Leadership by: Steven Hamilton

The intention of this blog is to nurture the gift of Church Planting within the Vineyard. This post is written by Steven Hamilton who is going to plant a Vineyard Church in Pittsburgh. It is my hope that we learn together, dialogue, & grow through sharing our thoughts on subjects we find important to our craft.
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Thanks Steven, great thoughts from a great leader. 

In our journey towards cultivating a faith community in urban Pittsburgh, our little team is just beginning.  But beginnings are important, as they can set the trajectory and essence of so much in a community of faith.  This is especially the case vis-à-vis leadership, for which, we have two primary metaphors by which we have been seeking to live.  The primary one is "Family", as in the household of God.  This is why we seek to root ourselves in the Vineyard community of churches and live out that family-dynamic in our faith community, in our rhythm of life, and in our leadership:

1. The family forms around a person (or persons) of peace (Luke 10:5, Matt. 10:11). That is, mature people (presbuteros) who function as spiritual moms and dads (episkopos-those who watch over). 1 Timothy 3:4-5.  We feel this is best expressed naturally and lived, not necessarily as an elected office.
2. Not a meeting but a family who live life together (which includes meetings). Acts 2:44, 46. Heb. 3:13.
3. Most important fact? Jesus is present and active. It's His church and He is always at work. Matt. 18:20, 16:18.
4. Most important skill we learn together? Learning to listen to Jesus and do what he says. Learning to see what the Father is doing. This must be modeled and facilitated by the spiritual grownups. John 5:19; 8:28-29; 12:49-50; 14:10-14; 16:13.
5. The leaders function as really healthy parents. 1 Thessalonians 2:7, 11; 1 Cor. 4:15, 16. (The health of every family reflects the health of the parents.) Their goal? Every member becomes mature (grown up) in Christ. How do they do this? Through wise parenting (often involves coaching/facilitating--asking and listening more than telling and directing).

Based on some reading from Parker Palmer, what we have felt we need to wrestle with is the fact that a leader is capable of the power to project either shadow or light upon our world and upon the people dwelling in it.  This is particularly the case for those in our families and our relational networks.  In this way, leaders shape the “essence” of how people live…an “essence” as light and authentic as heaven or as dark and twisted as hell.  A mature leader seeks to have a higher awareness of the interplay of inner shadow and light, so as to cast more light than shadow. 

Too long have we dwelt in the immature and dangerous delusion that our leadership is OK if based in ”good intentions” and that makes our power benign; Jesus always called out the leaders for “good intentions” without following through to “good actions” that liberate instead of bind people, themselves included.  But to grapple with this Jesus-centric “calling out of leadership” is to join the journey toward maturity. 

If we as leaders are to cast light and not shadow, we need to embrace the gift of discernment and seek to understand the shadows that populate our hearts in order to bring them to Light and experience the transformation of on-going maturity in Christ:

• Insecurity.  Many leaders are insecure (OK, maybe all of us are!).  We become insecure possibly because we don’t think we know enough, aren’t expert enough, aren’t “insert-your-own-insecurity” enough.  When leaders aren’t secure in their own identities rooted in Christ, we can often foster an environment that deprives other people of their identities, as we are busy supporting our own insecure place and identity through them.  We need to heed the sacred call to embrace the gift of being ourselves.  I keep coming back to the fact that I need to embrace the gift of myself.  God wants me to be me, I can’t be Moses or David or John Wimber, I need to be myself; the ironic thing comes forth at this point: the more I can be myself in Christ, the more I can be real and present to other people and even in embracing who I am, there will be a family resemblance because of Jesus living through me.  But I can’t be divided…I can’t be two people.  As we all know there is a cruciform-shaped authenticity at the core of servant leadership.  Walking with authenticity is walking with a limp, to paraphrase the old Wimber-ism: Never trust a leader without a limp.
• Pride.  Another shadow common among leaders is the pride of “functional atheism”, which amounts to the deep-seated belief that we are responsible for everything and it all comes down to “me.”  This sort of pathology “wishes” God might show up, but “acts” in a manner that never expects much from God or other people, but expects almost everything from me.  This kind of pathology leads to depression, burnout and can carry us close to “losing our religion”.  It is very difficult to lead people so that they follow Someone Else.  Full disclosure: Most of the anxiety in my life is focused on “outcome”, and I forget scripture clearly states that the “outcome” is God’s responsibility, and my responsibility is just to be faithful (even if that makes me look like a fool for Christ); as Mother Teresa used to pray: “I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.”
• Fear.  Related and underlying the first two is fear or perhaps reactions to fear.  One primary reaction of leaders to fear is taking control.  In this way, we have over the years tangled and bundled power, authority and control.  I think it is time we together enjoined the task of unweaving these baselines of leadership.  We can see clearly that most of Jesus’ meetings (in which He was clearly the leader) were a mess…messy human need, fear, insecurity, pride, and everything that comes with those.  Unfortunately, we leaders try to organize and manipulate and eliminate the mess with a thin veneer of polish.  But what we might find ourselves doing is organizing the work of God right out of our gatherings.  Thus we find ourselves creating an oppressive environment rather than a liberating and empowering environment.  The insight of scripture is that almost always messiness is a precondition for creativity and growth.  We witness this in Genesis where there was formlessness and void and darkness…as the Spirit was brooding, then life itself emerges from the mess.  There is a precarious balance between spirit and structure that creates the condition for life to emerge and thrive.  But in order to embrace this good tension of structure and freedom, leaders must through fear, be discerning, and embrace courage.  As US President Roosevelt once said: “The only thing we have to fear if Fear Itself.” 

The road toward maturity is a road traveled in fellowship, as a family always is.  We need to remember that throughout history people matured and “grew in Christ” primarily through the family dynamics that were relational and communal in engagement.  This engagement engenders trust and deep relationship that forms us on the way.  For us, there is a deep sense that this is about living your life out-loud…walking with your limp, in public.  In this journey, we hope to live and lead not out of the insecurities and pride and fear that populates our hearts, but in the midst of our transforming heart that empowers trust and hope and faithfulness.  We want to move toward a grace-filled place of possibility rooted in Christ and away from outcome-based anxiety, while we all work out our faithfulness and trust issues in fear and trembling.  My hope and prayer for all of us is that we move toward maturity and integration, even if, at-present in this now-and-not-yet age, it remains a hidden wholeness in Christ Jesus our Lord.