[BBC List] leadership

Tue Jun 5 13:06:02 EAST 2007

The Responsibility of Leadership
by A.W. Tozer

The history of Israel and Judah points up a truth taught clearly enough by
all history, viz., that the masses are or soon will be what their leaders
are. The kings set the moral pace for the people. 

The public is never capable of acting en masse. Without a leader it is
headless and a headless body is powerless. Always someone must lead. Even
the mob engaged in pillage and murder is not the disorganized thing it
appears to be. Somewhere behind the violence is a leader whose ideas it is
simply putting into effect. 

Israel sometimes rebelled against her leaders, it is true, but the
rebellions were not spontaneous. The people merely switched to a new leader
and followed him. The point is, they always had to have a leader. 

Whatever sort of man the king turned out to be, the people were soon
following his leadership. They followed David in the worship of Jehovah,
Solomon in the building of the Temple, Jeroboam in the making of a calf and
Hezekiah in the restoration of the temple worship. 

It is not complimentary to the masses that they are so easily led, but we
are not interested in praising or blaming; we are concerned for truth, and
the truth is that for better or for worse religious people follow leaders. A
good man may change the moral complexion of a whole nation; or a corrupt and
worldly clergy may lead a nation into bondage. The transposed proverb, "Like
priest, like people," sums up in four words a truth taught plainly in the
Scriptures and demonstrated again and again in religious history. 

Today, Christianity in the Western world is what its leaders were in the
recent past and is becoming what its present leaders are. The local church
soon becomes like its pastor, and this is true even of those groups who do
not believe in pastors. The true pastor of such a group is not hard to
identify; he is usually the one who can present the strongest argument
against any church having a pastor. The strong-minded leader of the local
group who succeeds in influencing the flock through Bible teaching or
frequent impromptu talks in the public gatherings is the pastor, no matter
how earnestly he may deny it. 

The poor condition of the churches today may be traced straight to their
leaders. When, as sometimes happens, the members of a local church rise up
and turn their pastor out for preaching the truth, they are still following
a leader. Behind their act is sure to be found a carnal (and often
well-to-do) deacon or elder who usurps the right to determine who the pastor
shall be and what he shall say twice each Sunday. In such cases the pastor
is unable to lead the flock. He merely works for the leader; a pitiful
situation indeed. 

A number of factors contribute to bad spiritual leadership. Here are a few: 

1. Fear. The wish to be liked and admired is strong even among the clergy,
so rather than risk public disapproval the pastor is tempted simply to sit
on his hands and smile ingratiatingly at the people. "Fear of man will prove
to be a snare" (Proverbs 29:25), says the Holy Spirit, and nowhere more than
in the ministry. 

2. The economic squeeze. The Protestant ministry is notoriously underpaid
and the pastor's family is often large. Put these two facts together and you
have a situation ready-made to bring trouble and temptation to the man of
God. The ability of the congregation to turn off the flow of money to the
church when the man in the pulpit gets on their toes is well known. The
average Pastor lives from year to year barely making ends meet. To give
vigorous moral leadership to the church is often to invite economic
strangulation, so such leadership is withheld. But the evil thing is that
leadership withheld is in fact a kind of inverted leadership. The man who
will not lead his flock up the mountainside leads it down without knowing
it. 

3. Ambition. When Christ is not all in all to the minister he is tempted to
seek place for himself, and pleasing the crowds is a time-proved way to get
on in church circles. Instead of leading his people where they ought to go,
he skillfully leads them where he knows they want to go. In this way he
gives the appearance of being a bold leader of men, but avoids offending
anyone, and thus assures ecclesiastical preferment when the big church or
the high office is open. 

4. Intellectual pride. Unfortunately there is in religious circles a cult of
the intelligentsia, which, in my opinion, is merely beatnikism, turned wrong
side out. As the beatnik, in spite of his loud protestations of
individualism, is in reality one of the most slavish of conformists, so the
young intellectual in the pulpit shakes in his carefully polished Oxfords
lest he be guilty of saying something trite or common. The people look to
him to lead them into green pastures but instead he leads them in circles
over a sandy desert. 

5. Absence of true spiritual experience. No one can lead another farther
than he himself has gone. For many ministers this explains their failure to
lead. They simply do not know where to go. 

6. Inadequate preparation. The churches are cluttered with religious
amateurs culturally unfit to minister at the altar, and the people suffer as
a consequence. They are led astray and are not aware of it. 

The rewards of godly leadership are so great and the responsibilities of the
leader so heavy that no one can afford to take the matter lightly. 

Thanks.

For the King's honor,

Charis,

Mike Abendroth

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; . Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!"
of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

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