Thursday, April 27, 2006

Of CEO Strawman, Shepherds, Ranchers, and Chaplains

When you think of leadership in the church, what “model” or analogy comes to your mind?

I have a number of thoughts about churches and leadership rolling around in my head, so today I am beginning a new series of posts dealing with leadership in the church. This series isn’t “academic” or “scholarly”, it isn’t a biblical exposition, it isn’t definitive, it is just my thinking at this point in time.

As a pastor, leadership issues, concepts, and ideas are always on my mind.  Every once in a while (okay, more often than that) I read or hear something that about leadership that focuses me on this area ministry.  That’s part of what happened this morning.

I was reading a comment posted at Monday Morning Insight. The commentator was crying out over the greater need for “shepherds” versus “chief executive officers”.  Ironically he went on to say we need both, but we need shepherds more. Huh?  In saying we need both there is an implication that God provides both to meet our need.  After all, do we need anything that God does not provide us?  How does God provide for the church?  Generally through spiritual gifts of the body. We also read that there are those called to be leaders, some have the gift of administration, etc. Perhaps this is going out on a limb, but it sounds to me like the commentator is acknowledging a God-given role for “CEOs”.  The implication is that there are some people God has called to lead in this way.

Follow me on this. So the commentator is saying the God has given both shepherds and CEOs to the church to meet the needs of the body, but that shepherds are more needed, or a greater gift.  Does anyone else have Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians coming to mind? That whole thing about the body needing each part and not thinking more highly of your gift than another gift?  Simply put, I don’t think that his assertion is Biblically defensible.

The problem is this. Some in the church have decided that the role and skill set of those in the “CEO” position is a business-only concept. It is entirely secular, and as such it is wrong to bring that mindset into the church. They create caricatures of the CEO and then employ straw man arguments to tear them down.

As I recently read or heard (I can’t recall off the top of my head right now), CEO is not implicitly bad. Organizationally someone will make day to day decisions (Executive). Someone will serve as the official representative of a congregation (Officer). Someone will be the be in the role of primary leader (Chief).  The problem is that some people load it up with presumptions, assumptions, and judgments about what a CEO thinks, does, believes, is motivated by, etc., and then rejects it out of hand.

Generally, these folks want to lift up the image of “shepherd” as at least the primary role of the pastor, if not the only role. After all, we do find that image used in scripture, where as Jesus never mentions “CEO”, at least in those words.  I believe they are sincere. The problem is they smugly footnote their position with a biblical reference, but many times I’m not sure they have thought through the implications of what they are citing.  We have a very feminized interpretation of shepherds in today’s culture.  It’s all soft spoken sweet nothings and teddy bear hugs.  I think its time the “shepherds are better” folks took a long hard look at who shepherds are and what shepherds do. I’ll share my thoughts on this tomorrow.

Let me close with this thought. The analogy used to illustrate leadership in the church does not matter as much as the leader’s obedience to God.

Of Wheat & Commodity Prices

One of the ways I supplement my income is through planting and harvesting some acreage I own.  This year I have it planted to wheat.

The current and forecasted prices for wheat could be worse, and they could be better. What amazes me is that they do not respond to market conditions. Of course, in farming, wheat is part of a commodity group with is heavily interferred with, so that it doesn’t compete in anything that resembles a free market. My suspicion is that allowing free market dynamics woulb be considered political suicide. If food prices ever were allow to adjust with inflation the way cars and homes had - whew! There’d be a lot of unhappy people in the USA.

So prices are kept low.  The problem is, unless you are using horse power, the cost of planting and harvesting has gone up significantly due to fuel. Not only our fuel, but everything we buy that has to be shipped. Add in increasing property taxes, increasing cost to buy or rent ground, increasing cost to buy new machinery or repair older machinery, and there is a definite pressure. Sadly, there is no simple way to pass on the increased cost.

So, my question is . . . what happens when farmers in the US can no longer afford to grow anything?