Becoming the Change we Seek -- A Different Look at Leadership

A little while ago, I noticed a Len Hjalmarson article entitled Leadership as a contemplative movement, in which he says

The only way forward to a new kind of church is to become people of restfulness and contemplation. So long as we are driven to bring change, driven to be effective, we will only recreate the driven, oppressive, addictive and compulsive systems we have always known.

The greatest hope of influencing change is not our compulsive activity to shape a world different than the one we know, but to become the change we seek. That means becoming still.. risking the quiet and empty spaces... It means facing our own fears that there will be no one to offer approval.. no voice in the silence.. no one to clap us on the backs to say "well done." I doubt if there is any greater challenge for an active people, any greater challenge for those who are passionate to see change, any greater challenge for those called to lead. But the only way we will see lasting change is if we become the answer we seek.

This is by no means the first time I have heard or thought something similar to this. But it seems to be constantly drowned out by the ideas of leadership prevalent in our culture. And particularly by the idea that leadership requires active and well identified leaders. But does it? We are told by Agur in Proverbs 30:27 that "locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks". How do locusts maintain such organization without leaders? Where does their leadership come from? Or how about the slime mold, an even more leaderless entity?

What if leadership was a gift given by the Holy Spirit, not so much to individuals, but to communities? Might we not then expect to see this gift played out sometimes in a leaderless fashion, where the leadership seems to come from the community itself? Just because leadership is a spiritual gift and a needed commodity in community life, does that really imply that God must call leaders?

John O'Keefe certainly doesn't think so. In the introductory post to a new blog called quantum servanthood he says:

the idea behind this blog is simple - to teach what it means to be a servant - and not to be a leader. leaders are killing our churches. even if they are paid, or not paid, people who think they are leaders in a community of faith are killing churches. it is my personal conviction that jesus never calls anyone into leadership, but he does call us into servanthood

In some ways, O'Keefe may be echoing Bonhoeffer's Life Together where Bonhoeffer claims that "God hates visionary men". Bonhoeffer's argument is that people who have a vision of what Christian community should be, and attempt bring about that vision, ultimately end up destroying community, as the pursuit of the vision leads them to become the accuser of their brothers who inevitably move too slowly toward the "vision" for the visionary's taste. I have certainly seen this happen — and I have seen myself become just such an accuser.

I think I would differ from O'Keefe a little. I'd agree that Jesus calls us to be servants rather than leaders. But I do not believe that this necessarily means that the servant is never given a leadership assignment by Jesus. The difference, of course, remains that while the servant may be assigned the task of leader, he remains first and foremost a servant — ready and willing to relinquish the leadership task when the assignment is completed. And for such time as her assignment is that of "leader", the dedicated servant will do all she can to do that assignment to the best of her abilities, even adding skills as necessary. But to allow oneself to take on the self-identification of Leader is almost certainly to guarantee failure when the assignment is completed and the time to relinquish leadership comes.

To bring this post full circle, it seems to me that it is far more natural for one who self-identifies as a servant to "become the change one seeks" than it is for a self-identified leader. Let us therefore adopt the posture of servants — of our Lord, Jesus, and of His children — and seek to become the change we seek in our churches and in our world. After all, did not Jesus do it that way himself?