Like Leader, Like People -- Part II

I'm continuing my thoughts for nominating committees.  It gets us all thinking about leadership and church.  Maybe one day you'll be asked to either be on the nominating committee or to be an elder.  I hope this helps.

Fourth, many non-profit and for-profit boards are put together in the light of tasks that need to be done.  So an accountant is recruited for the financial task, a carpenter for facilities management, a public relations person for handling media, etceteras.  While Paul says that different spiritual gifts are like different body parts, this is brought up for the church as a whole rather than for a session.  In fact, notice that in Romans 12:8 there is the gift of leadership.  The session is built around the leadership task not around specific organizational tasks. 

Fifth, the gift of leadership prompts me to suggest this differentiation for nominating committees:  needed to qualify, required to play, must have to win.  Needed to qualify is that the committee should not consider unless this minimum is in the candidate’s life.  Required to play is that the committee should not consider this person seriously unless these additional qualities are present.  Must have to win refers to those qualities which would lead a nominating committee to make a candidate a finalist.  I would suggest that being a Christian or being nice does not qualify a person for consideration.  The person rather must be, in addition to being a Christian, growing spiritually and involved regularly in the life of the congregation and ministry to the world.  To play, the requirements would be that he or she is balanced, is leading in the church somewhere somehow, attends, gives, and has vision.  To win a place on the final slate he or she must have a spiritual gift for leading, be generous of spirit (this is a sign of grace and faith operating in a person’s life), and be confirmed by the Spirit to the group in prayer.

Staff members, their spouses, and the spouses of current elders are not eligible.  On occasion, someone from the nominating committee itself is suggested.  The issue here is whether the committee can, after having that person recluse him or herself from the discussion, still have that person re-enter and in the voting time be truly turned down.  The committee will have to decide about this should it come up.

Sixth, sometimes it comes across to me in organizations and in the PCUSA that we should be following a quota system.  We need a young person, a person from the women’s ministries, a person who is very denominational and another who is not, and so on.  I don’t subscribe to that as our reality.  What I see in scripture is a priority on the quality of spiritual maturity.  After that, I see in scripture also, that we are to seek balance in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, and other socio-economic factors.  I do not believe that spiritual maturity or the gift of spiritual leadership is limited by gender or age or race or economics.

Seventh, beware of people with low self-esteem, a need for prominence or power, and a stingy-ness of heart.  Not that these are not true of all of us from time to time but these conditions as prevailing in a person’s make-up leads to competitiveness, criticalness, and a “tightness” that are harmful to the well-being of the church.  And, pay attention to any inner concerns you may have regarding a candidate’s moral integrity.

Sometimes someone will nominate a person with the thought that this will help them become involved or mature spiritually.  They should already be at that point. 

Look around at who’s doing what.  Most of the time spiritually mature people are not un-involved wall flowers.  No, they are already showing love and doing stuff.  Sometimes that makes them look busy and we don’t want to burden them.  Well, a lot of time busy people know how to get stuff done.  And a lot of time what’s being asked of them is more strategic than what they are doing and they should trade the less strategic contribution for the more.  And let’s err on the side of asking them and letting them answer for them rather than us answer for them.

Like Leader, Like People -- Part I

Not every pastor will share the same information with an elder nominating committee but this is the information that I share.

First, this is a very important job.  It need not take a lot of time but that doesn’t minimize its importance.  The importance comes down to this:  leaders set the direction, pace, and tone for a church (where we go, how fast we go, and our manner as we go there).  If the person is inhospitable, for example, the congregation will eventually become inhospitable.  Hosea 4:9 says, “Like leaders, like people.”  The nominating committee is about bringing to the congregation a considered list of the best leaders for them to select for the life of the church. 

Second, there is in scripture a principle of delegated authority intended for progress in ministry.  Exodus 18:21-25 illustrates the principle.  Moses selects capable persons to assist him with the work of leading the Hebrew people.  Understand that this is not a board of directors over Moses but a team of assistants under him.  The chain of leadership influence is that Jesus sets the direction, pace, and tone for pastors, pastors for elders, elders for congregation, and congregation for community.

Third, the delegated authority is also instructional.  I Timothy 3:2 says elders are to be able to teach and the other qualities of life are those that are to be imitated.  Hebrews 13:7 and 17 say that the leaders should be respected and imitated.  A very simple way of looking at ministry is that it is the personal life of devotion brought to the level of public influence. 

A Special Call

I have a friend, Ron, who is pastor in Texas.  He has kind of a gravelly voice and I can still hear him telling me about a conversation in a new church that began in an unnerving way for him.  I think it was the way the man approached him and made eye contact.  But it ended up as a conversation of great blessing. 

The man said, “Pastor, do you know who I am?” 

Ron replied, “No.” 

“I am a man who will take a bullet for the pastor of this church.”

Now fast forward several years and I will give you a conversation as a pastor with a church member of my own.  Steve seemed very quiet to me.  Maybe he was shy or uncomfortable around church.  I couldn’t tell.  But the first words I remember hearing from Steve were, “I have a special call.  I am called to help pastors.  So whatever you need, please let me know.  Is there a way I can help you today?” 

I know that there are stories of pastors who are bulls-in-a-china-shop.  And they need love plus truth just like everyone else.  But there are also a lot of stories of pastors getting roundly criticized.  I, personally, remember an elder telling members, and doing so in front of me, "Never trust a pastor."  Well, you know how in a marriage you can sort of love yourself if you’ll love your partner deeply?  The same is true in a church.  I say, "If you love your church, love your pastor!" 

There is no pastor who’s perfect.  There’s no church member who’s perfect.  I like the small group curriculum where everyone begins by asking for forgiveness because in the course of doing real life together we’re going to offend one another.  Let’s admit the difficulties we all face in doing church together and move forward. 

Paul tells us to esteem and honor church leaders.  It is a tough job being out in front and viewed by many, many others who can be armchair quarterbacks.  So let’s watch gossip.  Let’s shovel on encouragement and prayers. 

Great Church Today

I just looked up there --  communion table set with the bread and cup, backpacks filled with tissues and pencils to be donated to kids all packed around the table's legs, the choir back from a summer break and three ladies set to lead in a special song, a butcher paper mural with the church's history ready to be drawn is furled across the front of the platform, and on it are tennis shoes filled with money to help buy school children new shoes.  Ohh, forgot to mention the 2 cents-a-meal offering for the poor and hungry.  And after we did church there in the sanctuary we were going to do church in the fellowship hall with pot-luck!  Kooky songs came with the dessert.  What a day!

An Easy Way to Give to Missions

I love to support missions.  A super easy way is to make your Amazon.com orders by going to that site by first coming here.  Amazon has a set-up where if you make a purchase on their site but got to it by going through someone else's site, they'll contribute a small percentage of the sale (2-3%) to that someone else's site.  The box on this page is dedicated to supporting missions, especially Compassion International (existing to release children from poverty in Jesus' name).  I hope you will set up a bookmark on your computer and phone so you can make your Amazon orders in a way that supports missions.  Tell your friends, too.

Which is Better?

Which is better -- Stop until I say, "Go," or Go until I say, "Stop"? 

Interestingly, negative directions can give more freedom.  So sessions and boards to pastors and directors, if these your staff are standing still waiting for your permission on an idea or instruction on what to do, good luck.  However, if you sessions and boards say to your pastors and directors, "All we ask is that you do nothing inconsistent with our purpose or immoral or illegal," you have said what not to do (the negative) and given them permission to "get going."  Life and ministry is open before you.  Be creative. 

Of course, pastors can say this to their boards or sessions.  It isn't just a one way street.  And pastors and boards or sessions can say this to members.  It's called permission giving by saying not what to do but by saying what not to do.  Go for it.

The Front of the Shoes

They say you never get another chance at a first impression.  So if you have only enough shoe polish to do either the fronts or the backs of your shoes, do the fronts.  And in any world, whether it is one meager or flush with resources, the front should be done first.  Always allocate first resources to places of central and maximal impact. 

If you are trying to sell a house, making the closets nice while leaving the grass in the front yard overgrown is just bad strategy.  Potential buyers will never get in the front door to see the nice closets if they close down on seeing the house at all because of the front yard.  Thus, realtors talk about curb appeal. 

Let's leave aside for a moment whether we allow God's house to look worse than our own and talk saying, "Hopefully not."  The Saturday morning men's breakfast in fellowship hall, as great as that may be and I certainly love the ones I go to, is auxillary in the life of a congregation.  The main event, the last thing that will remain standing in a church is the worship service.  So being concerned about the "closet" of a men's breakfast in the fellowship hall is very secondary to the front yard and curb appeal of the worship service in the sanctuary. 

How is the worship service?  Vital?  How is the worship space?  Beautiful?  This is the event and the place where most of the attenders come most of the time.  A men's breakfast in a fellowship hall may get fifteen people once a month.  Compare that to the worship -- 100+ people every week.  The point is that worship time and space impacts the most people the most regularly.  Therefore, resources should be applied there first.  Imaginative resources.  Elbow grease resources.  Financial resources. 

Now you could have the order of the worship service be stellar and the sanctuary be pristene and still have missed out on making the worship event and place as full as it could be.  We cannot overlook hospitality resources.  I cannot be "up" all the time.  I have to let my hair down sometime, someplace.  But Sunday morning worship is not that time or place.  I don't want inauthenticity.  But we all can choose our attitudes to a large extent.  Sunday morning every Christ follower's wonderful goal is to be truly hospitable person, to dole out encouragement, to smile, to thank, .... 

I have often been blessed by the guy who said to his staff member with respect to his bad attitude, "Listen, I am paying you and I can get bad attitudes for free."  Or let's say you are a policeman.  You put on the uniform.  Do you get to, while you are in the uniform, have any ol' attitude or mode of conduct you want?  I should say not.  That person lifts his whole self into a professional role.  And we who profess Christ, let's lift ourselves into a high road and high encouragement and high hospitality role for this heartbeat event for any and all churches -- the worship time and space.