Some Christians imply that practices of leadership are deeply secular and inconsistent with Scripture.

WE RESPECTFULLY DISAGREE.

We invite you to explore our thoughts in detail:

Leadership, at its core, is positive, fruitful influence. It is not titles, authority, or coercive power.
Jesus has produced more positive, fruitful influence than any person in human history. By that measure, Jesus Christ was the greatest leader of all time.
Leaders are not magically born with a charismatic or strong personality. Leaders are people who develop an ability to inspire others. They challenge followers to raise the trajectory of their lives—to take ownership of their lives, to commit to a higher purpose, and to pursue a greater vision of what God can do.
Jesus did all these things. He was the supreme example of personal, authentic, spiritual influence. Jesus commanded his followers’ attention through his personal presence, moral example, and spiritual authority. As Jesus walked, his disciples went with him. As he taught, they learned a new way of life. As he modeled true leadership, he washed their feet. And then he gave his life so they could live.
Like those first followers, disciples today walk with their leader, Jesus. They are close to him. They learn what he taught. They do what he did. They live as he lived. And they give of their lives for others. This is godly influence. This is true leadership.
True spiritual leadership produces powerful results, but not because of coercion or manipulation. The results are due to a love that is sustained by intimacy with God. Some may think evil tyrants or angry drill sergeants typify true leadership. This is false.
Jesus did not lead like a powerful narcissist who forces his followers to serve his own interests. True leaders do not depend on domination or bullying. They do not coerce their followers to act (except perhaps in moments of extreme danger). True leadership radiates out of self-sacrificing care for others.
Godly leaders never lead out of an empty spot in their own hearts. They do not use their power or position to address their emotional needs or fill their heart gaps. Instead, they lead out of a well of deep emotional, relational, and spiritual abundance. They gather, prepare, and organize followers to contribute to shared goals.
This self-sacrifice flows out of intimacy with God. Great Christian leaders can concentrate on enabling their followers to fulfill their callings precisely because they already possess a deep sense of security in the love of God.
Followers can sense that leaders like this are for them. So they feel safe. They know that in following godly leaders, they do not need to hold back resources for self-protection. They can act in confidence to fulfill their God-given callings. They understand that their leader is making a way for them to join with God in his plan to restore all things.
Godly leaders do lead toward a missional goal. But as they do so, they also serve their followers. They add value to their lives by giving them a meaningful role in God’s work. Such leaders change the world for the better by leading like Jesus.
Since leadership begins with the inner world of the leader, the Bible offers much positive teaching that speaks to godly leadership. It builds a reliable foundation for true, godly leadership by showing how leaders must act out of a well of deep emotional security, relational strength, and spiritual faith in God.
The Bible tells of successful leaders who followed this prescription and honored God in their work. It also provides many examples of evil, incompetent, insecure, or narcissistic so-called “leaders” who used their status or position to compensate for their own inner voids. Think of King Saul. The lives of failed leaders end in ruin. These are cautionary tales.
The Bible also provides principles to act on. It describes the viewpoints and behaviors of leaders who did the work—organizing followers for success, inspiring their efforts, structuring their plans, and counting their results. (Think of Moses, Nehemiah, and the apostles in Acts 6.) Jesus repeated honored those (like the ten-talent manager) who successfully accomplished missional results.

We ground our understanding of leadership, therefore, in the Bible. And we also learn from other areas of human experience. We believe that what flows out of special revelation (the Bible) and what comes to us from general revelation (experience and research) is all revelation. That is, it all comes from God. All truth is God’s truth.
When a Christian gets a cancer diagnosis, they usually seek both medical treatment and also fervent prayer. We think this is appropriate. So we oppose any attempt to draw artificial divisions between biblical understanding and healthy human experience. As in medicine, so in leadership: we are both guided by the Bible and also informed by/helped by the experience of human leaders and the research results of careful scholars.
Because an accurate model of leadership calls for a “both/and” approach, research into leadership at secular business schools, as an example, is relevant to Christian leaders. Of course, we never adopt ideas uncritically. We self-critically learn from leaders in non-Christian arenas. As we do so, we aren’t just borrowing principles of leadership that find their only natural home in business, the military, or the government. We aren’t just applying alien or “secular” ideas willy nilly to the church.
In fact, much of what has become common practice in business (for example, the emphasis on having a clear mission) comes from Christians who studied the Bible. ‘Mission,’ after all, is a biblical word! If anything, the corporate world learned much about leadership from the Bible. So if business leaders can learn to lead from Jesus and the Bible, certainly church leaders can, too.
We believe the mindsets and habits of healthy leadership, as revealed in the Bible and confirmed in human experience, are appropriate for the church.
We believe in transformational leadership. In this model, leaders do two things: (1) they tenaciously pursue an organization’s mission, and (2) they invest in their people.
Those who view leadership through the stereotype of a drill sergeant fail to see the second point. They imagine that leaders, like tyrants, are most effective when they exercise force and use power to achieve their goals.
This stereotype of leadership is false. Tyrants are actually terrible leaders; they produce sub-optimal results. By contrast, great leaders add incredible value to the lives of their followers as they accomplish great results. They actually use the organization’s missional work as a laboratory for building people up.
In the church, when the people are trained for and deployed in the mission of God, that is when they experience transformational spiritual growth. True spiritual growth cannot be limited to knowledge, but must include actions and character. After all, “knowledge puffs up while love builds up” (I Cor 8:1).
So true church leaders go beyond motivation and encouragement. Motivational sermons, without behavior guidance, create a short term buzz. Real transformation arises when leaders permanently rewire the ways in which people think, feel, and act.
Great pastors are not in it for themselves. They sacrifice themselves and their own interests, not only for the mission of God, but also for the well-being of the people. Like Jesus, as they lead, they wash their followers’ feet.
Whether any organization is flourishing or floundering, it usually comes back to the presence or absence of one thing: effective leadership. Leaders bear the bulk of responsibility for any organization’s success or failure. They cannot escape this accountability.
This is principle is true of nations, armies, businesses, and even football teams. (A team of all-pro players, led by an incompetent coach, will never win the Super Bowl.) This principle is also true of local churches. Leadership is the single most important differentiator between effective and ineffective organizations.
Of course, an organization’s success or failure always involves people other than the leader. Every member of an organization is important and contributes to its success or failure. But the leader sets a direction, organizes the people, inspires action, and cares for everyone along the way. A leader either maximizes or squanders the value of every individual’s contribution.
Godly leadership, therefore, is absolutely essential for thriving churches. But this does not mean that leadership is the only relevant factor. Fervent prayer, biblical wisdom, spiritual maturity, and effective ministry are essential, too.
Still, “good,” spiritually-minded churches, with great Bible teaching and lots of prayer, can flounder. This shows that while spiritual vitality is essential, it is not sufficient. Effective leadership is required, too.
So a dynamic, flourishing church will be led by biblical, prayerful, and spiritual pastors. And also, these pastors will be effective, self-sacrificing leaders who know and practice all the disciplines of effective leadership.
When pastors decide to truly lead, they alter the trajectory of a church and change the history of the world. When God uses a leader to change a church, its community is transformed. When God uses a church to transform a community, the world is altered forever.