is summed up in this quote by John Maxwell, evangelical leadership and church growth guru:
“When churches run out of new ideas or new programs, they stop growing.”
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(If that quote piques your interest, be sure to check out some of Maxwell’s books:
Be All You Can Be
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
Becoming a Person of Influence
Dare to Dream… Then Do It
Go for Gold
Make Today Count
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and of course… The Maxwell Leadership Bible: Developing Leaders for the Word of God)
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COMMENTS
17 responses to “The Very Opposite of What Mockingbird Stands For…”
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in college, the “21 laws” was recommended to me. I couldn’t make it through the first chapter, which held up Ray Croc as a paragon of leadership. Not that McDonald’s is a bad thing, but selling burgers ain’t preaching the Gospel!
The Gospel and “leadership” aren’t antithetical are they? Like all tools, Maxwell is helpful in bridging the missional gap between the business leaders in our communities and the Church. Certainly you don’t use a single tool for all jobs… and Maxwell is a tool. But you also don’t throw out a tool just because it’s not useful for the current job.
Greg,
And I quote, ‘Maxwell is a tool’. Sorry, couldn’t pass that up. In all seriousness, a wise man once told me that ‘psychology is everything and psychology is nothing.’ I think that works for ‘leadership’ as well. In other words, almost any discipline can be helpful at a practical level, but it never does everything it promises.
I think you’ve hit a nerve that needs to be discussed. Speaking personally, I struggle to find anything worthwhile in Christian bookstores because I already have a preconceived notion of what the books are about–GLOOOR-AAY! What I tend to find (Maxwell included) is that the leadership genre throws me back upon myself. The times when I have read Maxwell, I feel like Anthony Robbins, life becomes about making myself a 10 (or ‘lifting the lid’ in Maxwell-speak). I feel like I’m putting on an act in order to prove something, so I can’t really read it without feeling a bit silly.
Some may find his stuff pretty helpful, and there is a lot that can be learned about why organisations promote certain people, what people want in a leader, etc. I just find it reads more like a tribute to King Saul at points. That said, (I speak from experience) many pastors struggle with what it means to lead in an organisation that is entirely voluntary–we don’t have the command authority of military leaders, nor can we afford to relinquish everything to those who want to ‘run the church’ (which is usually a code word for ‘sabotage’). So Maxwell has found a niche. As for the missional gap between the church and business leaders, trust me, in my former life at an investment firm, I heard this kind of stuff all day long! The last thing I needed was another Maxwell…I needed someone to point me to Jesus and the cross. 😉
Anyway, I really love it when people like you actually say what is on their minds, even if it doesn’t agree with the post. I could be wrong about Maxwell, and maybe I’m not being fair…perhaps you could say a little bit about how he has helped you?
Maxwell is to American Christianity what “Pardons” are to Breton Christianity and what sacrificing chickens to the Virgin of XYZ are to indigenous South American Christianity: religious syncretism, pure and simple. Maxwell is an “effective tool” in the United States for exactly that reason. The “entrepreneurial spirit” meets the Holy Spirit and, PRESTO, church growth.
Hey Greg,
You wrote: “The Gospel and “leadership” aren’t antithetical are the?” Great question. Obviously the answer is that they are not. Jesus was clearly a leader. The question isn’t whether Gospel and leadership are antithetical. The question is: what _kind(s)_ of leaders/leadership are we talking about?
The MBird crowd (myself included) gets skeptical and maybe even cynical when people people put Christianity and “worldly stuff” (e.g., leadership, money, church growth, “excellence in every field”, so and and so forth) together and think it’s a great combo because we are skeptical about the human heart. We are skeptical about the motivation underlying the desire to “lead”, to make a church “great”, the desire for “church growth” and even “personal development” because we think that most (if not all) of the time, the underlying motivation is self-centred. We are skeptical of accounts of “growth” and “leadership” because we think it parallels the story of the tower of Babel – we think that most of the time, people want to “grow” and “lead” and “do great things for God” because it makes them feel good about themselves, because they want to have control. That is antitheticl to Chrisianity, which calls for the _yielding_ of control over to God.
I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I would love to hear more of what you think about the particular strengths of Maxwell’s approach, because I have a hard time seeing how it is different to the story of the tower of Babel. People built the tower of Babel so that they can get closer to God, but really, they built the tower so that they could _be_ God.
Lastly, I am not sure that I would agree with the point about Maxwell being a good bridge for the missiological gap between business leaders and the church. I suspect that business leaders who are Christians don’t go to church so that they can “flex their business muscles”; they go to church for relief, for help, for support, and for rest.
Well said, Bonnie.
If we actually listen to the things that Maxwell and other church growth/leadership gurus are saying, I think the vast differences between their wisdom and God’s wisdom become apparent.
For example, the quote in my original post is meant draw a sharp contrast between the belief that the Church must constantly be coming up with new matieral and the beleif that the Church’s task is to continue to tell the “old, old story” of Jesus and his love. Mockingbird derives its very name from the conviction that we have nothing new to say, only a powerful Gospel to continually proclaim to all corners of a broken world.
1 Corinithians 1:20 “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
I thought it was Bill Clinton when I first looked at him.
I guess I’m not a very black and white person. I find that I can learn from a variety of sources… and so long as they aren’t directly contradictory to Scripture… then I can go with it. Maxwell does bother me a LOT… he’s the essence of Boomer Christianity. But, his basic premise that “leadership is influence” is a key way to understand the practicalities of leadership.
I’m not an apologist for Maxwell… but I hate to see people go after an easy target… especially when that easy target is a brother in Christ. Certainly he deserves critique…. just not vitriol.
Not an apologist for Maxwell at all, but let’s make sure we don’t equate a growing church with a lack of Gospel. I attended at least one church where the Gospel of grace was clearly presented, but the general temperment of the church was dreadful, and its membership reflected that.
“let’s make sure we don’t equate a growing church with a lack of Gospel.”
Heavens, no! Growth and gospel are not antithetical. Many parables use growth imagery – tree and its fruit, sower and seed, etc. So growth and gospel are not mutually exclusive. But growth in these parables are all passive; the tree bears fruit (the tree does not “work hard” to bear fruit); how the seed grows depends on where it landed (the seed does not determine where it lands).
The issue isn’t _that_ there is growth, but _how_ the growth occurs. I’m inclined to think that genuine growth is an act of God and entirely independent on how many new ideas or new programs or how cool the worship leader is. Of course God uses new ideas and new programs and cool worship leaders. But to think that these things on their own terms have influence over church growth, is kind of like saying that putting a Kitkat (I am eating one right now, by the way) on bone china makes it healthier for you. Sure, the bone china looks nice, but it’s still a Kitkat (mine says it has 107 calories). Empty calories. New ideas or new programs will make the church more appealing, but if the message (the food) is no good, then it’s just empty calories.
Bonnie,
That’s the best Kit-Kat analogy I’ve ever heard.
I appreciate this post greatly, and I am coming a little late into the discussion (if anyone is still reading this comment thread). But I have had to reflect on the whole issue of leadership recently, since I am currently teaching a group of would-be small group leaders on “Preparing for Leadership.”
The text I am using is one that I discovered on this blog from Andrew Pearson. It’s entitled “Leading out of Who You Are” by Simon Walker. In my opinion, it is about as close to the message of the gospel, any leadership book has approached. Not perfect by any means, but it comes close. It is part of a trilogy he has written (or is writing) entitled “The Undefended Leader.”
The premise is that most of our concepts of “leadership” is about defending the self, and projecting that self onto others. In contrast, an undefended leader is an integrated person who has come to understand what it means to be fully human. And that integration is actually birthed from embracing our failure.
He points out that leadership is not about attaining “success” (read GLOOOR-AAY as Dylan said). It is about integration of the person. He says, “The idea of undefended leadership is that we are secured not by our skills and resources but by our attachment to another–one who is big enough not to be overwhelmed by our failures and weaknesses.”
I think that I prefer this to “21 Laws” of anything!
Jon, thanks for that synopsis…surprised I haven’t heard of him until now.
Bonnie – totally agree. A Gospel-driven church will most likely grow in due time, though not always, I suppose.
Jon… excellent leadership thoughts!!
Bonnie… my struggle is this. If we’re created in the image of a Creator… then we create. Entrepreneurship is a form of creation (yes, we can critique it)… and “leadership” is the lingua franca of the business world.
To say that I’m a passive kit kat, is to deny my humanity in a fairly significant way. Last night I saw a picture of a jazz singer hanging on the wall of the restaurant we were eating at. The singer was consumed by the song and in some way was very passive as an instrument plyable to the moment. Yet, if she didn’t practice her craft… she’d be useless.
Greg– When most people here/read that the gospel is at its very core “passive”, they usually have the reaction you have expressed. This is an understandable reaction. What I understand by being passive in this context is that any “activity” we express in the Christian life is entirely the “fruit” or the “result” of our passive receipt of God’s grace and love in the crucified and risen Christ. So the active Christian life is paradoxically built on the continuing passive life before God. This has been historically true of all the great expansions of Christianity that have staying power over time: they were born out of “broken and contrite hearts” miraculously loved by God who could then not help but express that love in “word and deed.”