Leadership means action, not reaction. Yet the action we take must be responsive to the needs around us and to the leading of the Holy Spirit within us.
—Paul Cedar
When the phone rang one Sunday afternoon a few years ago, I thought it would be the chairman of the church board, telling me if the congregation in which I had recently candidated had voted me in as their pastor. When I answered the phone, the man at the other end of the line identified himself and said, “Pastor Cedar, I’m chairman of the reorganization committee at the church, and I want to welcome you as our new pastor.”
“Well, thank you,” I said hesitantly. “But the truth is, I haven’t accepted the call yet. I haven’t even heard the results of the congregational vote.”
“Of course, I know it isn’t official yet,” he continued, “but I just wanted to invite you to meet with our committee. As you know, presently some nine separate church boards and committees oversee the life of our church. Frankly, sometimes it’s been a struggle to coordinate nine separate boards and committees. Well, when the previous pastor left, he asked the leadership of our church to make a gift to our new pastor—a reorganized church structure. Hence our committee.”
A few days later, after I accepted the call to that church, I met with the committee and listened to their various suggestions. Before long, it became clear that the committee was deadlocked. All eyes were soon on me.
“What it comes down to. Pastor Cedar,” said the committee chairman, “is that you’re the guy who has to work with the new structure. If you’ll just tell us what you want, I believe the rest of the committee will be unanimous in supporting that plan.” All around the room voices murmured and heads nodded in agreement.
“Brothers,” I said, “that’s a very gracious offer. But let me make a counter offer. Let’s not change things just yet. I’d like to test drive this nine-committee structure for a few months and see how she handles. That’ll give me a chance to get acquainted with the congregation, the staff, and the leadership, as well as time to pray. By then, I should have a better sense of what would be best, not only for me but for this church.”
I asked them not to disband the committee but just to take a recess. At the end of six months, I would ask them to reconvene.
I could have taken a strong, authoritarian leadership role at that point. Change was needed, but the church wasn’t ready yet for radical restructuring. They first needed a “servant leader” who, under the leading of the Great Shepherd, would try to be sensitive to their needs.
After six months, I had a much better feel for the pulse of the church—what issues were important, where feelings ran high, who stood guard over which patches of turf. We did a study of the committees and discovered that over half of them had no real idea of their charter. Almost two-thirds of our committees had no idea to whom they were accountable. The only reason the whole structure worked was that it was peopled by godly men and women who did their best to carry on the ministry humbly, diligently, and without grasping for power or recognition.
So I asked a friend who was a leader in the church to head up a series of congregational forums to receive input into the restructuring process. At one of these forums, I stood before the people and said, “I’ve been with you for half a year, learning and listening and observing. Now, because God has called me to be in leadership among you, it’s time to share with you my vision for the shaping of our church ministry.
“To be frank, I would find it impossible to sit on nine ruling boards in this church,” I said. “However, I think I can live with three boards. So that’s what I propose: first, a board of trustees; second, a board of nurture; and third, a board of mission, evangelism, and outreach.”
At that point, someone stood up and asked, “Well, what if we have five boards?”
I think I surprised the questioner and the rest of the congregation with my reply: “I simply cannot give leadership to more than three church boards. I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m trying to be honest with you about my own gifts and limitations as a church leader.”
At the conclusion of the process, which consisted of a number of public forums over many weeks, a unanimous vote of the congregation endorsed the three-board proposal. We restructured and moved on.
Throughout that process, I exercised different forms of leadership. Initially, I responded—listening and learning. Ultimately, I had to stake out a position in a forceful, dramatic way because the congregation needed to understand the seriousness of the situation and my feelings about it.
Through this and other experiences, I’ve learned (often the hard way) that there are times to lead and times to listen, times to implement my dreams and times to invite others to dream, times to initiate and times to wait for ideas to percolate up from the laity. The key, I believe, is to be sensitive to the leading of Christ, the head of the church.
The Challenge of the Culture
We live in a society that chafes under leadership. We are a nation of rugged individualists, fiercely independent. This independent spirit has also infected the church, making it difficult and often frustrating to be a church leader.
This nettlesome truth was brought home to me toward the end of my tenure at one church I served. I became convinced that our church should have a mission statement to set forth our purpose. I also felt that the basic component of the mission statement had to be the Great Commission.
But when I went to the appropriate committee with this proposal, I encountered a surprisingly strong wall of resistance. It wasn’t that anyone was overtly hostile or abusive, but some people became emotional at the thought of an overarching focus for our ministry.
“The idea of a mission statement sounds so confining and restrictive,” said one man. “You’re being unreasonable, Paul,” said another. “People will never accept that,” said another still.
I tried to make the case that there was plenty of room for diversity and experimentation within the bounds of a basic mission statement. I also explained that such a statement would give our church a premise and focus for ministry. I argued that our people could function much more effectively within a framework. But with feelings running high over the issue, the dialogue quickly bogged down.
Some didn’t want the Great Commission as the basis of the statement. Others wanted no statement at all. Still others proposed draft statements I felt were worse than no statement at all. After a few months, the process petered out, in large part because I was called to a new ministry.
The disagreement over this issue—an issue I championed out of deeply held convictions—was between sincere, well-intentioned Christians. But I felt that much of the resistance resulted from a cultural mindset that says, “I don’t want anyone to tell me what to do. I don’t want anyone or anything to limit my options.”
Given this environment, which can be found anywhere in America, I’ve found it best to exercise what I call “responsive leadership.”
Not long ago, a friend asked, “As a leader in the church, do you see yourself essentially as an initiator or a responder? How would you describe your leadership style?” After reflecting on some of the key leadership decisions of my career, I concluded that I’m both an initiator and a responder.
I see a biblical leader as a responsive leader but not a reactive leader. There’s a big difference between the two. To be responsive means to be sensitive and attuned to people’s concerns and, at the same time to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. To be reactive means to be controlled and compelled by people and situations.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of reacting—to pressures, to conflict, to crises and brush fires. When I have inadvertently done that, I felt less like a leader and more like a pinball. Leadership means action, not reaction, yet the action we take must be responsive to the needs around us and to the leading of the Holy Spirit within us.
Most of us function somewhere between the two extremes my friend suggested. And many have had a chance to take a personality inventory or a leadership test, giving us an awareness of where we lie on the assertiveness spectrum. But no matter what our natural tendencies, we recognize there are both times to lead and times to respond, and times to lead responsively.
When to Lead
Two circumstances in particular signal me to take charge, as W. C. Fields once said, to “take the bull by the tail and face the situation.”
• When I have a strong Bible-based and Spirit-led conviction about something. Naturally, not every issue about which I have strong opinions qualifies. But sometimes the Spirit creates a conviction within me, and I know it’s time to lead.
During the return leg of a tour I led to Australia and New Zealand, I had just such an inspiration. I was walking alone on one of those pristine beaches of the South Pacific, not another soul in sight. As I walked and prayed, God, I believe, put an idea into my mind, complete in most of its details. I felt that the church I served should have a new ministry to baby boomers.
At the time, our church provided no worship tailored to the needs of this group, especially those who had become Christians during the Jesus movement of the 1960s and ’70s. Some of these Christians truly wanted to be a part of our worship but balked at our formal hymns, organ music, and choir anthems.
So I took my new inspiration back to the States and, because of my deep conviction, gave strong leadership to the concept. Opposition arose from sincere traditionalists within the church who felt, for example, that the church’s music had to be Bach played on organ. They felt there was no room in the church for any other kind of worship experience. I never doubted their motives, yet I patiently and persistently asserted my conviction that we had room in our Sunday evening schedule to create a new kind of worship.
We began by offering a mixture of hymns, worship songs, and contemporary music, performed with synthesizer, guitars, drums, and other instruments. Instead of the usual twenty-five-minute sermon, we had a teaching and exposition that went from forty to fifty minutes. We replaced the formal benediction with a time of open prayer, when people could pray alone or in groups, in the pews or kneeling at the altar. The response was tremendous—not only did bunches of baby boomers attend, but many experienced Christ for the first time.
Although at the beginning, I had to give leadership to this issue on faith, in the end events bore out my impression that the Spirit had given me this conviction, making me grateful I had asserted my leadership.
• When there is sin, error, falsehood, malfeasance, or misbehavior in the church. There is a prophetic dynamic to the pastoral role, although like most pastors I’m often reluctant to take it up. We pastors rightly highlight grace, forgiveness, and love. But sometimes I must speak the truth in love.
I recently learned about an incident in which an associate pastor of a large church took a group of parishioners on a tour of mission projects in Europe and Africa, projects the congregation was supporting. These church members were to come back and report to the congregation.
Upon the group’s return, the senior pastor was told that some members of the group, including the associate pastor, had imbibed alcoholic beverages on the trip, and several people had become intoxicated.
Not wanting to prejudge the people involved, the senior pastor went to his associate, described the report he had received, and asked if the report was true.
The associate became defensive. “Nobody in this church is required to swear an oath of temperance,” he said. “I don’t think one Christian should decide for other Christians whether they should drink. It’s a matter of Christian freedom.”
“If you or anyone else in this church wants to take a drink as an individual,” replied the senior pastor, “that’s between you and your own conscience. But on a tour representing this church and the body of Christ, you give up your individual freedom. If you are not willing to submit your freedom to the good of this church and the reputation of the church, then there will be no more tours in the future.”
Somebody has to lead the local church. You can’t always have unanimity. You can’t always have harmony. Decisions have to be made, and sometimes those decisions are painful or unpopular. The best any pastor can do is to try to respond to the Spirit’s leading, submit decisions to the light of Scripture, continue listening and learning, and amid all of these tensions, move on.
When to Respond
Just as some circumstances signal it’s time to lead, certain circumstances signal me it’s time to respond. Let me note two.
• When entering a new situation.
During my first few weeks at one church, many people in the congregation took me to lunch or dinner to get acquainted. In one instance, I was at lunch with a man I’ll call George. Just after we had been served our salads, he got down to business.
“I’ve a question to ask you,” he said. “My wife and I began attending this church just two weeks before the previous pastor left. We were really disappointed when he announced his departure. But we waited out the year and a half interim because we wanted to find out what direction the new pastor would lead the church.
“So that’s my question: What are your goals? What are your plans? Frankly, if we like your answers, we’re going to stay. If not, we’ll go someplace else, because we feel that would be better for both us and the church.”
“I agree completely,” I said, “and I appreciate your candor. Of course, I hope and pray you’ll want to take part in the future of our church. But the fact is, I don’t have any program goals or ministry plans for this church right now.
“Frankly, I’m not concerned about my plans for this church. My commitment is to seek the leadership of the Lord of the church and then to lead the congregation in following our Lord. In short, my major goal is to seek and do the will of God, personally and as a church family.”
A new situation signals me it’s time to respond rather than initiate. George respected that, and from that day forward, he was one of the closest, most supportive, most delightful members of our congregation.
• When confronted with a secondary issue. Secondary issues are not unimportant, but they are issues that Scripture deals with only vaguely or not at all; they are not core doctrines of the faith or essential mission priorities. Ironically, it’s these peripheral issues that can tear a church apart.
Issues such as abortion and nuclear arms are argued fervently, with believers on both sides pointing to biblical principles and passages for support. Other such issues include, “Should we belong to the National Association of Evangelicals?” or “Should we drop ‘congregational’ from the name of our church?” Yet on these and many other issues no simple thus-sayeth-the-Lord pronouncement exists in Scripture.
Perhaps the thorniest, most divisive issue is a building program. The debates can range from “How do we raise three million dollars for a new sanctuary?” to “What color should the roof shingles be?” Tragically, people often stake out positions on such issues as if they were defending the deity of Christ.
Whenever I get caught in a crossfire over secondary issues, I try to listen and learn before leading. As I mentioned above, there are times when the Spirit leads me to take a strong stand. But my usual course, at least at the beginning of discussions on secondary issues, is to listen.
Although there are times to firmly lead and other times to simply respond, most of the time I find a combination the most effective approach. I call it “leading responsively,” and it has at least five dimensions: stepping into ministry gaps, keeping people in mind, remaining cautious about using authority, maintaining accountability, and pacing leadership under pressure.
Step into Ministry Gaps
One church I served believed strongly in missions—it had a large mission budget. Yet, as I examined this budget item by item, I discovered that less than $1,000 of this immense sum was spent on missions within our own community. In terms of its missionary outreach, the church was a lighthouse in the world but only a night-light at home.
At first I wondered if this fact signaled resistance to local ministry. But the more I talked to people, the more I found a genuine eagerness to reach the needs in our own backyard. So I gave leadership to building up our local missions effort. We prayed, planned, set goals, and met our goals. Within a year, we had a significant budget slated for community outreach. Meanwhile, scores of church members became involved in specific ministries in our own community.
Throughout my time as pastor of that church, I never heard a single word of criticism of our community outreach—not one! In this case, the church was just waiting to be led. But first I had to listen and look to both the people and the Spirit. Only then did I perceive a gap in the church’s ministry. In the end, I led strongly but only in response to what I had discovered.
In many instances, then, congregations want to be involved and committed. They want goals to shoot for. Christians are eager to be God’s vehicle for ministry in the marketplace, the suburb, the ghetto, the barrio, and around the world. They just need someone to examine their ministry and point the way to new opportunities.
Lead with People in Mind
Naturally, pointing the way is a complex process. But I’ve found that by following four guidelines—each of which responds to fundamental needs and concerns of people—I have a much better chance of helping people move ahead:
1. Set goals within a time frame of not more than one year. I believe this is good advice in many spheres but especially the church. Most people simply cannot envision a five-year span but can readily digest planning for a year.
2. Set measurable goals with visible, tangible results. For example, one may want the singles’ ministry to grow from fifty to seventy within nine months. That’s a goal that can be easily measured. People are encouraged and motivated to greater effort when they see progress in meeting goals.
3. Create an open process or forum, where the members can voice their feelings and ideas. In order to be involved and motivated, people need to feel a sense of ownership and identification with the plans and goals. Moreover, members are a valuable source of creative ideas.
4. Examine all the options. I try to put everything on the table for discussion. For example, rather than assuming the church must begin a massive building program, it is wise to consider other possibilities —expansion of present facilities, church planting, satellite churches, among others.
I’ve found when leadership gets too far out in front, people seldom follow. But when people feel they are a part of the team, that they are taken seriously, then great things begin to happen. That’s also part of responsive leadership.
Be Cautious About Using Pastoral Authority
One church I served has always been a praying church, with a strong emphasis on corporate prayer. During my tenure, we had quarterly all-church nights of prayer. I found that when we made the usual announcement of an upcoming night of prayer, we would get a turnout of around two to three hundred people. But when I forcefully asserted my pastoral leadership from the pulpit and promoted my vision for corporate prayer, hundreds of additional people turned out.
At first, I was ecstatic to see this great desire for prayer. And I would share my excitement with others at the prayer meetings, only to discover that many in the congregation were not nearly as excited. Then I realized that many people were coming for the wrong reason. They were following my leadership, coming to please me, but they weren’t coming with hearts prepared to pray.
God opened my eyes at that point. I realized I might have actually encouraged our people to honor God with their lips while their hearts were far from him. Clearly, I needed to back off and figure out what my people understood about prayer before I led boldly in prayer again.
Part of responsive leadership, then, is to be cautious about using one’s authority. In short, we need to invite people to follow us as we follow Christ.
Maintain Accountability
During my tenure at Lake Avenue Congregational Church, we built a building that to some people seemed too big. The price tag was enormous—in money, administrative hassles, and energy. But most of the church believed it was a case of evangelize or perish. So I led the church out of its comfort zone, and fortunately, we didn’t fall into the Twilight Zone. By God’s grace, we survived and grew.
Yet, we leaders may confuse our own agendas and ambitions with God’s plan for the church. It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking we want God’s glory when all the while we only glorify ourselves. I’ve seen many pastors stumble into that snare, bringing enormous pain upon themselves and their congregations. These are generally pastors who operate with a large degree of autonomy, having little or no accountability to a board of elders, to the congregation, or to anyone else.
Over the years, I became convinced that as I led, there had to be some mechanism to give me counsel. I found that my ideas for leading the church were nurtured and strengthened by the input of others in a group process. I didn’t want to surround myself with a circle of “yes men” but with a few people of maturity, honesty, and boldness, willing not only to affirm me but to challenge me as well. While at Lake Avenue I met with a kitchen cabinet, a group of people who could perform this function for me. They helped me keep my leadership responsive.
Some of the most profound insights that affected my ministry have come from very simple, humble people in the church. It’s often God’s pattern to speak through those unexpected people of unfeigned faith.
For me, then, responsive leadership requires I be accountable to others, both formally and informally.
Paced Leadership Under Pressure
Perhaps the most difficult time to know when to lead and when to respond is during conflict. Emotions run high. Thinking and response time shrinks, and it becomes easier to make a poor decision.
I don’t like conflict. I didn’t deal with conflict to any great degree until I became an adult. So I entered the ministry with a sort of Camelot image of what the church should be and how Christians should act. Whenever I encounter angry, confrontational people in the church, it’s always an uncomfortable experience. Even after years in ministry, I’m still on a learning curve.
During conflict, then, I tend to want to hurry up and find a solution. When I do that, though, I usually find myself enmeshed in even more conflict, now over what the solution should be. Instead, I’ve found that, at the outset, listening usually should take precedence over decisive action.
One of the most painful tests of my ability to lead during conflict came a number of years ago. The problem involved a fellow staff member whom I had come to love and respect deeply. He was a gifted individual, but the church ministry had evolved to a point where his gifts were no longer needed in the area where he was serving. The board and I, after months of agonizing, decided to ask him to move to another area of the church’s ministry, for which he was well qualified. The move was not a demotion, nor was there any decrease in salary or benefits. In our minds, we had found the perfect solution. Unfortunately, he didn’t see it that way.
Although I did not become aware of the problem for months, this associate began criticizing me behind my back, telling others that I had fired him, that I had malicious motives, and on and on. By the time I became aware of the stories, he had already aroused a large number of his own constituents in opposition to me. I was absolutely shocked. I thought he was happy in his new position. I never imagined such a thing could happen.
In this situation, I felt it best first to bring together everyone affected by the problem and get the issues aired out. So I encouraged the church board to call an open forum of the congregation, believing that the evening would surely conclude with forgiveness, reconciliation, and celebration.
During that meeting, however, several people stood up and made angry, ugly, irrational accusations against me and other leaders. These were people I had respected, loved, and considered friends. Yet I suddenly learned they had long been harboring grievances against me, based on unsubstantiated rumors and false impressions. Suddenly, I didn’t know who in that room was my friend and who would be the next to rise up and accuse me.
One woman, whom I had always considered a supportive friend, stood up, eyed me coldly, and said, “I think we’re firing the wrong person here.”
I was devastated, practically paralyzed. I didn’t know how to lead, what to do, or what to say. Should I defend myself? Should I restore the staff member to his previous job?
He had assassinated me both in private and in public. I was angry and hurt. I felt betrayed by this man. Yet, paradoxically, I also wanted to reach out to him, to tell him that there was a terrible misunderstanding.
In the end, to keep from saying anything negative about him, I essentially said nothing at all. At the time, it seemed like the Christ-like thing to do.
In retrospect, I should have become calmly assertive. Not that I should have vindicated myself, attacked the staff member, or mowed down my accusers. But I should have set the record straight, graciously, guilelessly, and candidly. I should have put the misconceptions and misinterpretations of these critics into a more realistic perspective.
More than any other time, then, conflict calls for responsive leadership. We must listen to hurts and grievances but then take control when a situation gets out of hand, especially when people succumb to gossip or assassinate character or call another’s motives into question.
Our Pattern in Leadership
Some years ago, I had a discussion about leadership with another pastor, a gray-haired septuagenarian with fifty years of ministry under his belt and a dry sense of humor. “You know, Paul,” he said, “I’ve never had a negative vote in a congregational meeting in all my years of ministry.” I could tell by his wry grin and the twinkle in his eye that he was setting me up, but I had to ask anyway.
“How do you do it?” I said.
“Well, I moderate every meeting. And every time we have a vote on anything, I say, ‘All in favor say, “Aye.” ‘ And they say, ‘Aye.’ Then I say, ‘Unanimously carried,’ bang my gavel, and move on. It’s foolproof.”
I’m still not certain if he was serious. I’d prefer to think he was putting me on, because I’m convinced sometimes we need those nay votes.
Leadership means taking initiative. But leadership also means keeping our eyes and ears open to the Lord and his people, asking others to hold us accountable, continually testing our ideas in the crucible of debate and life experience, constantly observing and correcting, always eager to absorb new information and new ideas.
Most of all, leadership means being responsive to our ultimate leader, Jesus Christ. Jesus said he came not to do his own will, not to promote his own agenda, but to do the will of the Father. Christ is our pattern for responsive leadership.
Copyright © 1991 by Christianity Today
