If we settle for merely “good” leadership, we will fall far short of the mission to which God has called us, and we will continue to slip toward mediocrity and irrelevance, according to Mike Bonem in his book In Pursuit of Great and Godly Leadership: Tapping the Wisdom of the World for the Kingdom of God. So is God calling us to great leadership? Or is “great” leadership the enemy of “godly” leadership?
Some pastors try to run their churches as if they were hard-nosed CEOs of corporations, leaving little room for the work of the Holy Spirit. Others avoid leadership because they consider it ungodly. The author falls somewhere in between, advocating the use of sound leadership principles but only where they are compatible with biblical principles. Church leadership can be both great (with the church being a well-run organization) and godly (with a spiritually vital congregation).
Some of the specific advice on leadership principles which the author provides:
- Christian leaders must be humble servants, but ambitious for the Kingdom of God
- Churches should plan for the future, but with humility, and be ready to change as God directs
- Spirit-led planning produces outcomes different from those of business planning
- Church personnel decisions require both grace and stewardship
- The things which matter most in churches are hard to measure, but they should be measured anyway
- Different churches have very different approaches to finances, but churches which have financial reserves often have a capacity to make a greater impact
- Well-run churches have systems that facilitate ministry without strangling it
While books written by well-known and widely-admired business leaders are often advocated at church conferences, little effort is usually made to help church leaders to determine which of the leadership principles espoused by the business leaders might be appropriate for churches. This book does an excellent job of examining a number of aspects of leadership and pointing out what may and may not be appropriate for Christian organizations, and many church leaders will find it very helpful.