign with Christ

* Does not follow the Life of Christ–focused more on external structure

* Unhealthy pressure on the “leaders” or those in leadership to do it all

What is leadership according to Christ

* Spirit does the leading through the many members

* Servant; laying one’s life down for another; based on Christ’s abilities

* No worldly Hierarchy – submitting to Christ in one another as we live corporately by the Spirit

* Functions/Family

* There is the cross

* Denying oneself

* Meets the desire of the Lord’s heart: to have a home where HE can call the shots;

* The picture of a family and a body describe leadership according to Christ

* Visible expression of CHRIST

“In sum, leadership according to Jesus is a far cry from what it is in the institutional church. Our Lord dealt a deathblow to both Gentile/ hierarchical and Jewish/ positional leadership models. These ego-massaging models are incompatible with the primitive simplicity of the organic church and the upside-down kingdom of Jesus Christ. They impede the progress of God’s people. They suppress the free functioning of the believing priesthood. They rupture the image of the church as a family. They do violence to the leadership that exists in the triune God. And they place severe limitations on the headship of Christ. For these reasons “it shall not be so among” those who bear the name of the Savior.” Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity,