25 Oct There is No Leadership Shortcut

Leadership. It’s the buzzword in churches all across America. We spent tons of time and money trying to learn about leadership. We go to conferences, we listen to podcasts, we buy books all to try to learn that one little nugget that is going to grow our church larger, push us to become a better leader, and make our churches alive and vibrant. JUST STOP! Let’s get this out of the way first. There is no one small nugget that you are missing that will keep you from growing as a leader. There is no action plan that will keep your church from avoiding all barriers. There are no magic beans that will create growth overnight. Stop looking for them.

Now that’s not to say that you should stop being a learner. I wholeheartedly believe that leaders are learners. It’s scary how much Bible College and Seminary don’t teach you. Knowing how little you know and dedicating time to be a lifelong learner is a characteristic that needs to be present in every pastor. The problem is when we become obsessed with finding the shortcut that will lead us through the hard times and bring us instant relief. This doesn’t exist. I know it looks so easy for the pastors of large churches. And because of it, we flock to them hoping that their success will somehow rub off onto us. But what if their success had less to do with their processes and more to do with their giftedness. You see, we believe that if you are a pastor, then you have to have the gift of leadership. But that’s just not true. According to research done by the Barna group, only 8% of pastors in America feel that they have the gift of leadership. They are able to maintain a large organization because they are gifted to do so. Instead of recognizing this, pastors go to their conferences, hear from the best speakers, and go home to try to copy their success in their own church. And surprise surprise, it doesn’t work.

Let’s stop and think about this for a moment. What if the biggest problem in your church isn’t that you aren’t a great leader. What if it’s not that your church isn’t growing right now. What if the biggest problem in your church is in your own heart? What if the years under the pressure of ministry have made you focus more on the metrics and less on your own heart? What if leadership has taken the place of holiness? A shift needs to happen. We need to recognize that change must happen first in our hearts before it happens in our churches. Yes, go to the conferences, listen to the podcasts, read the books. Learn, learn, learn. But never let it become the obsession that leads your heart astray.

Believing that leadership is the best thing we can possess is one of the things talked about by Don Cousins in the book Experiencing Leadershift. In it, he identifies several heresies, or errors in thinking, that many pastors have adopted and how it has affected us in our churches. Make sure to check out the video summary of this book at ministrylibrary.com and also check out the other book summaries they have in the video library.