Man of Depravity - Tyler Braun's posts on Church Ministry, Worship, Seminary, and Theology.

The Leader Needed Today (Part Three)

2010 October 21

by Tyler

Part Three: Promotion

I spend a lot of my energy promoting my favorite teams. The Twins, the Vikings, the TWolves (not much to promote there these days), the Huskers, the Blue Devils. I’m real good at throwing in a little trash talk to a conversation. In many ways, leaders today are doing the same by promoting themselves in every place possible. Some politically call it posturing, but really it is the promotion of self.

I would say that a biblical leader is humbly promoting God, whereas a non-biblical leader seeks to primarily promote self.

2^nd Chronicles 16:9 says, “The eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely his.” Biblical leaders not only seek to promote God, but God desires for them to offer their lives to him as well.

A positive example of this attribute can be found in the way David provided leadership to Israel. David in a prayer found in 2^nd Samuel 7:118-22 says, “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family that you have brought me this far…How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.”

David was a man who humbly sought to promote God through his leadership.

Os Guinness emphasizes this idea of leadership through self-promotion well: “Being much more subtle, secularization often deceives Christians before they are aware of it, including those in church-growth movement. How else can one explain the comment of a Japanese businessman to a visiting Australian? ‘Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager.’”

Even though non-biblical leadership might be a faster track to a higher place in management through self-promotion, a biblical leader will seek to promote God through his or her actions and decision-making.

In my many years spent in the church as a child, young adult, and now employee I’ve seen far too many men and women who first desire to find a greater position before they promote God.

Filed under: church Tags: leadership

http://www.aworshipfulheart.typepad.com Jan Owen

Tyler, first of all Happy Birthday you young whippersnapper you! Seriously hope you have a year filled with God’s grace in your life. Long distance hug!

About this post, I could write so much. I’ll try to shorten it a bit. Before I resigned, one of the things that was beginning to “turn my stomach” a bit was the shameless self-promotion of churches and pastors. I got tired of hearing, “This Sunday is going to be the BEST EVER. It’s gonna be OFF THE CHAIN!” or whatever. (and I got really tired of trying to make every single service UNFORGETTABLE!!!) When I resigned and we began looking for a new church, I saw that it was – sadly – everywhere. It’s been discouraging. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, but the thing that most frustrates me is the promotion of our own little kingdom, world, ideas, self at the expense of others. The competition can be overt or it can be subtle, but it is there. And it is all about how we ourselves will look, not about the glory of God. IF that were true, we’d rejoice with other churches!

I’m just so sick of it all. What happened to humility and a quiet spirit? What happened to honoring others before yourself, or to mutual submission? Does a leader really have to fit a certain stereotype (I’ll refrain from mentioning what I think that stereotype is) to be used by God? Are we, as Christian leaders, allowing ourselves to be seduced by the very same things that seduce everyone else in the world – power, fame, glory, renown, popularity? (as if we are still in Jr. High!)

I went to the hospital recently to visit some old friends of our family. The husband has served as pastor in small Methodist congregations for 50 years. Not many know his name. He is certainly not famous. He’s never served a congregation over 200 people, if that many. But a more humble man you will not meet. He and his wife are precious friends and supporters. They took my hand that day as we were discussing ministry and my hurt and pain and they said, “Ministry is simpler than we make it. Just love God and love people.” Look at his track record. IS he a “success” or not?

Enough of my rant. I think I’m becoming one of “those” people.
http://www.manofdepravity.com Tyler

Thanks for the birthday wishes Jan. Great comment too.
http://flurrycreations.com John

Tyler, Great series. I have been thinking of writing a post on the hamstrung leader, but just seem to not be able to bring many of my thoughts to words. You covered so much of it. Last week I posted a comment on facebook and twitter after having a less than pleasant leadership exchange. I was surprised by the discussion that ensued. On twitter it was more or less about what causes a leader to not lead well. On facebook you could tell many people were speaking from the experience of serving under a poor leader. Regardless, it is very apparent that we are in a time that suffers from the lack of good leadership. So much of it boils down to people wanting leadership instead of accepting the call of the servant leader. I am still thinking of doing a compilation on those two discussions. Thanks for writing this.
-John