Friends of mine are going through a tough time right now in their church- the head pastor has resigned, the children's paster is following, families are leaving, all for what? My Dad is a Lutheren pastor- our family went through this when I was in junior high, I've seen it over and over again and it makes my blood boil every time.
First, I'll admit I don't know all the details in this situation but will observe generically:
- The older I get, the more I value leadership. So when I see a leader that is forced out, burned out, or lost, it saddens me deeply.
- Leaders are hard to come by. People talk about leadership a lot, but good to great leaders are few and far between.
- What's left after this mess? To the followers, I say, "Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it." Who leads now? Where's the vision? Can a volunteer board with full-time jobs and families really lead a ministry of greatness? Or is it on life-support, flat, and all about them?
- The grass is always greener: Many people and organizations lose any hope of greatness because they don't/won't persevere through tough times with their leader and settle for revolving pawns.
- A team with a mediocre plan but is pushing together will outperform a splintered team with a great plan.
- Pastors are people, they're not perfect- most of them feel alone and are under attack weekly within their own ranks. They need our support and encouragement.
- Leaders create and cast vision, this takes an incredible amount of dedication and work to carry out- as a follower, hen-pecking and spouting off opinions is easy, rolling up our sleeves and aligning to be part of the solution is hard work.
Most of our roles will be as followers. As a follower, what teams are you on, what church are you in, what organization/company are you a part of? Are you part of the solution and positive push or do you need to gracefully find another team?
What we do can be so destructive.... I pray for my friends and these leaders....
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