Putting the spiritual infants in charge.

The attitude of the spiritually immature tells you a lot about why they shouldn’t be put in church leadership.

I’ve said previously that one of the regular mistakes we make in the Church is that we regularly give positions of authority to the wrong people.

Most of the folks I’ve dealt with have been either youth leaders, or youths who want to be leaders. To a lesser degree I’ve dealt with small group leaders; to an even smaller degree, associate pastors over one thing or another. It’s only in the last ten years that I’ve regularly dealt with lead pastors or senior pastors. That’s mainly because for my first 25 years in the Church, I was either a kid, or a giant hypocrite who was driving his youth pastors to distraction, or I went to large churches where everyone in authority was too insulated (or too anxious about their own positions) to see my abilities and ask me to do stuff.

In any case, I really wasn’t mature enough yet. I still had the attitude that I see in so many young people who want to be leaders: “I know my bible backwards and forwards. My theology is completely orthodox. I have perfect attendance—I’m here three times a week, every week. I throw out all those helpful bon mots in every bible study, and invite and bring lots and lots of new people to the services. So many people have told me, ‘You know so much; you really ought to lead a ministry.’ I’ve certainly dropped a lot of hints that I can do one. Why can’t the leaders see this? What’s taking them so long?”

As I said, the leaders were usually too busy, and too fixated on their own ministries, to see my talent and ask for help. But had they asked me to run stuff, I would have promptly run it into the ground. ’Cause let’s analyze that attitude a bit.

• “I know my bible,” combined with “What’s taking them so long?” is a dangerous case of orthodoxy without patience. It’s what Paul warns against when he talks about having knowledge yet lacking love. Yeah, I’d be able to present technically flawless theology, but I’d make absolutely no concessions for the folks who asked, “But what about this scripture that appears to contradict you?” or “But what about this circumstance I’m going through?” I lacked compassion. I lacked teachability. I lacked that really important component of being able to listen to the folks I would be ministering to. I’d have been just another know-it-all, sucking the love out of God’s grace and reducing it to pure contractual machinery.
• “Backwards and forwards” is a case of confusing trivia with profundity. I can still answer bible trivia questions to a scary degree, but how much of that knowledge has been applied to my Christian life? Knowing that there are 150 psalms doesn’t tell me what’s in them, or what the psalmists were going through when they wrote them, or which psalms to turn to when I’m going through similar experiences. Being able to correct the pastor when he confuses which disciple was in what story doesn’t make me a better Christian; it makes me a bigger know-it-all pain in the keister.
• “My theology is completely orthodox” is a case of knowledge without experience. Theology only neatly fits into a perfect little package if you’ve embraced the entire package hook, line, and sinker. Many churches encourage this, ’cause it causes the least amount of controversy. But it indicates the least amount of personal experience with Jesus. You see, relationships are messy. While Jesus is consistent, we aren’t; and so our understanding of Jesus winds up evolving year by year, month by month, or even day by day. One year we’re more comfortable with predestination; another we’re heavily into free will. One year we’re reading all the scriptures about prophecy; another we’re reading all the scriptures about grace. Humans are creatures of extremes, and we grab one or another like a five-year-old going through a Whitman’s Sampler. My theology was only completely orthodox when I didn’t understand it. Now that I do... well, it’s mostly orthodox. God’s still sanding down the rough bits.
• “I have perfect attendance” is leadership by squatter’s rights. We see this in the Church all the time. The folks who are there every Sunday, who show up to every potluck, who appear at every small group meeting and bible class, and who go to every special service—and who are doing it because they figure this shows their dedication to the ministry, and might earn them a spot on the deacon board. And you know, in deacon board meetings, I’ve even heard this as a reason for certain people’s nominations: “She’s just so faithful,” or “He’s always there when you need him.” Maybe so. But what do these people do with their perfect attendance? Do they stack chairs? Greet visitors? Contribute awesome food to the potluck? Clean up accidents in the bathroom? Do they volunteer for ministries where they might get their hands dirty? Do they prophesy over others in a way where they risk sounding completely foolish if they’re wrong? Can you see Spirit-led humility in them? ’Cause you absolutely don‘t want leaders without it.
• “I’m here three times a week” suggests a mentality of inreach rather than outreach. There’s nothing wrong with contributing to the body of Christ if God has gifted you with the ability to train people up. The trouble is that this is not all we should be doing. We need to interact with the world if we’re going to draw any folks from it to Jesus. If, unless we’re new Christians ourselves, the only people we know in our lives are Christians—if we don’t interact with any pagans whatsoever—then we’re insulating ourselves to an unhealthy degree. We’re contributing to the way-too-common fortress mentality that not only doesn’t grow the Church; it turns those in the Church into cabin-fevered loons whose message of good news is too much in Christianese to make any sense to the lost.
• “Every week” means a lack of inter-church interaction. My church may be—to me—the exact location that God wants me, and the best church for me at that time. And that’s great. But if I can’t leave it for anything, then there’s something unhealthy about my relationship with that church. I’m not seeing what God might be doing in other church bodies. I’m not interacting with other Christians within my community. I’m not getting encouraged by what they’re doing right (or what we’re doing right that they’re not); I’m not getting challenged by stepping outside comfort zones; I’m not looking at the Church as God sees it, spread out in spite of denominational hangups and affiliations that we silly humans put upon them. And I’m not visiting family—and the church they go to either.
• “I throw out helpful bon mots” means I’m a show-off. There’s a difference between providing actual, helpful information in the bible study, and between proving to the teacher and the others in the class that you know everything the teacher knows, and possibly more. The teacher—and I say this as a teacher—does not appreciate it when the show-off starts jabbering. Usually he’s full of trivia without wisdom behind it, and drags the class off into tangents that have little to do with the point, and everything to do with the show-off’s point. We call this “usurping authority,” which we’re frequently too “nice” to rebuke. (Except me. I usually say, “Who’s teaching this class, again?” and that usually ends it. Thankfully, some of my pastors did the same to me.) Show-offs by their very usurping nature should never be given authority.
• “I bring lots of people” suggests leadership by popularity. I used to bring lots of people to church, not because I was a great evangelist or apologist, but because I was somewhat popular among certain cliques and could convince my comrades that my church’s youth groups might be a fun evening diversion. Of course, I behaved as the same useless, silly fool at church as I usually did among them, and therefore had absolutely no moral authority to lead them—none within me, and nothing they’d recognize either. And frequently the best so-called “evangelists” in a given congregation are simply just personable people. They draw people to themselves just by virtue of being themselves. They would have followers no matter what. This certainly does not mean they should be given official sanction to lead. Such people are frequently harder to train as leaders; their charisma gets them forgiven for a multitude of character flaws.
• “So many people have told me...” indicates leadership by acclamation. This is the opposite of leadership by anointing. God picks leaders; the people either recognize God’s choice, or they don’t, and frequently they don’t ’cause they’re not following God anyway. I have had lots of people tell me I should go into ministry solely because I was good at bible trivia. Never mind the fact that I demonstrated very little of the fruit of the Spirit; I knew the kings of Judah from Rehoboam to Zedekiah, and that was impressive enough.
• “I’ve dropped a lot of hints” means leadership by persuasion. If you have to argue your way into a leadership position, or the leaders of a church are forced to take you on because of the pleas and cajoling and unstated threats of others, it means there’s nothing sacred about your selection; it’s entirely political, and you’ll be dropped as soon as it’s politically possible to do so. A leader no one wants can’t lead very well. But hey, at least you have the job title on your résumé.
• “Why can’t the leaders see this?” and “What’s taking so long?” of course imply impatience; but even worse, a severe lack of humility. Even the best of leaders are going to miss opportunities; even the most efficient organizations sometimes take time to start programs. If you haven’t been offered a leadership position, it might mean absolutely nothing insulting, untoward, dismissive, or uninterested. But freaking out about it means you obviously think more highly of yourself than others do; and maybe there’s something to the way they think. Consider that a while.

Naturally, leadership needs to be based on what the apostles decided for deacons: people “known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.” (Ac 6.3) Paul lists various extra requirements, but generally you want anyone in leadership to at least be Spirit-led and wisdom-filled. Anything less is spiritual immaturity, and you don’t put kids in charge unless you want to turn your church into a playground.

The September ’08 synchroblog.

The subject for the month is “maturity,” and since that subject can pretty much go every direction, it has. Feel free to poke around my fellow synchrobloggers’ posts, and consider their thoughts. It’ll put hair on your chest.

Lew Ayotte: “Maturity and preaching.” Susan Barnes: “Growing up.” Jonathan Brink: “I won’t sin.” Sally Coleman: “Vulnerable maturity.” Liz Dyer: “What I wish the Church knew about spiritual maturity.” Kathy Escobar: “What’s inside the bunny?” Adam Gonnerman: “Old enough to follow Christ?” Steve Hayes: “Adult content.” Alan Knox: “Maturity and education.” K.W. Leslie: “Putting the spiritual infants in charge.” Joe Miller: “Intentional relationships for maturity.” Nic Paton: “Inclusion and maturity.” Beth Patterson: “The future is ours to see: crumbling like a mountain.” Ryan Peter: “The foundation for ministry and leading.” Lainie Petersen: “Watching Daddy die.” Bryan Riley: “Still complaining?” Kai Schraml: “Mature virtue.” Tracy Simmons: “Knowing Him who is from the beginning.” John Smulo: “Christian maturity.” Joseph Speranzella: “Spiritual maturity and the examination of conscience.” Bethany Stedman: “Moving towards true being: The long process of maturity.” Erin Word: “Long-wearing nail polish and other stories.” Phil Wyman: “Is maturity really what I want?” Cobus van Wyngaard: “Post-enlightenment Christians in an unenlightened South Africa.”