Jesus-shaped leadership and today's trend in the Christian circle

His his second post on Cruciformity and Christian Leadership, Tim Gombis suggests that we should take a look at Mark 10:42-45 and Deuteronomy 17:14-20, and says,

Taking a cue from these texts, I will discuss cruciform Christian leadership by contrasting it with worldly leadership practices.  This may help us discern how perverted ambitions, hidden idolatries, and destructive practices subtly affect how leadership works in Christian communities.

And then he says that a Jesus-shaped leadership looks like this:

An unrelenting commitment to the delivery of the love and grace of God into the lives of others (or, the life of another), and taking the initiative to see to it that this happens.

For many years I have had the privilege of working with Christian leaders in churches, Christian organizations and even Christian ministry training colleges. What is disturbing is the increasing trend of importing leadership skills and methods in the corporate world into the Christian community.

What happens in practice is not the outright unrestrained pursuit of self-promotion or self-interest. Rather, the issue is the lack of an “unrelenting commitment to the delivery of the love and grace of God into the lives of others (or, the life of another), and taking the initiative to see to it that this happens.”

This is the trend I observe in recent years: Instead of treating people with grace and love, Christian leaders resort to policies and procedures – and all too often, statistics and numbers (which are used to measure the so-called “performance”). The rationale is that policies and procedures – and numbers – are not wrong. The Bible is not against them, they say. So, as long as they work for the “greater good” (e.g. more people to come to church, or more money to give to the poor), it is okay to use them, even though in the process love and grace are missing.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that all Christian leaders act like this. Not at all. I love the church, and I hold nothing against those who have ill-treated me. There is no unforgiveness. My concern is the health of the church, and where we are heading.

Gombis says it so well, and is worth repeating. Jesus-shaped leadership is about

An unrelenting commitment to the delivery of the love and grace of God into the lives of others (or, the life of another), and taking the initiative to see to it that this happens.

(By the way, Dr Christopher Wright has something really good to say about Deut 17:14-20 in his commentary.)

Click here for Tim Gombis' entire blog post.