Over the past couple of decades the focus of the church has, perhaps like never before, been on leadership. In many ways that has been a good thing. But we do need to keep asking what kind of leadership we are looking for, modelling, and equipping people for. At a time when we think and speak so much about the importance of effectiveness in leadership, it is all too easy to quietly sideline the importance of character. Every movement or emphasis comes with unintended consequences, and the unintended consequence of focusing on how to effectively lead complex organisations like churches is that character is set to one side.
Christlikeness Is Essential for Leaders
In previous generations, the situation was almost entirely reversed: the importance of godliness was assumed to be more than enough for church leaders, with the result that the work of the kingdom often stalled because of poor change management or ineffective strategy or the inability to adapt to growth. But that does not seem to be the primary challenge facing many of us today. Instead we have prioritised effectiveness or giftedness and have stopped expecting our leaders to lead like the Lord Jesus Christ.
In every leadership failure or scandal I can think of in recent years, the situation was exacerbated or allowed to continue because people were prioritising results over character. “Yes, that person may be a bit of a bully, but look at how their church has grown!” “Yes, that person may struggle to keep staff—I wouldn’t want to work with them—but they seem to be doing a great job.” In other words, they weren’t leading like the Lord Jesus.
It’s as if we’ve slipped into thinking that leading like Christ is an optional extra. Effectiveness is vital. Christlikeness is good, but if we have to choose, effectiveness trumps Christlikeness. Of course that is deeply unbiblical and damaging. As I argue at length in my forthcoming book Both/And Ministry, we need to keep asking ourselves and each other, are we leading like Jesus?
Preach the Gospel of Christ and the Imitation of Christ
In the third verse of Once in Royal David’s City we sing:
And through all his wondrous childhood
he would honour and obey,
love and watch the lowly maiden,
in whose gentle arms he lay:
Christian children all must be
mild, obedient, good as he.
This captures the prevalent mood when I was growing up: keep calm and try hard to be like Jesus, whether you’re a child or a church member or a pastor. The problem was that this could easily degenerate into moralism. We can’t be like Christ through mere human effort. Only embracing the gospel, living in weakness, relying on Christ in repentance and faith, and looking to the transforming power of the Spirit gives us any hope of being like Jesus. In response, my generation started talking about the gospel more; but unfortunately, about Christlikeness less. The truth is we need to talk both about the power of the gospel and the Christlikeness which it demands of us and produces in us.
Paul captures this beautifully in 1 Thessalonians 1:5–7:
You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.
It was the message that produced the change in the Thessalonians. But that change, mirroring the change in Paul, expressed itself in Christlikeness. Jesus suffered joyfully. Paul suffered joyfully like Jesus. The Thessalonians suffered joyfully like Paul and Jesus. And now everybody’s doing it across Macedonia and Achaia: they are all living like Jesus.
This lies right at the heart of Christian leadership: to model Christlikeness and to call those we lead to live and serve like Christ. This can only happen through the power of the Spirit as he applies the gospel to our hearts and minds. But the goal is living and loving like Jesus himself.
Am I leading like Jesus? Am I encouraging those I lead to live like Jesus? This may not capture all that the Bible says about leadership, but it is crucial that we leaders keep the Lord Jesus front and centre.
