A Church with Heart AND Results? Do we have to choose?

Wouldn’t a church characterized by love be a given? If loving the Lord your God and your neighbor are the great commandments, and if the church is the very bride of Christ, shouldn’t love define every single thing the church does and how we do it? Then why isn’t this true, and why do we live with the dichotomy of shepherding vs. effective leadership?

Is it because we know the church is made up of sinners? Is it because we are stuck with the business of ministry to get done? Because we can’t be expected to pastor the staff, lay leaders, and members as a part of doing ministry and still get the ministry accomplished? Because we can’t meet everyone’s needs?

Do we have to choose between being a church that takes the time to love along the way or a church that’s successful? Are loving each other deeply and leading and managing the church effectively two separate issues that must be at odds with each other and constantly balanced? Or could we even dream that it’s possible to lead and manage the church and its ministries and even its “business” functions WHILE loving and even BY loving?

This is the subject that is most capturing my heart and imagination right now. As someone with a task-oriented personality with years in corporate management, years in church management, years in life-on-life discipleship, and now a few years in coaching and shepherding church leaders even as God has been doing “heart surgery” on me, I firmly believe that God has called us to lead our churches without a dichotomy between love and good leadership, and he has even given us the instructions we need to do this.

 

For instance, how about leading ministry? How do lay or staff ministry leaders lead effectively and for results while loving well those serving under them?

Here are their choices:

1. Supervise them to “get ministry work out of them”
2. Ask them how they are doing and commit to pray for them
3. Respond in crises in their lives
4. Shepherd them by caring for their whole life situation, spiritually, physically, and emotionally
5. Build a true community of those who serve in this ministry
6. Pro-actively disciple them to help them grow spiritually

Wouldn’t it be great if you had a lay leader who would do all 6 of these! But we settle for someone who will do A and B, and if a little bit of C is thrown in, that’s great. What would it look like to love them as we love ourselves and as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her? Would you agree on A – E and even some of F? But, can we expect that? Let’s change the question to, “What did Christ command of Christians?” Matt 22:39 sets the stage and John 13:34 raises the bar to His model for love. I believe we are talking about A – E, and, when we add in his instruction to Peter in Jn 21, we should even include F.

How can we lay out ministry leadership expectations that are actually lower than Christ’s commandment for how Christians should treat each other?

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS WHOLE ISSUE? WHAT ARE YOUR STRUGGLES?