Tod Bolsinger

Leaders Who Tend

tend/tend/ Verb:

1. Regularly or frequently behave in a particular way or have a certain characteristic:
2. Care for or look after; give one's attention to. In a recent “blog post conversation”

Christianity Today editor Mark Galli and I have been discussing the role of pastor as “chaplain” or “leader” or some kind of combination of both. Mark leans toward chaplain, I insist that we need more leaders in a changing world.

If we were sitting together in a coffee shop, I’d engage him more on some particulars, but mostly we agree on most of the most important things--not the least of which is that the scriptures and the early church is the primary source to which we need to look for guidance.

From following the comments on my blog, FB pages, the CT blog and Internet Monk blog, it is clear that Mark struck one very important nerve that all pastors (whichever model we employ), need to hear: The people we pastor expect us to care about them.

While we may disagree on the particular ways and priority of that care, there is a clear concern by all of us that the “tendency” of pastors is moving away from “tending” the flock. And frankly, for those of us who believe that our role is more about cultivate communities of faith that move more and more into the mission of the Kingdom, this word is even more important for us.

This is especially true of those (like me) who see the need for pastors to function as leaders of a missional communities. For most people, "leader" conjures up images of distant autocrats (even if good and benevolent). Even more, those who embrace the call of leadership are quickly distrusted as ambitious, self-serving and at best, treat their people as mere “pawns” to lead into spiritual battle.

Everybody wants to be connected to a leader who really, tangible and if at all possible personally cares about them.

Mark writes in his most recent response to me: “I think there is a reason the early church, when it thought about what it meant to be a church, put the emphasis on worship, catechesis, and the presbyter/overseer as shepherd and teacher of the flock, not the general of an army.”

While I completely agree that in whatever model we use of pastor our primary tasks are leading in worship, catechesis and teaching, what is interesting to me is how often the metaphor of “shepherd” is used as a rebuttal to the idea of “leader”.

In the Old Testament particularly, shepherds are the biblical metaphor for Israel’s leaders.

Then Moses said to the LORD, “O LORD, you are the God who gives breath to all creatures. Please appoint a new man as leader for the community. Give them someone who will guide them wherever they go and will lead them into battle, so the community of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.” Numbers 27:15-17

This theme continues in the Prophets: Not with a denunciation of “leadership” but instead with a passionate admonition that those who lead be good, fair and especially caring leaders-- leaders after “God’s own heart” (Ezekiel 34, Jeremiah 3); leaders who put the well-being of the people before their own; leaders who are trustworthy and who indeed love the people they serve.

Jesus is, of course, the quintessential Shepherd and Paul demonstrates the depth of this kind of care when he uses an even more intimate metaphor.

But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.  So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us. (1 Thessalonians 2:7–8)

For Paul, love for the "flock" is expressed by pastors not only through care, but also through teaching and equipping, like parents who “train up” their children in the way they should go:

And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory. 1 Thessalonians 2:11–12

Indeed, for Jesus  (Mark 10:42-45) and Paul (Ephesians 4:11-13) all Christian leadership (and pastoral leadership in particular), is highly relational with pastors (and others) “equipping the saints” by serving as “ligaments” that connect and strengthen the body (See this series of posts I wrote called “Ligament Lessons”).

But to be sure, for pastors called to "shepherd the flock" (1 Peter 5:2)—just as it was for Christ--that love is for a larger purpose: That the people of God would fulfill the mission of God to the glory of God.

Shepherds don’t just ‘tend’ the sheep, protecting (primarily by teaching), and caring for them, but they also “lead” them.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, didn’t just heal people because he cared about them (though he clearly did!) but also to reveal the presence of the reign of God, to demonstrate the nature of the Kingdom that he had come to inaugurate and to recruit and train followers in that particular manner that they should carry on his mission.

Previously I have written about the competing values that most pastors have to manage and the complexity of our task today. We are to lead and equip the people of God into the mission of God and to care for each person with the love of tangible embrace of Christ. We are called to offer both love for people just where they are and to call and equip them to be part of the Kingdom mission of Jesus in the world all around them.

From a number of comments on the blog posts, it is clear to me that--while I still see a need for a different kind of pastoral leadership in a changing world, one thing has not changed at all:

People need to experience the love of God as they are led into the mission of God.

And if they do not feel loved, they will likely not let anyone lead them anywhere.

Mark Galli Responds: Pastors in a changing world--Leaders or Chaplains?

Christianity Today Senior Managing Editor Mark Galli continues our public conversation on the proper role of pastors.  I am indebted to Mark for taking the time to engage in this discussion with me.  We are both hopeful that it will lead to something helpful and edifying to the Church.  Thanks Mark.

Tod

I am honored that Tod would take the trouble to write such a thorough and generous response to my column.  It’s clear that we agree on much.  We both think that pastors need to be pastors at least some of the time, and that we need less of the corporate leadership model.  And we both agree that a pastor is the head of an institution, which requires him/her to be a leader of that institution.  It’s not an either/or job, but a both/and.

But how much fun would it to just rub each other’s backs?  J So, here is where I’d like to push back, and with a little rhetorical vigor:  I’m simply not convinced of the new vision being cast by missional advocates, which is grounded in the assumption that we live in an utterly new era of church history, one calling for a new model of ministry.

First, I have to say I no longer believe it is possible to be a “servant-leader” in our culture.  In our culture, the lure and pride and glory of the word “leader” swallows up “servant.”  Every self-described servant-leader I’ve met, in the end, has turned out to be mostly leader, and very little servant.  This may seem a harsh and sweeping generalization, but I have encountered so many “servant leaders” who have no idea what servant means (except to lead more boldly from the top, “Because after all, when I use my leadership gifts, it helps the church!” they’ll say), I’ve given up believing in “servant leadership.”  Please notice that Jesus, while recognizing this his disciples would, in fact, be leaders, never used the term “servant-leadership” or anything like it. Servant was all. Jesus is the main one who gets the title of leader, though it comes in the form of “Lord.” There is a reason that pastors have been called “ministers” for centuries.

Second, I’m simply not convinced that our age is so unique that we need a significantly different model of ministry than we see in the New Testament.  As I alluded to in my piece, the clear picture of the church’s ministry and that of Jesus was much more along the lines of pastor/shepherd than leader.  The one New Testament letter that spells out the purpose and function of the church is Ephesians. And Ephesians is about nothing if it is not about worship, “to the praise of his glory.” The mission of the church there is to worship.  And this, of course, accords with the ultimate “mission” and destination of the church: worship in heaven (Rev. 4, for example).  The mission of the church on earth—if it is to have integrity--must reflect its ultimate “mission” and destination, otherwise what in the world are we evangelizing people for?  Merely to become evangelists?  No, we evangelize people so that they might join the heavenly throng and worship—forever and now.

The other mission of the church in Ephesians, of course, is bringing to maturity the members of the church, to the full stature of Christ, so that everyone in the church will live in the unity of love.  There is, in fact, very little missional language in Ephesians as we use the term missional today.  The only time that happens, (like in chapter 3) is when Paul talks about his unique calling.  But nowhere does he suggest that his calling is to be adopted by everyone.  He understands his calling as unique. But when it comes to talking about the church’s general calling, things missional are hardly to be found.

Now let me be clear: ONE of the callings of the church is to send certain people out in mission!  Thus the gifts of apostleship and evangelism.  But only some members have these gifts.  It’s not the way the entire church’s purpose is ever talked about.  I would even argue that the Great Commission is the commission to apostles (those like the original 12 who are “sent out”), but not such to each and every member of the church.  It is only the church’s commission because apostles are identified and supported by the church.  The church, as such, has a fuller, more complete “mission”: worship of the living God and bringing people to maturity and unity in Christ.  As noted, this is a fuller vision because this is what we will do for eternity.  To worship and grow together in unity is our reason for existence, from beginning to end (Eph. 1). 

This does not mean that each and every member of the church is primarily called to make the local church the be all and end all of his/her life—as if the church were nothing but a happy holy club.  Some are called to give themselves to the church in this way.  But most are simply called to spend the bulk of their energies raising families, being good neighbors, fulfilling their callings.  In this sense, the pastor is the “chaplain” of these people—leading them in worship, catechizing them, praying with them so that they can go about their daily lives as witnesses to the love of Christ.  The pastor is not “the leader of a people on mission,” but the shepherd of a community that worship and grows together in unity, and of people who are learning to love God and neighbor in their daily lives.

Can this model become myopic and self-centered?  Of course!  Can this make the church lazy?  To be sure!  But what model of the church can eliminate human sin?  I know of none.  And what model made inroads in the most “postmodern” society history has ever known? This one.

 Let us remember that the early church made its way in a culture that was pluralism on steroids, and highly relativistic at that.  Such was the legacy of the Greek mystery religions, among others.  A god for every city.  A philosophy for every man.  And no one having the temerity to say he had the way, the truth, and the life—because each worshipped their own gods (Acts 17:16ff).  The church grew up in this setting, and eventually transformed Roman culture not by being missional in the way it is talked about today, but when it acted like the church I’ve described above.  No bold plans to transform society.  So big dreams of changing culture.  Just a focus on congregational life: worship, preaching, catechesis, and simple acts of charity (taking care of widows and orphans, attending to the sick during plagues, and so forth). 

 Again, there were the occasional (and famous) early missionaries.  St. Mark in Egypt.  St. Thomas in India.  Gregory the Wonderworker in third century Asia Minor, among others.  And so on. But they stand out precisely because they were unusual.  They were not what defined the local church, but they were, in fact, made possible by the ministry of the local church.  

 Okay, that’s enough push back for now.  I have deep admiration for the motives and passion of those committed to the missional movement, in its varied forms.  So much of what goes on in the name of missional is right and good and frankly inspiring (albeit intimidating: the commitment of some missional leaders is amazing). I just happen to think this model makes unrealistic demands on most church members, creates needless guilt, inculcates pride, and in the long run leads to despair.  That’s all J  Okay, I’m being dramatic.  But I still think the missional model has pastoral and theological problems. I want what missional leaders want: a healthy church that displays the love of Christ to the world. I just think the missional approach, as I understand it, will backfire soon enough, because it traffics too much in contemporary cultural assumptions about what is important, useful, effective, and so forth.

  I think there is a reason the early church, when it thought about what it meant to be a church, put the emphasis on worship, catechesis, and the presbyter/overseer as shepherd and teacher of the flock, not the general of an army. 

 Okay: I have this feeling that not everyone who reads this will be convinced.  And I have no doubt I’ve overlooked something, or misrepresented the missional movement in some ways.  So I look forward to some vigorous responses, and learning from the exchange.

 --Mark Galli

We Need Chaplains...Just not More Of Them...Not Now.

In a recent editorial, Mark Galli offered a thoughtful and provocative defense of the pastor-as-chaplain model vs. the pastor-as-leader model.  Galli criticizes the growing impersonal institutionalism of the church that holds up the model of the megachurch as the only true vision of congregational health and success (and the megachurch “lead pastor” as the only true model of pastoral vitality).  I couldn’t agree with him more. 

Without doubt, there is continual need for women and men with spiritual sensitivity to the souls of people (in the holistic sense that Galli describes so well). Indeed, there is something incredibly important occurring when a pastor accompanies us through a dark night of the soul, a personal trauma, a moment of crisis.  And without doubt there have been far too many churches that have begun to take on the ethos of a corporation that seem to miss these most important moments. I couldn't agree with him more.

Galli wants to raise up the importance of this pastoral presence by challenging our ideas of the "pastor as leader" and--by and large--I agree with his critique.  If leader means "someone who makes the organization grow in numbers, dollars and reputation," it is a deficient definition indeed.

Galli goes on to assert that the model most criticized--that of “chaplain”--is actually the model of Jesus who traveled throughout Galilee as a healer. He  writes, “For centuries, the pastorate was thought to be about "the cure of souls"—souls being understood not as the spiritual part of us, but as the fullness of our humanity. The pastor has traditionally been thought of as one who does ministry in the midst of a people who are sick and dying, and who administers in word and sacrament, in Scripture and in prayer, the healing balm of the Lord. So who told us that the pastor is primarily a leader/entrepreneur/change agent and anything but a curer of souls? And why do we believe them?”

And it is at this very point that I want to offer a nuance that I hope will be received by Mr. Galli (and the hundreds who “liked” this article on Facebook) as an opportunity to continually clarify the complexity of the pastoral task in our day. 

Yes, “for centuries, the pastorate was thought to be about the ‘cure of souls’.”  I agree.  That’s the way it USED to be.  During the centuries of Christendom, this was an appropriate and helpful metaphor.  In a culture where Christianity was in the cultural center, “chaplain” or even “pastor” was a crucial component for keeping powers-that-be attuned to the word of God and the way of Jesus when other cultural forces were present to lead us into temptation and conformity with “the world”. In a Christendom world, pastors were needed to continually bring a word of truth, a touch of healing and a prophetic reminder of what God required of his people, an institution or a nation (which is also true in a theocracy, as Galli points out in his use of Nathan as a “servant” to David).

Indeed in our cultural institutions that still recognize the need for someone to be the embodiment of the spiritual in the corporate life, we celebrate.  We can rejoice that there are institutions like schools, hospitals, the military (even Congress!) that continue to call on individuals to be available to heal, to care, to counsel and yes, speak prophetically in the midst of the complexities of organizational life.  And indeed, this is the model that is still advocated by many of my pastoral heroes like Eugene Peterson, whom Galli holds up as the model (see here for another post where I “Dare to Differ with Eugene Peterson”).

But increasingly, this is not the mission of the church today. In a post-Christendom context, the metaphor of pastor as healer, chaplain, or curer of souls is inadequate to the task and literally killing the church.  Churches that continue to cling to a Christendom context and expectation for pastors (as seen mostly in mainline churches like my own) are dramatically in decline and becoming increasingly irrelevant to the changing cultural contexts that are far more like a mission field in the first century than the cultural contexts of the most recent past centuries for which Galli (and most of us, frankly—even me) pine nostalgically.

But that day is gone. 

The Missional Movement, as originally inspired by the insights of Lesslie Newbigin expressed theologically by Darrell Guder and others, has given rise to an entirely different understanding of a pastor as the leader of a people in mission. 

In this post-Christendom context, the congregation, not the pastor, is the embodiment of Jesus (literally “the body of Christ”).  The congregation, not the pastor, is the true ‘healer of souls’ going into the world to demonstrate and proclaim the reign of God.  The laity (that is the whole people of God), not just the pastor, is the prophetic voice to power in boardrooms, courtrooms, and classrooms.  The Church, not just particular Christians, is the presence of God, the temple of the Spirit and corporately, communally and contextually—the manifold witness of God to the particular locales of God’s world.

To be sure, leadership in a missional context is NOT the model offered by the megachurch either.  The institutional isomorphism that gave rise to the megachurch as the model of a successful church-as-corporation is just as rooted in Christendom as the mental model of “pastor-as-chaplain.”  And megachurches for all of their numbers and name-recognition are also in decline, by the way.  While there are certainly exceptions, most megachurches continue to thrive most in parts of the United States that still hold the most cultural Christianity--the geographic south.  It is right for us to recognize that that model, while still vibrant in some places, is likely not the best model for most of us.

What is needed today in our churches is not to replace “leader” with “servant”, as Galli suggests, but a deeper understanding of the kind of servant-leadership needed in this changing world.  As the world changes, denominations, seminaries, thought-institutions and and voices of influence like Christianity Today need to continually affirm and support a changing paradigm of pastoral leadership.

This pastoral leadership paradigm is not yet clear (and it will likely not be just one ‘model’).  We are more aware of what it is not than what it is and we know that it will look different in every context.

I believe it will be more apostolic than chaplaincy, more about cultivating worshipping missional learning communities (isn’t that what a church of “disciples” really is?), than managing a vender of religious services, or providing private spiritual counsel.  It will be both personal and communal; it will be both liturgical and public.  It will be complex, holistic, rooted in and expressed differently in every particular context.  It will be about organizational leadership that is organic.  And it will be in every way about transformation. 

(See here for more posts where I explore pastors as transformational leaders.)

We need pastors (and frankly leaders in every sector of society) who are continually being transformed who can lead individuals in their own transformation and communities in communal transformation.  We need women and men who are not only gifted in the cure of souls, but also the cultivation of communities of witness and mission. We need more pastors who can teach the faith, cultivate spiritual maturity and equip communities of saints to live and proclaim the reign of God in the mission field that is right past the church parking lot and changing rapidly.  

Leadership is about equipping people to grow so that they can faithfully face the challenges in front of them. We don’t need more chaplains.  We need more leaders. 

We just aren’t sure exactly what they look like yet.