Musings on Spiritual Matters

Sheared Shepherds: The Bible establishes the model for organization in the church, but has little details concerning the nature of this authority. There have been movements attempting to steal away the staff of authority from the eldership, but it seems that the Bible does authorize the eldership having a leadership capacity beyond influence or example. The problem arises when the eldership does not understand this nature of leadership. Often the leadership falls into one of either ditch. The shepherds practice a permission based or empowering based model. The first model of permission based is when the elders are micro-managing the flock. Nothing can happen unless the eldership provides permission to the workers. Every tiny decision must be approved by the eldership which causes a “bottle-neck” of procrastination and indecision. People become frustrated with the lack of activity within a congregation because everyone is waiting on approval from the shepherds, but the shepherds are still debating over issues that are a year old. This causes members to lose motivation. The other model that elderships follow is the empowering model in which every member is empowered to perform ministries with little involvement of the eldership. This also creates problems in a congregation because people begin ministries and programs that are not always scriptural or appropriate for the congregation. This creates firestorms that the shepherds must deal with to maintain unity within the congregation. This model of leadership causes the eldership to pull back the empowerment that was once given to be replaced again with a permission based system. The elders are now afraid of entrusting people to ministry. Both of these models cause the shepherds to be sheared. People are “sick of” being treated like “immature spiritual dummies” who cannot do anything without permission so people by pass the eldership because it is “easier to receive forgiveness than permission” which causes the eldership to force a “lording over the flock” dynamic in the congregation. While the “empowering model” also shears the shepherds because become “rouge free agents bend on their own agenda.” There is a better way of leadership for shepherds in the church.

Related posts:

1. When the Sheep Shear the Shepherds–4
2. When the Sheep Shear the Shepherds–Part 2
3. When the Sheep Shear the Shepherds–Part 1
4. Empowerment, Permission, and Power
5. Peer to Peer Leadership

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 11:13 am and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.