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?

Isn’t transformation like that? It isn’t like what we would chose. God puts “stuff,” circumstances, problems, hard things in our life. We think that there’s a negative situation we need to solve and get over as fast and painlessly as possible. But someone else whom God has also put there in our life gives us perspective that is more eternal than we could see. God is up to something. Why didn’t I see that? Why didn’t I think of that? Well, it’s because I don’t want to grow in that way. I want to live a peaceful and comfortable life and do growth activities as separate, planned, controlled things. I keep forgetting that the way God works IS through the messes in my life, and every one is there for a purpose. John Piper said, “Don’t waste your cancer,” and that means I need to watch for what God wants to do IN me as well as THROUGH me at every instant. And I need friends like this one to both remind me and help me see what God is doing and how I need to respond.

I’m re-reading Mindy Caliguire’s little book Soul Friendships,  which describes a soul friend as someone who is like this, someone safe enough that I can be transparent and loving enough to tell me the truth. How many friends like this do you have?

Our process is to give people information through preaching and teaching and then expect them to go impact the community. We are feeding their “heads” and then expecting them to serve with their “hands.”  They will do this only temporarily and artificially. What we are missing is the “heart,” filling it up with a deepening desire for Christ and Him alone, so that there is an overflow that must go where His heart is, to the least and lost all around us. As Dallas Willard said, we have changed the Great Commission to the Great Omission, make disciples to make Christians, because we don’t know how to make disciples.

How do we do this? Through true, transparent, relational, life-on-life discipleship, as Jesus did. But how do we do that? It’s a slow, intentional process of one on a few, not done in 8 or 12 weeks, but over 2,3,5 years. We grow by evaluating experiences through intentional relationships . Who is doing this? A very few churches are working to get it right, and a few of us are trying to help churches learn how. Yes, we need good theology and we need to focus on community impact and ideally churches serving together in that. But until we figure out how to take the “long view” and long road to discipling our people, the heart will be missed, there will be no true transformation and no real kingdom building.

Transforming communities starts with preaching and teaching the Truth, but it must go to discipling the lives to true transformation, becoming missional and developing the leadership in us all, reproducing the life of Christ. That’s how Jesus modeled it, how Peter and Paul did it, and the only way that truly works.

My own passions are these:

1. Developing leaders in and through the church — leaders for the kingdom

2. Transforming people to transform the church to transform the community. In fact, my ministry to churches is named TRANSFORM (www.transform-coach.com)

One of my convictions is that people (we) grow through evaluating experiences through intentional relationships. In the spritual realm, this is done through the process of DISCIPLESHIP, and I have some very specific thoughts and experiences about how we can disciple in the church. Unfortunately, we aren’t seeing this being done effectively very often at all. As Dallas Willard says, we have changed the Great Commission to the Great Omission — we may be making Christians, but not Disciples.  

Another of my convictions is that we don’t take care of our leaders in the church. As a result of this, they can end up just going through the motions, burning out, failing, and dropping out. This blog is for you leaders who are going through one of these or who don’t want to end up that way.

Finally, a third conviction is that the Church is failing to transform our communities — to bring God’s kingdom, His rule and reign, to the world around us, where we live, work, and play.

Well, I think that’s enough to get the conversation started. WHAT DO YOU THINK????