Introduction
The success of your personal life and ministry will depend on your ability to effectively function in your role and maintain healthy relationships with your family, fellow Christians, and the local congregation. Take a moment to think about someone you admire and respect. If this is a person of tremendous influence, then this is probably a person who knows the importance of both self-improvement and the importance of friendships. Your life and ministry is more than just loving God and hoping to find success. It involves being the best you can be and loving people. A successful ministry requires that you be spiritually authentic and then work to connect people with God.
Let’s look at various areas of the leader’s role and relationships.
1) LEADERSHIP IN THE HOME
As leaders and role models, we must reaffirm our commitment to the values that once made our families great and strong. These are the values that give meaning and motivation to our lives. These are the reasons we get up in the mornings and tackle another day. These are the ties that bind.
Our lives must not revolve around the chaos of our culture but around helping hands and good neighbors. Life still is packed lunch boxes, night time prayers, dinners well talked over, hard work, and something saved for the future.
Our commitment to the future must be sustained by faith, strong family bonds, and a love for home. Homecoming can be a joyful or a painful experience. A leader must never forget his importance in building pleasant memories of home for his own children. When our children look at the mementos of the past, they may see many certificates, degrees, awards, plaques, and photos of us with famous people, new church buildings, or standing in far away places. How do we want them to remember us most? Will it be a scene of us cheering at a little league game, playing in the back yard, leading a mealtime prayer, taking a quiet walk, or the love and tenderness between us and our spouse? Spiritual leaders, of all people, need a safe loving home where love is unconditional, a place where we are accepted and where we belong.
Self-fulfillment is the theme of the hour, responsibility has been de-emphasized, and virtue has been shamed. Our society has awakened with a monster hangover. Our schools and secular system do not work as expected. Our children are worse off today than they were 30 years ago, with over one fourth of them born out of wedlock. Family break-up is at record levels; taxes are high; and the federal deficit is out of sight. Our streets aren’t safe and we have less time with our families.
If there was ever a time to go home to God, this is it! We can reclaim our roots and rethink our lives. Many Americans are rediscovering the values of faith and family. Leaders must pave the way and model those values which should be our priorities! After more than 30 years of experimentation, there is a yearning in our people to return home and they are looking for someone to show them the way! The role of the minister (clergy and laity) is to lead the way! People will never get there without leadership. No where is this leadership more important than in the church.
When Americans are surveyed on many issues, they declare their belief that life was better in the past than it is now. The decade that most pulls at our heart strings is the 1950’s. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe that things were better during those years than they are today. Only 20% disagree. It was the decade of the baby boom and the growth of suburbia. Latch key kids didn’t exist, the school day began with prayer, abortion was for the most part illegal, no-fault divorce was a fantasy, gay meant happy, and homosexuality was in the closet. These are the days that “Nick at Night TV” keeps alive with Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and the Donna Reed Show. Since the 1950s, we have endured Vietnam, Watergate, political assassinations, the sexual revolution, AIDS, Madonna, abortion, wars, savings and loan scandals, porno, and sky rocketing crime. No wonder people are seeking a better way to live. Ninety-two percent of us believe that we should return to the manners of the past, to the morals of the past. Today women are more likely than ever to be abandoned, raped, robbed, and more likely to be poor. Love is harder to find and harder to count on. Over half of the women entering an abortion clinic today have had an abortion before.
Together we can help to rebuild our world with an emphasis on decency, faith, and virtue. It is not enough that we talk about these themes. We must provide leadership by modeling these principles in our own homes. Probably above all others, the Christian husband and father, who is a minister, serves as a model to those who struggle with family problems and pressures. Tragically, more than one-third of American children will go to bed tonight with no father in the home. This figure is twice what it was in 1970. A black child born today has only one chance in twelve of reaching the age of 18 with his biological father in the home. A white child has only a 50-50 chance, better but depressing. It is a fact that 70% of all juveniles in jail grew up without a father in the home for most of his/her life. Raising children is best done as a partnership, yet we today must do our best to help those homes with only one parent.
We must re-establish standards of right and wrong in our day-to-day relationships. We must speak with passion when we call people to return to home and to God.
2) MAINTAINING A LEADERSHIP IMAGE
Paul asserts that aspiration to leadership is an honorable ambition. However, it is not the “office of leadership,” but the “function of leadership” that Paul asserts is honorable and noble. As never before, Christian leaders have become eager to increase their skill at leading and motivating people. Christian leadership stands firm on the Bible for without God there is no moral foundation for authority. The leader establishes the principles of authority in life by his/her relationship with God.
A) The Basis of Spiritual Authority
The leader’s ability to influence others is dependent on his/her development of character and maturity. If a leader is not submissive to God, chances are people will not follow him/her for very long.
Authority is based on people being able to trust our lifestyle as godly. Authority is based on the leader’s love for people. People respond best to loving authority (1 Thessalonians 2:3-12). Authority is based on a servant’s heart. A key to positive spiritual leadership is the leader’s sincere desire and willingness to serve.
B) Characteristics of a Leadership Image
Image and perception are very important. Character is more important than image for character defines who we really are. Reputation, to a lesser degree, is important but it is what people think we are like. The approval and anointing of God must be seen in us if we are to have leadership influence and image. The leader must work to be seen as a person in touch with God; someone who understands the will of God and who has a vision from God. As has already been stated, image is important. We should be seen as a leader, model, motivator, and servant who is charged with leadership responsibility in the work of God.
One of the factors that keeps a small church small is a pastor who tries to do it all instead of leading and equipping others for the harvest. As a lay leader, do everything you can to make it easy for your pastor to trust you and delegate to you ministry responsibilities.
C) Qualities of Leadership
Trust
People in a congregation want leaders who are honest, truthful, and straight-forward. They want leaders who really have their interest at heart; leaders they can trust.
Sincerity
No leader can create a feeling of mutual trust with people in a short time. It takes time and effort. Some people quickly move to feelings of doubt or suspicion following any leadership or pastoral change. When this happens, their confidence must be won and their hope built up in order to feel positive about the change and new leadership.
Sincerity is essential in earning people’s trust and respect. People will watch a new leader closely to see if he/she is out for his/her own good and not for what is best for others.
Integrity
Moral wholeness or integrity means keeping one’s promises, being honest in personal and business transactions. Personal integrity in a leader is an indispensable quality, yet it comes with great pain and effort. Leaders can all too quickly dull the cutting edge of harvest and take on a mask hiding the truth. A failure in our integrity occurs when what is being displayed externally does not match the actual condition of one’s heart. This is how hypocrisy develops. With a continued corruption of the heart, the external actions will eventually be corrupted as well.
Personal integrity and godly effectiveness in life and ministry require congruency between personal devotion and six (6) areas of public conduct. Development of these six areas helps to strengthen one’s skill in the construction/formation of personal integrity.
- The first area or component is godly character. Godly character is made possible through repentance, worship, conscience, and godly fear.
- The second component in forming the necessary congruence of integrity is emotion. Our desires must be turned toward godly priorities. Our affections reflect our priorities. Our cares reflect how we are responding emotionally to the many external pressures of life which compete for high priority status. Our emotions will either steer us forward in godly character or drive us toward impulsive hypocrisy.
- The third component of integrity formation is thinking. By thinking, we either focus on the pursuit of external priorities which distort our emotions and lead to erroneous perceptions or we focus on internal desires to live out a life pleasing to God. Our thinking involves concentration, will-power, and perception.
- The fourth component of integrity formation is behavior. Our behavior is the result of learning and following patterns of godly character or the result of actions controlled by external forces, distorted thinking, selfish passions, and dysfunctional habits. Our habits reveal our level of integrity.
- The fifth component of integrity development is relationships. The condition of our heart is not a reflection of our private world. Rather, it is a reflection of our relationships on a personal level. The two areas which make up relationships are love and faithfulness. Love is a barometer of relationships, faithfulness is the longevity and strength of those relationships. Integrity and maturity are the result of how we function in relationship to God and to people.
- The final component of integrity formation is surroundings. Integrity and maturity are formed in relationship to God and others and they are also impacted by circumstances and life events. How we perceive life events and circumstances determines their impact.
Philippians 4:8-11 is an example of these various areas of integrity in the Christian life. Success or failure in one’s ministry depends upon the level of one’s personal integrity (in role and relationships). Spiritual/emotional maturity and integrity do not develop overnight. It takes time to develop skill in the congruence of personal godly integrity and maturity. Likewise, the disintegration of one’s integrity is usually a process over the course of time. Inner corrosion and its lasting effects only become apparent after the erosion has been operating for some time. When the external consequences are apparent or obvious, the inner effects have become well entrenched producing habits. For example, prolonged stress coming from a lack of congruence between lifestyle and personal beliefs destroys our effectiveness in ministry.
For a leader, maintenance of one’s own integrity is the highest responsibility of his/her life. The world looks to ministers (clergy and lay) as examples of moral integrity. When we compromise our moral integrity, we forfeit our greatest perceived contribution to the church and society.
3) BUILDING CONGREGATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Christianity is relational. Fellowship with God and man is of paramount importance. There is a great deal of isolation, alienation, and loneliness in the world today. Many people are living with avoidant personalities and placing emphasis on things, not people.
Dynamic congregation relationships are built upon a Scriptural foundation. There are three (3) key ingredients which form an atmosphere uniquely different from that of the world. These ingredients are love, acceptance, and communication.
A) LOVE
In modern usage, the word love can range from the spiritual to the illicit. Love is often defined as a feeling or emotion. Real love is a decision, an action, with emphasis upon commitment and behavior. Being close to people is a pleasure, a wonderful experience.
If there is anything that should characterize the family of God, it is unconditional love — the kind of love our Heavenly Father extends our way. The fact that God loves us unconditionally doesn’t mean He excuses our wrong doing. While He calls us to walk in holiness, He doesn’t stop loving us when we stumble or fall.
Sometimes we have difficulty loving certain people within our church fellowship. Following are some categories or descriptions that might fit these people:
- People whose needs seem never-ending. Some people seem to need more from us than just going the second mile. They require a 26 mile marathon. We might grow very impatient with these people.
- People we do a lot for, but who don’t seem to be very appreciative. With these people, we get tempted to say, “Before I extend you any more kindness, you’re going to have to earn it.”
- Individuals we sense that are out to get us. We find this kind of treatment hard to swallow when we feel that we do not deserve such treatment.
- People we don’t feel we can trust. There are many reasons that can cause us to feel that we cannot trust a person. We probably expect them to earn our trust.
- People who have shut us out of their world. Maybe it is the way we act, talk, or look that causes some people to push away from us. They are nice at times but it is clear they don’t want us close to them. It may take us a while to catch on to what’s going on, but when we do figure it out, our unchristian response is, “Forget you pal, I’ll just exclude you from my world too.”
What a difference there would be if the church were comprised of men and women who extended love the way Christ does. Far too many people in the church withhold Christlike love from others. Sometimes their reasons are trivial. This practice results in real pain to those who are excluded. This should not be normal for the family of God.
As spiritual sons and daughters, we are to imitate the love of the Father and Jesus Christ. To the degree that we fail to follow God’s pattern of love, we see the church family become equally dysfunctional.
B) ACCEPTANCE
Accepting people are happy people. They are proactive not reactive. Thus, they are free to act rather than react. They tend to be mature and filled with the joy of the Lord. We must accept ourselves before we can accept others. In doing so, we must accept the truth that we all have flaws and we all make mistakes. Actually, imperfection is the one thing we all have in common.
Acceptance promotes feelings of security and well being. In order to be effective, we must also accept our circumstances. Difficulties can be the tools of God, so let us respond in faith to all circumstances.
C) COMMUNICATION
Interpersonal communication is essential for interpersonal relations. These provide the context for social maturity and spiritual growth. Communication does not occur in isolation, and it does not have to be verbal. Communication is meaning exchange, not word exchange. As someone once remarked, “I’m sure you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard was not what I really meant.”
Many believe that changes in the fast-moving world of communication have left the church behind. Could it be that congregational fights, church splits, and the generally short tenure of ministerial staffs stem from something as basic as communication deficiencies? Not only could it be, it probably is in many of those unfortunate cases.
Churches are held together by communication, not structure. In the administrative process, communication is not merely one of the functions; it permeates all functions and links them together. It is communicate effectively or suffer the consequences! Organizing, planning, staffing, delegating, coordinating, and motivating are essential tasks. Can any of these tasks be carried out without effective communication?
Effective pastoral/leadership communication needs clear and communicable goals, adequate resources, motivated people, and skill. There are several important guidelines to follow.
- Communicate objectives repeatedly and clearly.
- Protect the emotional tone of communication.
- Identify clear channels for communication.
- Recognize different levels of communication.
- Teach people to communicate.
- Evaluate yourself as a communicator.
- Get feedback on your communication.
- Remember solicited feedback will be better than that which is unsolicited.
- Feedback needs to be checked and rechecked to ensure its validity.
- Seek to clarify your ideas before communicating.
- Examine the true purpose of each communication.
- Consult with others, where appropriate, in planning communication.
- Follow up your communication.
- Communicate for tomorrow as well as today.
- Seek first to understand and then to be understood.
CONCLUSION
Good communication is essential for a pastor or a lay minister to be effective in his/her role and relationships. Learning to listen and improving your skills as a listener and communicator is vital. One important role of all leaders is conflict management. This is a hot topic today and needs to be studied and understood by all ministers. In each conflict or stressful problem situation or relationship, we possess the potential for constructive or destructive management. We must be careful at all times to build relationships with others and overcome conflicts without sacrificing clear, Biblical convictions.