A church should not be led by a woman.
A church should not be led by a man, either.The Holy Spirit should lead the church,
working with a team of male and female elders.
Women will only find their rightful place in the church,
when we have a radical new leadership model in the church.
Sydney Finkelstein has an article in the Harvard Business Review called Secrets of the Superbosses. These are leaders who building exceptional organisations by spotting, training, and developing a future generation of leaders. The are able to delegate to these people, because they understand their vision.
Superbosses articulate uncompromising visions that they expect employees to internalize and follow. During the execution of work tasks, employees enjoy extraordinary authority over everything except the vision. The Superbosses generally stay clear, intervening only to ensure that decisions employees make support their visions and don’t conflict with them.
Jesus that operated is the way. He spent time with the twelve and the seventy making sure that they understood his vision for the Kingdom of God and how it will come:
This is yet another reason why every manager should craft a compelling vision for their teams, no matter where they are in the corporate hierarchy.
Once they understood this vision, Jesus sent them out to do it in pairs, with no direct supervision. They experienced great success.
Paul grabbed this vision and ran with it, without Jesus needing to control him.
The modern church seems to have lost this vision, and replaced it with control and failure.
God held a plumbline against the house of Ahab and it failed the test. The house was not upright.
The Bible teaches quite a bit about Ahab’s character. They provide important lessons for church leaders. These vulnerabilities leave church leader vulnerable to the Ahab spirit, which opens the way for the Jezebel spirit.
1) Populism
Ahab walked in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat (1 Kings 16:31)Jeroboam = the people increase, multiply
Ahab and Jeroboam looked to the people. They were populist leaders.
Nebat = look.
Vulnerability: Insecure leaders find populism hard to resist.
2) Presumption
Ahab thought to himself, he devised schemes in his heart
1 Kings 12:28,29, 22:8, 12:33.
Vulnerability: Many Christian leaders copy the ideas of other men.
3)Compromise
Ahab was enticed into compromise when he should have stood firm.
1 Kings 12:28,29; 16:31,33: 20:32,34; 11:40 II Kings 17:21; 8:18; 2 Chron 21:13 (prostitute themselves)Ahab = Brother is father
Everyone was Ahab’s brother
Hiel rebuilt Jericho in Ahab’s time 1( Kings 16:34).
Vulnerability: Just as harshness is always a temptation to prophets,
compromise is always a temptation to peace lovers.
4) Tolerate
Ahab tolerated evil.
Rev 2:20, 1 Kings 16:31, 20:4; 20:33.
Vulnerability: This is risk for pastors in church without prophets. The problem is not Jezebel, but leaders who tolerate evil for the sake of peace.
5) Comfort
Ahab enjoyed the comforts of the flesh
1 Kings 16:9; 18:41; 21:1,2; 22:34; 21:16
Vulnerability: Enough said
6) Jealous
He was troubled by covetousness and jealousy
1 Kings 21:2; 11:26,27
Vulnerability: what if some of your sheep go to another church. Will you be threatened
7) Money
He used money to achieve results, bribery
1 Kings 13:7; 20:3,4; 21:2.
Vulnerability: Money problems are common in churches.
8) Anger
Ahab was sullen and angry (vexed NASB)
1 Kings 20:43; 21,2
Vulnerability: sulleness and sulking are a slippery slope.
9) Threats and Control
Ahab used threats and intimidation to control people.
1 Kings 18:10,11.
Vulnerability: Controlling guilty or vulnerable people is easy for pastors/leaders.
10) Up and Down
Sometimes Ahab was hard hearted. Other times he was humble – aconvenient humility
1 Kings 20:25-29.
Vulnerability: inconsistency is risky
11) Rebellion
Ahab ended in rebellion
1 Kings 11:26; 12:19; 16:20; 21:25;
He set up idols
1 Kings 12:31; 21:26;
Vulnerability: Some church programmes can become idols
12) Resisted the Kingdom of God
2 Chron 13:8,12
Rev 2:26,27.
Those who persevered in Thyatira were promised the Kingdom of God
They would have the Morning Star,
ie they will defeat Satan Is 14:12
Vulnerability: there is not much interest in the kingdom among church leaders.
The main advantage of apostolic Church growth is the opportunities provided for leadership to develop. This will not happen if the pastor is at the centre of things. If he is good at what he does, the church will get very large, but most people will want to stay close to him, even when they are mature. They will not want to leave and start something new, because they are committed and comfortable where they are.
If the pastor does most of the ministering, potential pastors will not be able fulfil their calling in their church (some may be content being a youth pastor). Even if the church is very large, only a few key people will be involved in ministry, so most of the church members must remain dependent on their pastor and receive ministry from him.
The modern pastor says it is tough at the centre (harder than being sent out). He is correct, but his task is usually hard because he is surrounded by bored, purposeless, proud, critical or lazy Christians. His church is often full of people who have remained as spiritual infants, because the structure of the church did not allow them to grow into eldership ministries.
When a person with leadership potential has no opportunity to exercise their gifts, they stop growing and start to stagnate or become a nuisance. If potential pastors are frustrated, they tend to become critical. They will see hurt people not being healed. They will gather these to themselves, as is natural for a pastor. If care is not taken this can lead to disunity and a split (the Absalom phenomenon). Sometimes the person with leadership potential becomes so frustrated that they rebel against the pastor. Many new churches have been started by men who became frustrated, when they were unable to fully exercise the calling on their life. While their new church is often successful, they tend to take their rebellion into the new church with them.
Many potential pastors remain loyal to their pastor and serve him faithfully. However a deep sense of disappointment remains in their heart because they have not been able to exercise a fulfilling ministry. From the perspective of the church this is a terrible waste of potential.
In the apostolic model described here, there is always a challenge because people are moving out, and others have to rise up to take their place. There is a constant demand for new leadership. Thus any believer with leadership potential can very quickly rise to be a pastor-teacher and many can become an apostle.
One person cannot be Jesus.
It takes three people to represent God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
One person cannot contain the fulness of the Spirit.
It takes two or three to contain him.
Therefore, only "shared leadership" can represent the fullness of God.
The best example of this leadership style is the Trinity. The Father said about the Son, "Listen to him". However, Jesus said he could only do what he saw the Father doing. He also said it was better for him to go away, so that the Spirit could come, but when the Spirit came, he gave glory to Jesus.
Each member of the Trinity has absolute freedom and authority to exercise their perfect ministry. Yet each one honours and submits to the others. No one is in control. The Trinity demonstrates perfectly how three persons bound together by love can work together shared leadership.
To manifest the full glory of the Trinity, the church must have shared leadership with the same free freedom from control and unity in love.
Many Christians equate the Church and the Kingdom of God. This is simplistic, but clearly Kingdom principles must be worked out in the church first, as an example and to draw others into God's Kingdom.
In the Kingdom of God, people should not dominate others, but serve each other (Luke 22:24-26). This principle should shape all that we do, including our organisations. Unfornately, the Church has not applied this principle, but has instead copied its management structures from the world. Bishops and Boards of Directors and Pastor/Leaders cannot demonstrate Kingdom government.
