11.25.09

kingdom leadership in the post-modern world

Posted in culture, ekklesia, leadership at 9:18 pm by len

“Today’s church is in serious trouble. The crisis we see is a crisis in leadership, because leaders are often the first to resist change, fearing loss of position or influence.  Perhaps Canadian leadership guru Michael Fullan is right when he observes that, “the two greatest failures of leaders are indecisiveness in times of urgent need for action and dead certainty that they are right in times of complexity.”

Thankfully, our dualistic and hierarchical  models of leadership are falling in favour of holistic and egalitarian models.  The crisis is thus an opportunity to rediscover the vocation of the church as an authentic community, a missional and pilgrim people in a foreign land.  We have the opportunity to move from leadership cults, to leadership cultures; instead of lone rangers, we need meaning makers; instead of the Wiz we need Dorothy.  Back in 2003 Reggie McNeal wrote,

“The current church culture in NA is on life support. It is living off the work, money and energy of previous generations from a previous world order. The plug will be pulled either when the money runs out (80 percent of money given to congregations comes from people aged fifty five and older) or when the remaining three fourths of a generation who are institutional loyalists die off or both…”

This is the opening to the second revision of my article orginally penned in 2004. More..

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