Courageous Church Leadership

Today I had the opportunity to be a part of a lot of planning meetings at North Way. It's such an intersting thing to be involved in leadership as a pastor at a church because there are so many different dynamics to church leadership. Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit's leading is always crucial, and well thought out strategies can go a long way toward helping the church to be more effective. Church leadership is relational at its core, but it is also programmatic. Healthy churches are internally strong and externally focused. There are just many paradoxes involved in leading in a church.

One of the main themes that jumped out at me today was the necessity for church leaders to be risk takers. God is a God of mystery, and followers of Jesus should embrace risk. Many churches (and Christians in general) operate out of a sense of self preservation and fear, when we should be operating out of a sense of love for the Lord and engagement in the midst of brokenness in this world. I have noticed recently that a lot of Christians are embracing fear and anxiety due to a wide variety of problems going on in the world. Why? God is in control, and he has placed each of us on the earth to live our lives at this particular time in human history in order that we might be able to fulfill his purposes.

Life wasn't exactly a picnic when Jesus entered into the world. Things were crazy 2,000 years ago just as they are crazy today. We live in the now but not yet era of the Kingdom of God. We know who wins, but we are in the midst of an epic battle. There is nothing for us to fear. Followers of Jesus should risk all for the sake of advancing the Kingdom. We are not called to live safe, comfortable lives, and when our middle class or affluent lives in America become less safe and less comfortable then we shouldn't panic and embrace fear. Uncertainty in the world means that Christians have a tremendous opportunity to engage the brokenness in this world in order to reach people for Christ. We should be running full speed into the midst of trouble in our modern culture, not running away from it in order to preserve our lives and be safe. When we risk everything for the sake of Christ, we are never more of a Christian. Modern churches simply must be led with courageous leadership or we will become irrelevant.