Leadership?

For the last several decades the western world has been infatuated with leadership. Go to any bookstore and you can find bookshelves full of books on leadership. The western church has the same infatuation. A quick search of the word "leader" in my librarything catalog returned 40 books and I probably have more than that that aren't tagged right or not cataloged yet. Apparently everything would work if we were better leaders.

I read that a survey of pastors showed that a high number of them believed that leadership development was one of their most pressing needs in their churches. I have no doubt that that is what they believe but I wonder if it is truly what they need most.

If you asked me what I would like to have most in my church it would be people who are totally in love with Jesus, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, and have the gift of evangelism. Just a few of them would be far more productive than dozens of new leaders.

Leaders build great institutions. The Holy Spirit builds a movement of God. The picture I see in scripture and down through history is the Holy Spirit on the move and leaders working like mad trying to keep up. When they do manage to catch up you find that they were filled with the Holy Spirit too.

In my tribe we talk about the Holy Spirit but we are cautious about it because so often the focus is on speaking in tongues or prophecy or the like that has ended up causing division instead of growth. But if you look carefully at scripture you see repeated occurrences of the Holy Spirit helping people share Jesus with the world boldly, courageously, and wisely. And that is what my church needs.