Book Review: I Am a Follower

The Church has a leadership problem. So argues Leonard Sweet in his new book, I Am a Follower. The problem, however, is not that we don’t have enough leaders, or that our leaders have lost their way. The problem is that we have become enamored with leadership culture, obsessed with leading, and supremely focused on raising up the next generation of leaders. The trouble is, Jesus never told us to lead. He told us to follow.

The evangelical church has bought into a brand of leadership that, since the economic crisis of 2008, has gone bankrupt. But the lonely, trailblazing, genius-coming-down-from-the-mountain model of leadership is not what Jesus had in mind for his bride. The picture of leadership in Jesus’ mind was himself, and the rest of us are called to follow him. “What the world defines as leadership is not the way God works through his people in the world. …Christians are called to live by faith in a world that lives by fame.” (28-9)

Christians are not to be leaders, Sweet argues. They are to be followers. First followers. In other words, Christians should find where Jesus is going, discover where he is at work, and then take up their crosses and follow him there. “In posing the paradox of the ox with an easy yoke and a light burden, Jesus is inviting followers to ‘walk alongside me. Just be with me, and the doing will come naturally.’ …Leadership is a functional position of power and authority. Followership is a relational posture of love and trust.” (39-40)

I Am a Follower is a prophetic call to abandon the culture of leadership, with it’s cultic practices of celebrity-worship and the fruitless pursuit of power and fame. Instead, we must take up the position of a sheep, humbling ourselves, and permitting Jesus to be the Good Shepherd of us—yes, even us church “leaders”! Sweet’s call is one to return to a position of relationship to God in Jesus Christ, and to forsake our position of function within the institution of Church. “All too often these days, the church’s stories are about success, leadership, justice, happiness. When ministers become social workers, preachers become motivational speakers, and evangelism becomes marketing, the result is a gimcrack gospel that is tawdry, tacky, and cheap. Asked, ‘What story do you love to tell?’ a first follower’s first answer is, ‘I love to tell the story of…Jesus and his love.’” (144)

I Am a Follower is a necessary, if imperfect, book for our times. Evangelicalism is swimming deeper and deeper into the ocean of celebrity and leadership. But there are sharks here, and there is blood in the water! If our primary aim is to focus on leaders, then who will care for the flock? If the image of the ideal Christian is a leader, then what hope is there for followers? The truth is, we are all followers, and Christ will be more glorified when we learn to accept that reality and let him lead.

Authorized to Build

If you've ever been a leader, then you've probably had somebody question your leadership. "Why do you get to choose? What makes you better than us? You can't tell me what to do! You're a hypocrite!" More often than not, this goes on behind your back, and you may never even hear about it. Truth is, if you've ever been led, you've done this to your leaders.

I asked my wife a few years ago what kind of emotions the word authority stirred up in her, and she said, "Only bad". Authority is a bad word. We don't want other people to have authority over us. We relentlessly look for hypocrisy in our leaders and immediately call them on the carpet for it. We instinctively distrust anyone in a position of authority.

What do you do when someone questions your leadership? Your character? Your motives? It's the easiest thing in the world to abuse the power you've been given as a leader. One way we do this is to silence opposition, to crush those who question you and tear them to pieces.

When you feel tempted to use your authority in destructive ways, remember that any authority or leadership you have over others has been given to you by God. When speaking of his authority in the church at Corinth, Paul described it this way: The authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down. Paul understood that God granted him authority in the churches so that he would build them up, not tear them down. God intends for power to be used constructively. He has authorized you to build others, not to destroy them.

Leaders (and that includes pastors, business leaders, parents, teachers, etc.), you may want to unleash the full power of your fury on someone under your leadership, but you must not. You may be tempted to defend yourself at the expense of someone else's reputation, but you must resist. It's up to you to show those under your leadership what it means to lay down your life, to refuse your rights, and to build up others at the expense of your own reputation and vindication. God has only authorized you to build.

The Mandate

I meant to come back to the issue of biblical leadership structures last week but I got a last minute preaching assignment and my brother-in-law got married, so the blog had to go on hold. But I want to begin to provide an answer to the question: Is there a biblical mandate for church leadership structures?

In a previous post I said that I did not think there was a biblical mandate, but I should modify that. My understanding now, after studying and preaching on Ephesians 4:11-16, is that the church is most healthy when [at least] five people are operating as an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor, and a teacher. Each brings a unique and necessary perspective to the task of equipping the church to do the work of the ministry, and there is tremendous value in hearing five voices speaking harmoniously on the deep things of God.

These five people must be at least five people--they can't be just one person! In that instance, the church is bound to become either imbalanced (because the one person will inevitably emphasize one perspective) or idolatrous. The danger of the senior leader, pyramid structure of church leadership is that the congregation can, quite easily, make that man into an idol. This is, of course, a horrible perversion of the gospel and the calling of God on that man's life. I just don't see the biblical, New Testament church operating with this structure--and where it did, men like Paul and John seemed intent on correcting it.

I believe the biblical model of church leadership is best represented by the image of, not a pyramid, but, the human body. Christ is the head and we are the body, and every individual plays a significant role in the growth of the body. This means that the one at the top is Jesus and no one else is any more important than anybody else. This is the crucial point: Nobody is more important than anybody else. And these five people that we find in Eph. 4:11 are not the leaders of the church, they are its lowliest servants. They serve the servants of God.

The Church is not a meeting. The Church is not an organization. The Church is not an institution. The Church is a person. The Church is a person made up of people who make the person grow and become what Jesus always intended for her to become. That's the calling we all share, and the task for which our apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are supposed to equip us. We don't pass our responsibility off to paid professionals. This is our task. We are the body of Christ on earth and it's our responsibility to see it grow up to full maturity.

A Biblical Mandate?

Wolfgang Simson lays out an ecclesiology (a theology of the Church) in his book The House Church Book. At the core of his ecclesiology is the fivefold ministry—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers—found in Ephesians 4:11-13. He asserts that this leadership model has been ordained by God and, therefore, the pyramid-structure of the senior leader models of many American evangelical churches is fundamentally unbiblical. But we don’t get to see his exegetical work. He seems to take it for granted that Ephesians 4 is the paradigm of church leadership. And while I want to obey Scripture with a clear conscience, I’ve come to realize that it’s not always so simple as pulling out one passage and applying that to Christians across all time and space. So I want to take a brief look at some of the key church leadership passages in the NT and see if I can’t come to some conclusions. (As I write this, I’m not convinced either way on this issue.)

Ephesians 4:11-13

This is the defining text for Simson, and it’s as good a place as any to start. The first thing that I see is that God gave five types of people to the Church for the purpose of preparing them for works of service. When we look at this passage in the light of 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12:4-8 many similarities become evident—enough that we can conclude that this is, like those, a spiritual gifts text. These five roles are really five gifts of the Spirit, and the gifts are Spirit-enabled people who are, for the Church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.

But does this mean that every church in every place must have at least one person operating in each of these gifts? Has the Holy Spirit given every local congregation an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor, and a teacher? But before we can begin to answer these questions, we have to look at, at least, two more texts.

I Timothy 3:1-7

When I come to this passage with Ephesians 4 in the back of my mind, I immediately notice that Paul makes no mention of apostles, prophets, or the rest. Instead, he uses the rather generic term overseer. And rather than describing the task of the overseer, he talks about the character required for the office.

The relevant question for this discussion is, “What is the relationship between overseers and the five roles mentioned in Ephesians 4?” The fashion seems to be, in Evangelicalism anyhow, that the senior pastor is the overseer operating in all five of the Eph. 4 gifts. (And if not all five, then the gifts left out are not present in that congregation.) The fivefold ministry is accomplished, then, by this one man.

But does this make sense of the biblical record? Let me ask some probing questions. Are apostles overseers? Are prophets overseers? What about evangelists? And pastors? And are teachers overseers? Perhaps, in the letter to Timothy, Paul is talking about an office, and in the letter to the Ephesians, he is talking about the spiritual manifestations of that office. In other words, some people are overseers through the gift of apostleship and others through the gift of prophecy—and so it goes. 1 Timothy 3 is about the character of the people who lead the church, and Ephesians 4 is about the gifts and mission of those leaders.

But we still don’t have a clear sense of a biblical structure of Church leadership. Let’s look at one more passage and see if we can come to some conclusions.

Acts 6:1-4

This is, I believe, the genesis of the ministry of deacons. The twelve disciples chose seven men to administer the needs of the Church, while they themselves kept at their task of “prayer and the ministry of the word”. One of the interesting things about this passage is that Luke’s purpose in writing it is to introduce Stephen, the first Christian martyr. His point was not to lay a foundation for Church governance that would endure through all time and in every place.

Rather than finding a biblical Church leadership model in Acts 6, what we have is a really good idea. The Spirit guided the twelve disciples to not get bogged down in the details of food distribution, but to keep at their primary work of prayer and the word. This delegation of responsibility also empowered other men to step into leadership roles, which, in that instance at least, greatly improved the overall health of the congregation.

The conclusions of this very brief exercise are:

• The fivefold ministry is a function of the gifting of the Holy Spirit.
  
• Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are the gifts of the Spirit to the Church.
  
• Overseer is an office that has specific character qualifications that must be met.
  
• Overseer is the general term for church leader.
  
• Anyone operating within the fivefold ministry who meets the character qualifications can be an overseer.
  
• Wise delegation of leadership responsibility leads to healthy Church environments.
  

But have we found a biblical mandate for Church leadership structures? I don’t think so, but I’ll have to give it some more thought and, hopefully, come back to the issue tomorrow.

The FiveFold Ministry

How should church leadership be structured? That is one of the main questions Wolfgang Simson tackles in his book, The House Church Book. Most churches that I’m familiar with have a leadership structure shaped like a pyramid. The senior pastor is at the top, and beneath him are the elders, the staff, and the lay (volunteer) leaders. There is a clear reporting system, with neatly defined levels of leadership. Many churches use titles, like Pastor and Director, to draw sharp lines of distinction between these levels.

There are many benefits to the pyramid structure of church leadership, but the most important question is not whether it is efficient or productive, but whether it is biblical. Wolfgang Simson’s answer is a definitive, “No!” The current structure, he says, more closely resembles corporate America than the New Testament church. The biblical mandate for church leadership structure is found in Ephesians 4:11-13.

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Simson finds here what he calls “the fivefold ministry”: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. These five people, he insists, are to share leadership within the church. (Which, he asserts, should not be any larger than 20 people—but that’s a discussion for another day.) Rather than a pyramid, the leadership structure of the church ought to be flat, with these five roles filled by five individuals. The man-at-the-top is replaced by five people, each ministering according to the gift that God has given them.

Some questions worth asking: Is God issuing a mandate for the leadership structure in the church, binding the church to the fivefold ministry for all time? Is the pyramid structure unbiblical, and therefore sinful? Do you have apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in your church? What would it look like, in your local church setting, to have a flat leadership structure with each of these roles filled by someone in your congregation?

These are big questions that I believe are worth exploring more fully, and I’ll do my best to flesh them out a bit over the next few days. What we’re really talking about here is ecclesiology, or the nature of the church. This goes far beyond leadership structures, and points to the inner workings of the Body of Christ—how it is, exactly, that we are prepared for works of service and built up until we reach unity and attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, as Paul envisioned two millennia ago.

Empowering and Exploiting

I recently finished reading a book that has stirred my mind and heart more than any book I've read in a long time. It's called "The House Church Book" by Wolfgang Simson, and there is so much in this book that I disagree with, and yet so much that I love and that strongly challenges me. I'll be posting a review of it in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to blog through it a bit. I'll start by posting this table that you'll find on page 125 if you pick up the book.

How to Empower Others	How to Exploit Others
allow them to function	give them functions
believe in them	make them believe in you
delegate authority	require submission
further God's plan for them	make them part of your plans
invest in them	use them
love them, and say so	love the task more than the people
give them what you have	take what they have to give
discuss with them	preach at them
freely spend time with them	require appointments
give them the keys now	make them wait until you retire
serve them	let them serve you
praise them	accept their praise of you
transfer masterhood	demonstrate masterhood

This lays out so clearly what I was trying to put into words when I blogged about Life-Giving Leaders. The column on the left is what I aspire to--being someone who empowers others for the task to which God has called them. Take some time, look at the list, and see where you fall. Are you an Empowerer or Exploiter?

Fans, Followers, and Friends

A friend of mine recently made a great comment about ministry and it's temptations. He said, "Do you want fans, or do you want followers?" Fans or followers. Do you want people who like you or who will go where you go and do what you do?

One of the strongest temptations of the preacher is to develop a fan base, like we were a baseball team or some kind of branded product. Fans cheer you on. They give you affirmation and stroke your ego. They subscribe to podcasts, download sermons, and read blogs. They buy your books and do your small group materials. But they don't know you and you don't know them. There is no relationship.

So rather than trying to build a fan base, we, as ministers, should try to build a group of followers. We should be out in front, leading the pack and calling them forward. We should be casting a vision for people, giving them a compelling story to find themselves in. Followers will help us accomplish our goals. They will do what we do and go where we go, and in the process the kingdom of God will be advanced.

But will it? Is having followers the endgame of ministry? Is that what we should be about? Is the kingdom of God advanced by leading a group of people toward the accomplishment of certain goals or the realization of a specific vision?

When my friend made his insight, I thought it was good, but it didn't come to rest on my soul the way certain truths do. There was more to the story, I thought. But I couldn't articulate it until the words of Jesus shot like lightning through my mind.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15)

I think the real distinction is not between fans and followers, but between fans, followers, and friends. Jesus called his disciples his friends twelve hours before they all abandoned, denied, or betrayed him (which he knew would happen). They were more than fans and more than followers. They had become his friends. People he loved. People with faces and families that he wanted the best for.

Jesus didn't call Andrew and Peter, James and John and the rest out of their previous occupations in hopes of building a fan base or a following. No, his hope was that these guys would become his friends. The endgame of ministry is not to have a bunch of fans or followers, but to have a group of friends for whom you would die, and who would die for you. You could have 100,000 podcast subscribers and a vibrant ministry, but if you're alone at the top then you have failed. If you haven't made any friends as a minister, then you haven't ministered.

Stop trying to build a fan base and stop trying to gain a following. Start making friends--real friends who know you on a soul-level. Fans find new favorites and followers get weary of being anonymous. Friends will go with you and be with you because they love you and you love them. They'll stick by your side because you know each other.

Which would you rather have: 40,000 fans, 4,000 followers, or 4 good friends?

Spiritualizing Extroversion

I've been reflecting on Adam McHugh's book, Introverts in the Church, and the ways that we (Introverts & Extroverts alike) spiritualize and idealize our personalities. We make our own personality traits, and the spiritual gifts often associated with them, the norm or preferred method of expressing our faith.

For example, I've often found myself in church contexts that spiritualize extroversion. What I mean is that the gifts and skills normally associated with extroverts are held up as the paradigm of spiritual maturity. These gifts and skills are evangelism, mobilization, and networking. Along with the gift of preaching, these three gifts/skills are the primary lens through which evangelicals view spiritual maturity and the qualities they look for in "good" leaders.

If you can walk up to a total stranger and strike up a spiritual conversation with them, then you have engaged in evangelism and are spiritually mature. If you can mobilize a large number of people to a certain task, then you are a leader. If you have a large circle of friends and know how to network well, then you have a large sphere of influence and a good candidate for church leadership.

This paradigm needs to be challenged because it is far too narrow. Extroverts, like introverts, are limited, and their personalities and gifts are not the only (or even the best) qualifications for spiritual leadership. Confrontational evangelism can often do more harm than good. Sometimes people don't need to be mobilized, they just need to be heard. Being able to network is a good quality to have, but it can sometimes leave people feeling more like commodities than humans.

My point is not that extroverts are bad. Far from it! (I married one, after all.) Nor is my point that evangelism, mobilization, and networking are unnecessary. They are very important, and I'm convinced that I find myself in these contexts because I need to learn to do these things better. But they are not crucial for church leadership nor indicative of spiritual maturity. We have spiritualized extroversion and made the personality traits and natural gifts/skills of extroverts the paradigm for Christian leadership. There's nothing about 1 Timothy 3 that points to extroverts over introverts as ideal candidates for church leadership. We need to move beyond personality and gifting and see character as the true qualification for spiritual maturity.

Finding New Church Models

If you're involved in ministry, particularly in mainline denominations, you should read this article. As a non-denominational, evangelical guy, I'm beginning to see the writing on the wall that was etched onto the edifices of the mainline churches fifty years ago. The reality is that our current models of Church are unsustainable. Large, professional staffs with massive administrative and bureaucratic support will become an unbearable burden to congregations.

Thanks to the rising general level of education and now the wide dissemination of knowledge over the internet, the average person is becoming more and more free to live without the guidance of social and professional ‘betters’. For the very large majority of people around the world, that kind of empowering freedom is what progress is all about.

People don't look to the pastor as the expert anymore. They know just as much, and often times much, much more, than the church leaders about any given subject. A seminary degree, while important, doesn't carry the same weight as it used to. You can't just preach anymore, you have to dialogue. You can't come down from the mountain like Moses and dictate your vision to the masses. The masses are people, and they each have their own ideas about how things ought to go. You have to listen and ask questions and seek input. When the boomers are gone, they'll take the top-down, expert-led model of church leadership with them. The chickens of the Reformation are coming home to roost. I just hope they still come to church.

How to be a Life-Giving Leader: Lesson Four

Reentry after the holidays has been difficult for me this year. That is probably mostly due to the birth of our third baby--he's doing great but still not sleeping through the night. I'm one of those people who needs uninterrupted sleep to feel normal, and we haven't been getting that for the past six weeks or so. Not that I'm complaining. Ezekiel is amazing and I'd gladly trade all my sleep to have him as my son.

Back to the task at hand. I've been writing about life-giving leaders, and what it takes to lead in such a way that others' hearts come alive. So far we've talked about trust, empowerment, and encouragement. These are all things that life-giving leaders do. But there's something that a leader must be, and that is secure in who he is. In other words, a life-giving leader gets his identity (and senses of well-being, significance, etc.) from God.

Consider the behaviors that come with deep-rooted insecurity. Manipulation. Discouraging words. Control. Anger. Self-aggrandizement. Lashing out at others. Think about how you behave in your moments of insecurity. It's fascinating how insecurity breeds self-centeredness. It's only when we're secure in who we are that we're free to forget ourselves and see the best in others.

Having a strong sense of identity in Christ, and finding security there, is what enables you to be a life-giving leader. When you're racked by insecurity, you are, by definition, focused on yourself and your own needs; and when you're focused on yourself, your attention is given to breathing life into your own soul. And when someone (or something, or some circumstances) threaten the breathing of life into your soul, you become a death-dealing leader. You lash out in self-protection.

But leaders who are secure in themselves (because they know who they are in Christ) receive their life from Christ himself, a conduit which no man can threaten. Being relieved of the heavy task and fools' errand of attempting to breathe life into their own souls, they are then free to breathe life into the hearts and souls of others. Through their security, they serve as a conduit of life from Jesus to others.

The key is to pursue a strong sense of your identity in Christ. Let him define you. Let him name you. There is no surer rock than the words of Jesus, so you need to put yourself into a position to hear from him. Let him rebuild your strength and confidence. Rest in the knowledge that "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ." Be secure in Jesus, and you will find the freedom of soul to be a life-giving leader.

How to be a Life-Giving Leader: I'm Not the Only One Who Thinks This Way

Check out this article about open source church leadership. It's good to know I'm not the only one who thinks this way about leadership.

How to be a Life-Giving Leader: Lesson Three

I'm one of those guys that's too proud to admit that he needs to hear encouraging words from time to time. But you know what? Kind and encouraging words are like life and light to my soul. They change my attitude and outlook. They are like a cool breeze washing out the deep humidity of the day.

Life-giving leaders know how to encourage others. They speak life into the hearts of those around them. They add courage, strength, and confidence to their souls. Encouraging words lighten our heavy loads, and life-giving leaders have a knack for identifying and alleviating the over-burdened.

Some people (not me) are just naturally encouraging. They are perfectly content to sit and talk with you about you! They don't try to turn the conversation back to themselves. They don't try to talk business. Their encouragement is not awkward or forced. Building others up is just a natural part of who they are.

But, for the rest of us, encouragement can be difficult. It's hard enough to take a compliment, much less receive one. We don't know how the other person will react. Will they be embarrassed? Will they think we're dumb? Will there be an awkward pause in the conversation and you'll have no natural way out? Of course these are all ridiculous reasons, but they betray our own deeply-rooted insecurities, which is what really keeps us from being an encourager.

Unlike power, encouragement is infinite. When you give it away, you don't lose anything within yourself. You can't lose anything when you speak a kind and uplifting word to someone. Those words are free...and invaluable. Your people need to be built up. They need to be edified, encouraged, and lifted up. Sometimes they toil in deeply humid environments, and all they're waiting for is a breath of fresh air.

You can be an encourager by simply speaking those fleeting thoughts that pass through your mind. I try to do this with my wife. So many times I look at her and have a brief thought of, "Wow, she looks great." And that's all well and good, but it doesn't mean a thing to her if I don't say it. If you're in a meeting, and someone has a good insight, tell them. If worship was particularly engaging, tell everyone on the music team how much it meant to you. Whatever the circumstance, never let an opportunity to encourage others pass you by.

And be sure to look out for those who are discouraged. Remember that God is particularly close to those who are downcast and broken-hearted. You be close to them, too. Ask the Spirit to give you words of life and light to speak into their death and darkness. And, of course, don't try to fix anybody. Just use your words to add courage, strength, confidence, light and life to their souls.

How to be a Life-Giving Leader: Lesson Two

In my last post I wrote about how trusting others is foundational for being the kind of leader who gives life to those who serve with him. Right alongside of trust, and even flowing directly from it, stands empowerment, which I believe is crucial to being a life-giving leader. You've got to empower the people who serve on your team to make real decisions.

Empowering people to make important decisions about a ministry is the surest way for them to take ownership of that ministry. In other words, when you empower, they invest. A group of invested servants (those who are not vocationally accountable for the ministry) is the only way to take your ministry to the next level of excellence and effectiveness. You can't do it alone. You need others to maximize God's vision for your ministry, and the best way to get them fully on board is to empower them.

When you empower someone on your team, you are also helping them to foster a mindset that they are doing this ministry for God and the church, not for you. When you hold all the power--when you control and demand--you ensure that the attitude of your team is one of service to you and your expectations. But when you let go of power, you remove yourself from that high and lofty place between the team and God. You become one of the group, and so the attitude can truly be fostered that this ministry is a service to God and the church.

Empowering others goes a long way toward breathing life into their souls. It tells them, "You are a human being. You are not just a part of some ministry machine. You are not just a cog in the wheel. You have value. You have worth. You have insight. You have good ideas. You are capable." Why do you think bureaucracy and red-tape are soul-killing? Because they are disempowering. They say, "We don't trust you. You need us to help you make this decision."

Think about the Ascension of Christ. What did he do to the eleven disciples at that moment? He empowered them. (This empowerment was later fulfilled at Pentecost, when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them.) In fact, one of the major streams of his ministry was the empowerment of his closest companions.

What are some ways that you can give others real power? What are some decisions you can let go of and hand off to someone else on the team? If you're in a position to hire others, are you giving them the autonomy they need to make their ministries successful? Are you letting your experts be the expert, or are you insisting on your own opinion? Are you micromanaging your team, or setting them free to take flight?

Empowerment is a scary thing because power is finite. When you give some away, that means you don't have it any more. But when you give others real power to make decisions, what you see come to fruition in their lives is of eternal value. You will see their hearts come alive, and I dare say that Hell quakes at the thought of a church full of those whose hearts have come alive.

How to be a Life-Giving Leader: Lesson One

What kind of leader are you? Perhaps the best way to understand your own leadership style and capacity is to look at those who are following you. What do you see in their eyes? Are their hearts coming alive, or is the life being sucked out of them? If you run a ministry at church, are your volunteers passionate and enthusiastic? When a ministry cycle or initiative ends, are they already looking forward to the next one? Or are they hesitant about getting involved again? The primary indicator of the success of a ministry event or initiative is not how much money was raised, or meals cooked, or even people saved(!). The primary indicator of success is the condition of the hearts of those involved in making the event happen.

I believe there is a spectrum of leadership that runs from life-giving leaders on one end to death-dealing leaders on the other. Life-giving leaders die to themselves that others might live. A life-giving leader guards his tongue carefully. He empowers others. He trusts. He praises loudly and criticizes gently. Most of all, he dies to himself. A life-giving leader restrains himself and his need for validation through the success of the ministries and events in his charge. He instead gives others real power to succeed or fail--he trusts his people. He lets go of control.

 When tempted to change course midstream, a life-giving leader takes into consideration the work that has been done thus far, and consults with his team as one of them. In short, he puts others before himself.

Are you a life-giving leader? Do you fall on this side of the spectrum? I believe that this is the type of leadership Jesus had in mind when he said, "The greatest among you must be the servant of all." Our job as church leaders is not to put on great events. Rather, it's to see the hearts of those with whom we serve come alive.

So. How do you do that? It starts with trust. As a leader, you have got to trust your people. Notice I didn't say "you've got to be able to trust your people." That implies that your people must prove themselves trustworthy before you trust them. Not so in the kingdom. We trust first. The foundation must be trust, not results. Any ministry built on a foundation of results will soon crumble; but one built on a foundation of trust will weather any storm.

You've got to trust your people. And when they come through, and do so in ways that far exceeded your expectations, you trust them more. And when they fail, you work through it, but you still must trust them. (Granted that trust ebbs and flows with our own faithful- and faithlessness.) When you trust your people, and they know that you trust them, a remarkable thing happens. They trust you, and do so strongly! So you see how mutual trust among a ministry leader and his team forms a strong bond that will survive even the most difficult seasons. (This is also, I believe, how a pastor can have deep and lasting friendships with people in his congregation.)

How can you build this foundation of trust on your ministry team? When somebody has an idea that's almost as good as yours, go with theirs. When someone is thinking out of the box, try to go there with them. Notice what they do well and casually bring it up in front of the whole team. Protect them from harsh criticism and unrealistic expectations, while at the same time push them to maximize their gifts and skills. Believe in them. Be their biggest fan.

Trust is the first lesson of being a life-giving leader. I hope that this helps you to be the kind of leader who sees the hearts of others come alive.