Brandon Hatmaker talks about whether we equip people to live on mission or do we just talk about it.
The church is
The church does what is
The church organizes what it does
The church is really defined by the things that we do and the organizational structure forces what we end up doing. So if the church is not structured to do something then they really aren’t that thing no matter what they say that they are. When you say you want to equip people to do the ministry you need to set up the churches structure to give time money and position to the mission. If you say you want to help the poor and you start to create a structure that reflects that, the process causes you to look at the what and the where and the how. It makes you donate resources to that mission and you become effective.
When I think about leadership in response to that it is healthy to look at what you do, what you spend your time on, and compare it to what you are supposed to be doing or what your personal mission statement is and you realize that you might need to restructure your resources. How are you going to live out your mission, when are you going to do it, and how are you going to spend resources of time energy and money to achieve that Goal.
Your Leadership Plan is
Your Leadership Plan does what it is
Your Leadership Plan organizes what it does
I call this.
ReplyDeleteAn important insight that this author brought forth in the article was the recognition that mission begins by engaging with the culture. He is right to point out that this includes understanding the needs of the culture. As I understand it, this seems to point towards an acceptance of aspects of situational leadership theory. Presumably, the author would concur that the situational needs that one finds in sub-Saharan Africa are different from those that one finds in a suburban church in the United States. Thus, good leadership would require developing the ministry structure that are conducive to the context one finds oneself in
ReplyDeleteOne thing that the author fails to mention, however, is how a leader must distinguish between the needs and the wants of a given culture. Many in our culture may want church structures to be established that serve their own individual spiritual desires, catering to musical tastes in worship for example. A leader must recognize that such desires are not needs. Real needs are things like serving the poor, which the author mentions. As you point out, looking at how much many churches spend on glitter and flash indicates to me that many leaders have misconstrued what the culture needs with what the culture wants.