“The leader is rarely – possibly never – the best performer. The best leader is rarely the best pitcher or catcher. The best leader is just what’s advertised: the best leader. Leaders get their kicks from orchestrating the work of others – not from doing it themselves.”

– Management guru, Tom Peters

In my early years of leadership of CRM, I received some stinging criticism that I was “out of touch with the field” and “needed to go back and get my hands dirty doing the same thing as those we were sending around the world to do.”

With my proverbial tail between my legs, I had a chat with Bobby Clinton. In his indomitable wisdom, Bobby helped me to see that leading from a posture of “competent” leadership was quite limited and that I had already outgrown the ability to lead in such a manner. I should not expect (nor should others) that I could minister as competently as the growing number of those whom I led. Their skills, language abilities, and specialized competencies far outstripped mine. I could never keep up. Instead, he suggested I focus on two things:

1. Spiritual authority was the preferred posture that I should grow into where people follow because I have grown in my ability to hear from God and then lead from his perspective.

2. When faced with such criticism, to respond by saying: “You’re exactly right. I can’t do what you do as well. But neither can you do what God has called me to do in my leadership of the whole.”

That was liberating!

J. Robert Clinton writes:

“It is important to note that Jesus demonstrated power ministry as part of his recruiting technique. You must be able to move with power as you challenge people.”

I believe the “power” that Clinton refers to has two aspects:

First, is gifted power. It may emanate from an exhortive or prophetic gift where one can speak with unusual force into a life. Or it may be a gift of knowledge where information is utilized that could only be available through supernatural means. This is what we see in the first chapter of John’s gospel in how Jesus interacts with Nathanael.

Gifted power may also be demonstrated through the types of signs and wonders missiologists refer to as “power encounters” where the power of God directly and overtly confronts the powers of evil. Elijah and the confrontation of the prophets of Baal in I Kings 18 is a example.

Secondly is spiritual authority. Clinton has written much about this. According to him, “Effective leaders value spiritual authority as a primary power base…” and “Leaders who dominantly rely upon spiritual authority as the major power base will usually have good followership.” Simply put, spiritual authority results in a leader journeying deeply with God, being able to hear from God, and then acting accordingly.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it:

“Genuine authority realizes that it can exist only in the service of Him who alone has authority… The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren…”

J. Robert Clinton writes:

“Jesus recruited from the fringes, in terms of leaders who could be shaped, and not from the current religious leadership which had very fixed paradigms.”

This week I spent an evening at a large event that was realted to one of Southern California’s prominent mega-churches. Driving home in silence, I was sobered by the celebrity-satiated scene. Shallow …plastic …superficiality …all are words that seemed to describe the fare. Nothing really bold. Although his name was invoked, his attachment to this venue it was far from the Jesus I see in the context of 1st century Palestine.

That evening was a representation of a contemporary religious establishment in which there appears to be little spiritual authenticity, reality or power. The pool for potential leadership in such a context seems sorely lacking in genuine spiritual authority. It was sad. Very sad.

I have little hope that the leadership of the future will be able to percolate up through such a system. Consequently, we may need to look elsewhere for people who are dissatisfied with the establishment – “on the fringes.” Those are the men and women in whom we need to invest …those on the edge and those willing to go there! God has always used such individuals to shatter the status-quo and bring vitality and health to the Church in every generation.

“One of the most important lessons from history is that the renewal of church always comes from fringes, and we mean always.” – Hirsch and Frost in The Shaping of Things to Come, pg. 194.

J. Robert Clinton writes:

“Recruitment refers to the deliberate effort to challenge potential leaders and to engage them in on-going ministry so that they will develop as leaders and move toward the accomplishment of God’s destiny for their lives.”

I see the intentionality Clinton describes as sadly lacking throughout the Christian movement of our day. It is one of the greatest shortcomings in the traditional, institutional church. Regardless of what continent we observe, the leadership gaps are daunting.

In the Western world, the problem persists in new expressions of the church as well. In my exposure with the “emerging church,” this seems particularly true as the movement reacts to the top-down, autocratic, hierarchical models of modernity. But I fear in this reaction, what is lost may be worse than the distortion which has rightly provoked the reaction.

There is no way, if we are faithful to the historical texts, that we can get around the intentionality of Jesus in the cultivation, selection, and development of those who followed him and who were to be the leaders of the movement he left behind. His strategy was elegant and highly intentional. it was not democratic. It was not consensual. It was not egalitarian.

While not mechanistic, Jesus was incredibly deliberate in this pursuit because he knew the future of what he had begun depended upon its outcome. And his “recruiting” to his Kingdom cause was a profoundly spiritual undertaking.

One of the more thorough studies of this theme, overlooked in our time, is Scottish theologian A. B. Bruce’s The Training of the Twelve. First published in 1871, its original extended title – in true 19th century form – was “Passages out of the Gospels Exhibiting the Twelve Disciples of Jesus Under Discipline for the Apostleship.” Nevertheless, for over a hundred years it has been considered one of the major Christian classics of the 19th century.

*Painting is by the Italian master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610) depicting the resurrected Christ and Thomas the doubting disciple.

J. Robert Clinton, in his commentary on John’s Gospel, states three principals regarding how Jesus was intentional about selecting and recruiting potential leaders for his movement. Clinton writes:

1. Recruitment refers to the deliberate effort to challenge potential leaders and to engage them in on-going ministry so that they will develop as leaders and move toward the accomplishment of God’s destiny for their lives.

2. Jesus recruited from the fringes, in terms of leaders who could be shaped, and not from the current religious leadership which had very fixed paradigms.

3. it is important to note that Jesus demonstrated power ministry as part of his recruiting technique. You must be able to move with power as you challenge people.

*Painting is Jesus and Apostles on the Sea of Galilee by Eugene Delacroix, early 19th century.

“The skills involved in selecting and training church leaders on the
mission fields of the world are without question the most important skills that apostolically gifted missionaries can take to most fields today.” – C. Peter Wagner (commentary on Acts, p 326).

Wagner highlights a component of ministry that determines the survivability and health of the Christian movement, regardless of setting. While critical and essential, such a function is not flashy. It’s slow, behind the scenes, and often unnoticed. It’s not emotionally gripping and the type of activity at which people throw lots of money. It demands intentionality. It demands priority. Bobby Clinton articulates this as one of the major leadership lessons of the Bible:

“Effective leaders view leadership selection and development as a priority function.”

– J. Robert Clinton

I know of no better way to invest a life for God’s kingdom purposes than in pursuit of ministry that contributes to such strategic results. At its core, that is what CRM is all about. And personally, wherever Patty and I live, wherever we ministry, whatever team we are part of, whatever we do, this particularly ministry focus is what consumes us.

Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a classic on what authentic Christian community is all about. No volume that I know of captures it better.

However, in the pursuit of the ideal there is much that can take place in personal and group relationships that is unhealthy. At times, the stuff that passes for “community” may actually be enmeshment, enablement, and dysfunctionality.

So how do I know if the community to which I am committed is healthy? Where do I find environments that nurture healty emotional and spiritual relationships? Some questions:

1. Does the context use me or develop me?
2. Can authority be questioned?
3. Is conflict resolved or repressed?
4. Is it an inclusive or exclusive environment?
5. Is an inordinate amount of time required to maintain the community as opposed to ministry outside?
6. What is accomplisihed other than “presence” in the greater society?
7. Is it easy to leave?
8. When we are in over our head with relational pathology, are qualified pros available and accessed, ie, counselors, pshychiatrists, therapists, and spiritual directors?
9. Is leadership accountable?
10. Is diversity embraced or is uniformity enforced?

Lesson #3 is about difficult people. Letting a personnel problem fester makes it more difficult to deal with in the long run. I have been burned more often by being negligent in confronting hard issues with people than by plowing ahead an dealing forthrightly with the unpleasant.

In my experience, dealing with people problems is perhaps the most demanding and emotionally draining aspect of leading others if we are intent on leading as a servant leader. This of course, may depend upon gifts and maturity. However in every facet of leadership, at every level, I see this to be true. People problems take a toil by:

Diverting energy away form the creative, visionizing aspects of a leader’s mission;

Making leaders gun-shy and crippling their willingness to take future risks;

Producing an interesting paralysis in decision-making, somewhat unique to “Christian” communities which are not supposed to have such problems. It becomes much more difficult to deal with people for the same type of incompetence or non-performance that would never be tolerated in others forms of work. Spirituality can become an excuse for enabling destructive behavior.

More on leadership lessons:

#2 – Leadership involves tough decisions particularly when it affects the lives, families careers, and futures of other people. Tough decisions can be faced three ways:

a) Avoid it.  Don’t do anything and sidestep the tough stuff;
b) Make the decisions but do not carry them out well …the process is poor.
c) Make and execute decisions with expedience, skill, and with a sensitivity and care that reflects a genuine love and compassion for all involved.

Integrity in leadership means doing the right thing regardless of the consequences, the criticism or the pain.

Attempting to exercise godly, genuine servant leadership is never easy.

Last night in reviewing some old journal notes, I came across a list circa 1992 of “Leadership Lessons.” In retrospect what struck me was 1) How accurate these thoughts were in light of almost 15 additional years of experience and 2) How much emotional energy and even pain has been expended over that period in light of these realities. Regardless, they are still worthy of consideration.

#1. Criticism is tough. Although it comes with the turf for anyone in leadership, it is still painful. It hurts. Obviously, it can be justified but it is most difficult when it is not.

I found I have two responses to the unjust: a) anger, bitterness and resentment or 2) allowing the criticism to mold character.

The choice is mine.

“In my own denomination, theological education has become a part of a bureaucratic system that does not allow the emergence of indigenous leadership from the congregations. We deliberately break that pattern. You can’t be ordained in the congregation where you grew up, discovered your gifts, and move into ministry. This is one of the biggest difference compared to …churches which are seedbeds of leadership development.”

– Roberta Hestenes, former President, Eastern College.

Can relational empowerment and transformation happen in a formal educational setting? Certainly. But that’s not what the system is designed for. Let’s be honest. Antiseptic classrooms are not exactly relational hot houses.

So if I am not going to find all I need to be developed in such institutional settings, where do I find such relationships where life, and not just knowledge, is transferred? In my experience, three places:

a. Healthy expressions of the church in its local form (with the emphasis on “healthy” and with an understanding that the “form” can be tremendously diverse)
b. Vibrant apostolic expressions of the church in its missionary form
c. Divine contacts, ie., mentors and individuals God brings into my life for just such a purpose.

The kicker sometimes is whether these relationships are healthy. Unfortunately, transformation can be good or bad. And there are far too many group environments as well as individual relationships, even with good intentions, that are unhealthy and damaging. The relational dysfunctionality out there from enmeshed and spiritually abusive relationships inflicts a lot of pain.

I would regret anyone reading my previous post and concluding I was anti-scholarship or anti-intellectual. Rather, I want to be realistic about what role academic pursuits in an institutional setting play in the life of one serious about following Jesus and particularly those who will emerge as leaders.

“The Academy” does have a place and a definite contribution to make. I am grateful for what it has given to me. But the problem is when we expect it to do something in a life that it is poorly designed to do.

Just because someone has a seminary degree proves little when it comes to leadership. The degree may only mean that I am smart enough to do the work and rich enough to pay the bill.

The Western educational model when embraced, as Winter says “uncritically”, has always been conflicted in its relationship to the Christian movement. Does it exist to produce leaders and labor for the movement or does it exist to produce scholars? These are not the same.

“The most extensive, pervasive strategic error in the Christian tradition lies squarely in our coveted and generously supported, but unquestioned, concept of years of “schooling” as the way for leaders to develop and be trained ….In this country and abroad, every church movement which has come to depend solely upon residential school products for its ministry is dying.” – Ralph Winter in “Mission Frontiers”, March-April 2003

The fact is, information rarely transforms lives. Relationships do.

While accurate information about God is certainly necessary, it’s relating to God in a deep and personal way that actually produces substantive change. And if I want to see genuine transformation in the lives of others, it’s most effective through the power of a relationship, not through the passing on of facts or concepts regardless of how true they may be.

Truth becomes most powerful when it is embodied in a person and made manifest in a relationship. It’s called the incarnation.

Bobby Clinton’s “Seven Major Leadership Lessons from Scripture” are a provocative summary of the biblical realities of leadership. Each is worth a book unto itself:
1. Effective leaders view present ministry in terms of a life-time perspective

2. Effective leaders maintain a learning posture throughout life

3. Effective leaders value spiritual authority as a primary power base

4. Effective leaders who are productive over a lifetime have a dynamic ministry philosophy

5. Effective leaders view leadership selection and development as a priority function in their ministry

6. Effective leaders see relational empowerment as both a means and a goal of ministry

7. Effective leaders evidence a growing awareness of their sense of destiny.

I met Bobby and Marilyn Clinton in 1979.

I was taking the first course that Fuller Seminary offered on Church Planting, taught by Peter Wagner, and Bobby was the teaching assistant. Having been on the mission field, he was now at Fuller and beginning his teaching career. We later connected in a course on Homogeneous Units and Church Growth where he also helped in the instruction.

When Bobby was added to the faculty in the early 80s, I had the privilege, along with a couple of others, to be part of a pilot group that Bobby pulled together to begin testing some of his “leadership emergence” concepts and resources and the next summer, enrolled in his “Implementing Change” course, the content of which I still use and refer to today. These were the first of many courses, both formal and non-formal, where I worked to get as much of Clinton as I could. I felt I had struck gold!

In 1985, Bobby assumed a seat on the CRM Board of Directors and over the next two decades, as a member of the board and with several stints as chair, he made an invaluable contribution to CRM as an apostolic movement. His influence was enormous. Over the years we have drawn deeply from his work, applying it personally as well as to our calling to empower leaders for the church around the world.

And throughout it all, Bobby and Marilyn have remained dear friends and mentors, one of those life-long relationships for which Patty and I are immensely grateful.

Bobby’s capacity for cranking out material is renowned. He is amazingly prolific in what he writes and creates. His reputation for being a leadership “guru” in the contemporary religious context is well deserved when one gets into his stuff and experiences the sagacity of his insights.

The best introduction to Clinton for many years has been The Making of a Leader (Navpress). While most of us had to learn a whole new vocabulary to wade through the book, Bobby thinks it’s actually too watered down and popularize to a fault. That perspective speaks volumes as to the depth and voluminous nature of his work.

Thanks Bobby! Your contribution to our personal lives, our ministry, and our contribution to God’s kingdom purposes around the world has been immeasurable. It is an honor to be considered a friend and a small part of your legacy.

“Genuine authority realizes that it can exist only in the service of Him who alone has authority… The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren…” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together

“Effective leaders value spiritual authority as a primary power base.” – J. Robert Clinton

In the study of leadership we know that leaders can lead from a variety of “power bases.” As the quote above states, the most optimal power base from which one in ministry should seek to lead is that of spiritual authority.

Clinton has written much on this, as have others. One of those that I particularly like is Mike Crow, serving with CRM in Asia, whose doctoral dissertation focused on spiritual authority specifically in an Asian context. (more…)

“Many emerging churches have experimented with the idea of leaderless groups ….Whatever the roots of the leaderless group, be it Scottish Presbyterianism, the 1960s, postmodern deconstruction, a reaction to controlling charismatic leaders, or the desire for respect, some within emerging churches believe the leaderless option may be going too far.” – Gibbs and Bolger in Emerging Churches , pgs 196-197.

The modern era, as many others, has had its share of leadership deficiencies and failures: control, hierarchies, big egos, prestige, competitiveness and the shameless use of power.

Unfortunately, in a reaction to such a lack of genuine servant leadership within the Christian movement, there can be a swing to no leadership, or leadership gets redefined in way that essentially guts it and renders it impotent. How sad.

It’s a common dynamic throughout the history of the Christian movement. There is an abuse and an overreaction: Epicureanism produces asceticism …the misuse of charismatic gifts faces cessationism …sexual lasciviousness results in abstaining from all sex …and the list can go on and on and on.

An emphasis on godly, servant leadership is never passé. Unless we want to take out a razor blade and slice out passages of the NT text that clearly deal with the gift of leadership, it’s there. However we may want to construe it, label it, or deny it, leadership is necessary. And its healthy exercise is essential for the vitality and life of any expression of the body of Christ.

If we look to Jesus as model, we cannot escape John 17:4. In the midst of this passage where he prays and pleads for those who are his kingdom followers in present and future generations, there is this stunning, oft overlooked sentence where Jesus states:

“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”

This is pre-passion talk. It is before God’s redemptive purposes were fulfilled. So what is “the work?”

While there are many right and true things we could attribute to being “the work” in terms of Jesus’ kingdom presence and ministry the preceding three years, good hermeneutics compels us by virtue of the context to the inevitable conclusion that “the work” to which Jesus was clearly referring was the calling and development of the 12 disciples. His selection, training, and impartation of life and vision to the 12, and even more focused on a sub-group of 3, was “the work.”

Jesus, the master missionary, knew that the future of the movement he was launching depended on those who would lead in his physical absence. Those who would follow him as leaders for the masses were his priority. They were “the work.”

If so for the Master, how so for us?

“Leverage” is a well-understood and important concept in the commercial world. Few capture its cruciality in the realm of practical ministry – which spans eras, culture, and world view – better than Robert Coleman.

“Jesus concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with people whom the multitudes would follow. People … who would lead … were to be his method of winning the world to God.

The world is desperately seeking someone to follow. This is the decisive question of our age. The relevance of all that we do waits on its verdict, and in turn, the destiny of multitudes hangs in the balance.”

Robert Coleman in The Master Plan of Evangelism

The leverage of leadership can never be underestimated. One person has the potential for effecting thousands. The investment in the life of one can never, ever be underestimated.

Servant leadership is expressed in different ages and different cultures in varying ways and is a contextualized spiritual function. But the essence remains the same. Jesus as leader and Jesus as incarnational missionary remains the supreme model for those of us pursuing him as kingdom travellers.

The famous Scottish poet, Robert Service, penned a brief work that I believe unwittingly captures the emotional dynamic of apostolic gifting probably better then many of the theological tomes that I’ve come across. In the first two verses of, The Men Who Don’t Fit In he writes:

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!
These are the ones who don’t fit in
For whom the world is too small of a place

The last two lines are my edit and addition. Regardless of the gender bias (which is understandable considering the age in which he lived), Service emotionally captures the essence of apostolic gifting …spiritual entrepreneurialship that involves action, crossing significant barriers in the going, and creating something new in a pioneering context.

Pictured here are three of the men who work closely with me: Tom Middleton (the tall one with the shaggy hair) is my ministry assistant, Ryan Buttes (looks like a skinny version of me without the glasses and the grey) is my personal assistant and Colin Crawley (the Brit on the far right in both pictures) who gives leadership to Enterprise International, CRM’s economic development arm that creates for-profit businesses to support ministry around the world.

On the left, we are on the main balcony of Ceausescu’s palace in Bucharest, Romania and on the right overlooking the Danube in Budapest at night.

These three men, in their late 20s and early 30s, are a great source of joy and encouragement! I couldn’t do what I do without them.

Each carries significant responsibility. And in the future, each – with their very able spouses – will bear even greater responsiblities in leading CRM. Relating to them, and others like them, brings me great joy.

“Any movement which has benefited society in the long haul has at its core a group of people committed to a cause that they consider greater than themselves and to one another as friends.”

- James McGregor Burns

One of the facts I’ve come to embrace over the years is that movements run on relationships more than any other factor. I cannot think of a single movement – be it religious, social or political – where at its core there was not a profound relational dynamic.

Some questions:

1. If I am part of a movement, where is the relational “nexus”
2. What is my contribution to the relational dynamic?
3. What is done to intentionally or inadvertently to nourish this relational dynamic?
4. What or who are the detractors to the relational synergy and how are they remedied or minimized?
5. Who are the key players in the relational mix? Who stewards the relational component of the movement?
6. Are the relationships based on the dual components that Burns articulates: a cause and friendship?

Momentum in a movement is a precious commodity.  It’s hard to get and it’s hard to keep.  But the primary component of acquiring and sustaining momentum always has been and always will be relationships.

I met Eric in the Emerging Church course at Fuller. He’s 29, married, two kids, finishing a seminary degree and holding down a role on a pastoral staff in South-Central Los Angeles, and he is frustrated beyond description.

He is a strong, godly leader with clear apostolic gifting. He oozes with potential. But serving in a pastoral role has been a serious mismatch of who he is and the expectations of a local church. I’m not sure which will happen first …his local church killing him or he killing it!

The sad thing is how many people like Eric I meet on a regular basis …men and women with apostolic fervor and passion desperately thrashing around to find their niche in ministry. And all too many have been led to believe that the only path they can travel to fulfill God’s calling on their lives is pastoral ministry in a local church setting. How tragic.

The fact, historically, biblically, sociologically and missiologically is that:

Apostolic gifting must have an apostolic structure for that gifting to be adequately lived out and and fulfilled.

Until Eric and those like him find their niche in apostolic entities where they can thrive, move beyond maintenance to missionality, and be cut loose to see their vision soar, their lives will be models of frustration with a numbing lack of meaning.

Eddie Gibbs notes that 50% of those who graduate from American seminaries and who eventually end up in pastoral ministry drop out within ten years. My guess is that an uncomfortable percentage of that number is made up of the Erics of this world.

So to Eric and other like him, there is hope. You’re not crazy. You’re not a rebel. There is nothing “wrong” with you. May God lead you to right apostolic entity in the days ahead where you can make your ultimate contribution to the Kingdom.

PS: Get in touch with me to find out more about one such entity that I know a lot about. Have I got a bias? You bet!

Alan Hirsch recently spent an evening in our home with a handful of younger CRM staff.

National Director of Forge in Australia, Alan – along with Michael Frost – is the author of The Shaping of Things to Come, in my view, one of the best books on the emerging church and the future of Christianity in the West. I highly recommend it.

The following are a few of the more poignant highlights from my notes during our evening of conversation …some are quotes and some are close, but all are used with his permission:

Missional effectiveness is determined by: 1) Apostolic environments, 2) Disciplemaking and 3) Organic systems (there are two others but they might be too much to explain). These are the most self-evident ones.

The West has complicated the church and made discipleship simple.
China has a simplified the church and made discipleship complicated.
Good disciples produce good leaders.

Apostolic leadership draws out the innate leadership in all of us. The management of meaning is an apostolic function.

The centralization of power institutionalizes a movement. (more…)