Understanding Christian Leadership: The Role of Humility, Friendship, and the Steadfast Suffering of Careful Thinking
What is the role of Christian leadership in our society?
His influence “extends far beyond the institutions he founded and the movements that he shaped. It is seen most powerfully in the relationships he fostered ... By virtue of his generosity and steadfastness in friendship, he created a thick community around himself of astonishingly different people rooted in the grace of Christ. It’s a marvelous image of what the church can be for a world plagued by division and indifference.”
In short, this is what my friend, Reverend Dr. John W. Yates III, Rector of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Raleigh, NC, wrote in a recent Christianity Today article. This was about his mentor, teacher, and friend—John Stott. Stott, one of the most influential leaders of the worldwide evangelical movement in the 20th century, would have turned 100 a few months ago.
In honor of the centenary of his birth, John Yates highlights Stott’s greatest attributes and the “success” factors to his leadership—two virtues often lost, undermined, and forsaken in today’s Christian view of success: humility and hospitality.
Ultimately, I could write similar words about the influential leaders and mentors I’ve had in my life over the years -- and I hope you can, too! There is a common, underlying thread of faithful Christian leadership that in my estimation is the foundation for fruitfulness and excellence in life and ministry.
By my own personal experience, I can speak to the direct impact of John Stott’s leadership and legacy. In short,, in the way it impacted the life and ministry of John Yates, whom I’ve known as a pastor, teacher, and friend. His reflections on Stott’s legacy are important for us as we consider the future of ministry and Christian leadership.
Christian Leadership’s Languishing
Christian leadership, and leadership in totality, is in jeopardy. Not just ministry leadership but all leadership. In a culture increasingly divided and untrusting, leadership is more lonely and confusing than ever. Is power and privilege good? If I recognize the power and privilege of my Christian leadership, how should I wield it? A leader is someone who says “follow me” and others follow, and a lot of ink has been spilled addressing the what and how of “follow me.” We can have all the Lencionian, Harvard Business Review, Good To Great mojo available and still miss the point or lose our way.
More specifically, Christian leadership has always been uniquely difficult and dangerous. Eugene Peterson said it best in his book Under the Unpredictable Plant:
“There is a long and well-documented tradition of wisdom in the Christian faith that any venture into leadership, whether by laity or clergy, is hazardous. It is necessary that there be leaders, but woe to those who become leaders.”
“Woe to those who become leaders.” I believe Peterson wrote this because of the understanding that leadership is undeniably hard. There is, of course, many of the same pressures that other vocations offer of performing, guiding others who may often resist, and making difficult decisions that are questioned or challenged.
But, for those in Christian leadership, there’s an additional weight. That of a spiritual calling, to carry the burden of shepherding a group of sinful, broken people toward a life of intimacy with and faithful obedience to the One.
Understanding Christian Leadership Under Pressure
If all this wasn’t challenging enough, over the last year, we have seen new levels of pressure, compassion fatigue, and anxiety in ministry leadership. We may have studied at the right seminary, been trained by and connected to the right people. We may have aligned with the right denomination or ministry partners. We may have had a track record of ministry success, and yet, we have found ourselves in some significantly new, different, and dangerous terrain.
Plus, the accelerated transformation of our cultural landscape, along with the significant limitations of social distancing, exacerbated by the growing swirl of our social media algorithms, have moved many into the margins and extremes. Some are being radicalized by enticing ideologies. Many more are angry, afraid, anxious, and isolated as they engage the current cultural realities of our day.
Even more are finding ways to lay low or even hide. Relationships and engagement in life and culture were already messy. Now they feel like dangerous places, nearly impossible to navigate.
A leader may still be leading in this “new normal,” but how many are following anymore? It seems that many have substituted wise, discerning Christian leadership for knee-jerk, reactionary, image-managing, culturally-appeasing tribalism. Honest, vulnerable, generous dialogue alongside of a courageous, clear, lived-out gospel proclamation isn’t nearly as revered as quick promotion of your cultural convictions over and against “the others.”
As part of this “new normal,” many leaders are questioning how to lead well when their people are more prone to tribalism that trumps gospel-centered communities. In this environment, we find that our previous methods and measurements of success may no longer apply.
Additionally, the end of the 20th century was a time where megachurches, high Sunday service attendance, and big buildings were often used as the primary measures of evangelical success. Christian leadership began to change. There have been many shifts and alternative approaches to church growth in the 21st century. Even so, we are still significantly motivated by the same growth mentality that the megachurch movement brought us, just expressed in different ways.
We have seen how the growth-as-the-greatest-good mindset leads many pastors to experience discouragement and burnout at fast rates. It seems that the quantity of people attending church has often been more important than the quality of their relationship with God and others.
The (what seems to be ancient) practices of slowing down, studying, and struggling for congruency between our beliefs and practices have always been a challenge to the fast-paced, results-driven western evangelical church. Where does Christian leadership take a foothold? Deep formation and generous relationships seem even more out of reach in this cultural climate.
LOOKING BACK TO GO FORWARD
John Stott’s influence and legacy is worthy of reflection by all who would like to be Godly effective leaders. The “steadfast suffering” of careful, Biblical thinking was importantly applied to all aspects of John Stott’s life and ministry.
Ultimately, John Stott knew what it meant to wrestle over a “seemingly intractable problem” -- a term he coined “pain in the mind”. This is a practice that seems to be lost today in the midst of a media-dominated culture where news spreads like wildfire and misinformation unfurls even quicker. This is what Christian leadership looks like.
Fundamentally, John Stott was slow and thoughtful in his approach to understanding Scripture. He wasn’t afraid to take an unpopular stance that aligned with his Biblical convictions. He practiced the act of letting the Bible formulate all his beliefs, opinions, and values. According to those that knew him personally, he “worked tirelessly to understand every perspective on a topic before coming to a carefully considered judgment rooted in Scripture.”
That’s why John Stott pushed for more “pain in the mind” among Christians. It’s easy to simply take a side that sounds right to us, and hold fast to that ideal without the intentional discipline of inviting the Holy Spirit to apply the Scriptures to our hearts and mold our beliefs. Where does Christian Leadership turn? There is a great lack of questioning that is open to submitting to the Lordship of Christ, which results in a shallow understanding of Scripture and an even more shallow living-out of Scripture.
As Yates, the author of the article, says, “The thin veneer of our discipleship is showing cracks as a result … In this complex and constantly changing world, we do not need more commentary. We need more pain in the mind.”
But, for John Stott, it wasn’t just the deep study of Scripture that left a legacy. It was his willingness to allow the Scriptures to mold his life and ministry. And what ultimately forged his legacy was the way in which he lived out his study of Scripture with Christ-like humility and hospitality. As Yates expresses, John Stott was known for “his deep sensitivity to the needs of others and his tireless commitment to caring for those needs. Undistracted by concern for himself, he had the mental and emotional energy to attend to those around him.” It is this kind of character and Christian leadership that will move us forward to love and serve.
Keeping Up to Lead and Reveal Truth
In the last year, many of us in ministry leadership have felt very busy trying to keep up with current events and the ongoing demands of those we serve. We’ve been so busy that very few have taken the time to “stop, study, and struggle” for the sake of teaching God’s people. It has been easy to become distracted, concerned, angry, exhausted, and discouraged, and even easier still to make excuses for these feelings.
If you’re anything like me, this exhaustion and distraction has led to less concern and space for others, and greater isolation. It has led to more time plotting and planning on how to plan a path forward, and less time praying and caring for those around us, opening our lives to others for friendship. I’ve been challenged by the questions below, and I encourage you to wrestle with them as well:
What if the way forward is to go back to the unchanging ways, the ordinary means, by which the Lord works?
What if God is calling us to be formed by His presence through an honest wrestling with the Scriptures?
What if we are to trust the Lord for the “success” of our church and ministry as we live out our Scriptural convictions with humility and pursue extreme generosity in friendship with those whom the Lord has given us to love and lead?
What might the answers to these questions mean for my life and ministry?
I’m not trying to oversimplify or deny the need for proactive planning and adaptation in contextualizing the Gospel to this rapidly changing culture. But, I believe if we keep first things first in loving the Lord and loving our neighbor, this movement of Biblically-driven humility and hospitality would lead us to a much more effective and faithful response. A much needed response to so many of the issues we face today including issues of race, injustice, human sexuality, political ideologies, and cultural polarization.
If you, like me, are in a season of restlessness where the practice of “stop, study, and struggle” along with pursuit of generous friendship seem concerningly absent right now, I invite you to join me in taking steps toward this type of Christian leadership.
A Season of Restlessness for Leaders
Practically, for many of us coming out of or still in a tumultuous spiritual season of restlessness, it will take some time to process and consider a renewed “rule of life” that can frame disciplines and commitments that prioritize slow study and generous friendship. Below are some suggestions for consideration in crafting a renewed rule of life:
Prioritize a weekly sabbath that includes genuine rest, celebration, and feasting. This should include a media/tech fast for at least a portion of the day. Christian leadership can tend towards neglecting rest. I have noticed that for me, having weekly & daily tech downtime rids my mind of distractions for the other disciplines I hope to practice.
Find a time for going deeper. I recently revived a once-a-month day away personal retreat. This was a discipline that Young Life encouraged all staff members to do to cultivate intimacy with the Lord. This acted as a reset and restorative day that would renew our calling to follow Jesus and to the mission of reaching adolescents with the Gospel of grace.
Find a regular time to read, study and meditate on Scripture that is unrelated with the tasks of teaching and preaching. Can the Scriptures you’re teaching and preaching be used devotionally and personally in your life? Of course! But that shouldn’t be the only personal devotional reading you do. Bonhoeffer makes this explicit in his classic Life Together:
“In our meditation we ponder the chosen text on the strength of the promise that it has something utterly personal to say to us for this day and for our Christian life, that it is not only God's Word for the Church, but also God's Word for us individually. We expose ourselves to the specific word until it addresses us personally. And when we do this, we are doing no more than the simplest, untutored Christian does every day; we read God's Word as God's Word for us. We do not ask what this text has to say to other people. For the preacher this means that he will not ask how he is going to preach or teach on this text, but what it is saying quite directly to him. It is true that to do this we must first have understood the content of the verse, but here we are not expounding it or preparing a sermon or conducting Bible study of any kind; we are rather waiting for God's Word to us.”
Intentionally map out time for face-to-face interactions with important people in your life. Date your spouse, engage with your kids, have regular times in your week that you reach out to a friend. The Christian leadership and life--or any life, for that matter--is not meant to be walked alone. Jesus models the fruit of community-living and commands us to do the same.
Put buffers and margins in your schedule for lingering with others. Expect, and even hope for, interruptions and opportunities to be generously available to others. You may be surprised at the unexpected blessings that come from being obedient when we live a little less rushed and rigid, and a little more open to divine opportunities that God places in our midst. “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.”- Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Last but not least, find a friend or two who can do this with you. You may already know someone who will walk with you in this difficult time but if you need someone who can step in and come alongside, ServingLeaders exist for that very reason. Get in touch with us today to see if any of our services may meet a particular need in this season.
Thus, celebrating John Stott on what would have been his 100th birthday has brought up a number of realizations from commentators on his legacy. And for me, as one who has read many of Stott’s works and was a young Christian through my college years in the 90s, I have been reminded of how much has changed. Christian leadership continues to hold a special place in our communities.
As it is with great teachers and leaders, I wish he were around today to address the issues of the day. And yet, his legacy speaks and can be applied to these “new” times. More than ever, it seems, we need to listen to the legacies of John Stott and the many others who have gone before us modeling this type of leadership.