Earlier I said that the church is made up of living stones all being piled up by Jesus as he builds his church. The picture looked very messy as each stone was put in place and each gave and received in ministry, to and from the rest of the body inspired by the Holy Spirit with Christ as the head.
Over the two thousand years of the church different expressions of Christianity have come up with very different structures to make the church work. Each structure has had its own ideas of leadership and authority and each has tried to make the biblical descriptions of church fit its theories and practices. It seems to me that the main problem with every model of church leadership has been that they start with a presupposition about leadership which isn’t biblical at all.
Flippin’ Leaders and Servants
Whether a church structure sees leadership as elected, team, divinely appointed, called, biblically described, priesthood, ministry, elders, bishops, apostles, or democratic representation, the point is they can and very often do, misunderstand what Jesus did for leadership through what he taught and how he lived his life.
A phrase often banded about in church circles as been ‘servant leadership’. Obviously coined from Paul’s letter to the church in Phillpi:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant leader, being born in the likeness of men. Phil 2:5-7
Aaaaaagh! No, no, no. That isn't what it says. It just says ‘servant’ not “servant leader”. Whatever is wrong with ‘servant’. Why do we feel the need to qualify it?
I’ve seen all kinds of models of church structure but few seem to have grasped this simple teaching of Jesus who:
Did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. Phil 2:7
He demonstrated this when, at the last supper, Jesus:
Rose from supper. laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
John 13:4f
Over the last few decades a lot of Christians have been looking at restoring the church. We’ve seen a restoration of baptism of the Holy Spirit, gifts of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of apostles and prophets, all manner of things - perhaps its now time for the restoration of servanthood. At Jubilee, we have developed a things we call the upside down triangle.
In all walks of life, most models of leadership follow a top down line of understanding. Authority is with those at the top and those below must follow. In doesn't really matter whether this is democratic, communist, autocratic or any other form of philosophy. How people get to the top or how they exercise their power varies, but the model remains true. As we see in the diagram below.
Leader
Followers
How a leader gets to the top of the triangle isn’t really important. As long as the triangle is this way up leadership is about ruling over others. The rule may be benign or tyrannical, but its still a system built on hierarchy. The people at the bottom of the triangle are there to serve those above them. They may serve willingly, but they are there to support those above them. Ambition is to climb up the pile and therefore have more power and influence. If wrongly used this also means more control of those below.
The model we have developed at Jubilee comes from our understanding of what leadership is as defined by Jesus. Merely the willingness and ability to serve. Therefore as Jesus serves his disciples in John 13 or as he is described in Philippians 2, he gets under us and lifts us up.
God’s flippin’ nature.
Throughout scripture, God turns things upside down.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isa 55:8f
Mankind’s natural instincts are for self preservation and self promotion, but God’s ways are about self giving and self sacrifice.
Jesus only describes himself on one occasion in the Bible:
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Matt 11:29
When I was first commissioned in the RAF I was briefly a pilot.
The reason the career as a pilot was brief was that I found landing the Jet Provost aircraft very difficult. So much so that it was most likely that I would have killed myself if I had continued my training. But one of the most common killers of trainee pilots throughout the history of flight has been disorientation when flying in cloud.
When a pilot flies into cloud they have no external references and after manoeuvring for a short time can find themselves completely upside down without realising it. You may find that hard to believe but as trainee pilots we were subjected to aviation medicine training and tests which involved sitting in a chair which was mounted on gimbals which allowed the chair to be rotated in any axis. We were then blindfolded and the chair was gradually rotated. Such was the slowness of the rotation that the trainee felt not movement whatsoever. The speed of rotation was gradually increased until it was quite quick but the occupant of the chair was still unaware. Then, suddenly the chair’s rotation was stopped. The resulting affect on the student pilot was that he was absolutely certain that he had rapidly spun in the opposite direction the the actual rotation. We learned that this false experience was due to the tiny hairs in the inner ears not detecting the gradual acceleration but obviously detecting the sudden stop. The brain thus believing the body to be stationary interprets the signals as as a massive acceleration (and you thought this blog was about church!).
Because pilots can be deceived into thinking that they are the right way up when in fact they are the wrong way up, they can get into a place where the now upside down wings are no longer generating lift so the aircraft will begin to descend, but seeing this and believing himself to be the right way up, the pilot will pull back the stick and put on power. This will actually speed up his descent and so, still in error, he increases his rapid downward path until .... no more pilot. The only proper response when manoeuvring in cloud is to believe the instruments, even when you are convinced that you are right. The artificial horizon on the instrument panel will always show a pilot which way he is actually up.
In life terms we are to believe what Jesus says are the ways to lead the good life and be deliriously happy, and not what our instincts or the ways of the world tell us. Its what Paul warns us about:
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Col 2:8
But the church has consistently built its leadership structures on manmade ways and not on God’s. Jesus gives us very stern warnings to save us from crashing into the ground:
Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
Lk 6:46
Many people believe that God is some kind of omnipotent being who has created man to serve him. But, when we read the Bible we see that God has always served man. A very quick survey shows us that God serves man:
In Creation:
Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
Gen 9:3
In Provision:
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:19
In Blessing:
The LORD will protect him and preserve his life; he will bless him in the land and not surrender him to the desire of his foes. Ps 41:2
In Guidance:
The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Isa 58:11
In Love:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn 3:16
I could go on and on showing that God, without losing any of his majesty has served us, you and me and all mankind always.
So our model looks more like figure 2.
The lower you go, the more responsibility you take on, the more people you serve. At Jubilee, we talk about people standing on the shoulders of those who serve them. The authority held by someone is only perceived from the point of view of the one standing on their shoulders. If a person doesn't feel safe then they won’t stand on another’s shoulders. Its been a major factor in the way we have tried to ‘do church’ over the last 10 years. No one can complain that people they lead don’t do what they say. If someone being served by another isn’t doing what they want then the leader hasn’t served that person in such a way as to help them do what ever it is that needs doing.
In the church, the authority of a leader is submitted to by those who feel safe enough to stand on that persons shoulders and know that this is doing them good. In practice, because the church is a largely volunteer body, anyone at any time can step off the shoulders of their leaders.
There have been times in history when church leaders have enforced their authority through the state and have fully maintained a wrong way up view of leadership, even using the death penalty and torture as instruments of the church. Any church leader today who thinks that the triangle in figure one works is deluding themselves. We can ask church members to swear an oath or sign a membership agreement or recite a creed, but if they wish not to follow then, as Bill Hybels writes in his book ‘Courageous Leadership’ the leader is just a guy going for a walk on his own.
Our ambition is to imitate Christ.
Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Eph 5:1f
We are to look to move down the triangle and therefore closer to God. Conversely, any manmade ways lead us further away from God.
Excellent.
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