LEADERS IN BALANCE

I've been reflecting lately on what it means to have balanced leadership in a local congregation.

First, what purpose do leadership gifts serve within the body of Christ? To answer that we need to turn to Ephesians 4 where we find that the gifts of apostle (course-charter and initiator of new Kingdom advances), prophet (those who remind us "thus saith the Lord"), evangelist (they gifted in moving the Church toward effectively sharing Christ), pastor (the nurturers), and teacher (they who awaken our understanding of God's word and make it applicable to daily living) are given to the Church in order to move the body toward maturity and unity. These leaders are called to equip the saints for ministry, not to do ministry for them. They are coaches and trainers, not the athlete before the spectator. Balanced leadership, then, would mean a body calling out people with these gifts and releasing them for their God-appointed purpose.

Second, most congregations hire, after the first or lead pastor, one or more pastors who are generally asked to oversee a specific task or demographic within the body (youth, children, worship, etc.). In essence we add supported staff as new programs are birthed or as problems arise that need fixing or as our volunteer pool runs dry. This is not balanced biblical leadership. Balanced leadership would actually mean having supported leaders that function as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers for the equpping of the saints. So, rather than think of balance according to programming function, can we begin to think of balance in relation to these gifts? We may ask a pastor-gifted servant to oversee youth, but the purpose would be the nurturing and discipling of youth and the equipping of youth for that purpose, not to run a cool program to entertain. The focus here is on balanced equipping of the body to become an initiating, Truth speaking, Christ-sharing, care-giving, and Truth instructing people.

Third, in our own context at Zurich Mennonite I am wondering what this would look like? How do we begin to balance our leadership as above? I see myself as primarily a prophet-teacher and Associate Pastor Tim is an apostle-evangelist (to clarify here: I believe each leader is capable of all the gifts to degree, though one or two will be dominant and the primary place where that individual truly is a "gift" and feels alive - in this sense I would secondarily be an apostle while Tim would be a teacher [according to what I have observed]). So, it would appear we as a body are not as well equipped on the pastor-nurturer side of things and ought we consider what it might look like to call out supported leaders in this area to provide a little more balance? We have taken baby steps toward this by calling out a Leader of Pastoral Care on a volunteer basis for a mere five hours a week, but is this enough to provide true balance?

Balanced leadership fosters a healthy, maturing Church - that's God's plan. How do we move further in this direction?