Christ-based Leadership | David Stark

David Stark. Christ-based Leadership: Applying the Bible and Todays Best Leadership Models to Become an Effective Leader. Bethany House, 2005. 208 pp.

Most stories I hear about leadership involve not only individual guidance but also corporate guidance.

We see this modeled by the apostles in Acts 15. The council of Jerusalem gathered to decide whether circumcision and obedience to the law should be required of all Christians, Jew and Gentile. These concerns were so central to the emerging church that the Spirit worked with its leaders to help resolve the issues.

Similarly, in our time, important decisions require the perspectives of other leaders who also are focused on letting God be the Lord of their organizations. One of my best friends is a Christian leader who’s wired quite differently than I am. I’ve gone to him as a sounding board at crucial times when I needed a perspective beyond my unique view of the world. All of us occasionally need this.

Be a Clock Builder

These patterns in a leader ultimately intersect with an interesting find from Jim Collins and his research team. Their first book looked at the leadership patterns of visionary and prevailing companies: Why did they keep succeeding over the long haul? Built to Last begins by describing the nature of their leadership, and Collins suggests that both the Myth of the Great Idea (you don’t need to have one right away) and the Myth of the Charismatic Leader (you don’t need to be one) do not define long-lasting organizations.

So what does make the big difference? Leaders who act as clock builders. These leaders focus on setting up processes–“clockworks”–that allow their organizations to keep on creating visionary products and leaders, decade after decade. That clock keeps ticking, keeps creating, keeps expanding; it never runs down. Such long-term companies could be described like this:

• They focus on building great organizations (more than on money or fame).
• They value underlying processes (over one breakthrough idea).
• They sustain an atmosphere in which many successful leaders emerge (not just one charismatic leader).

Longevity Development

God often puts processes in place that allow the organization to survive long after the clock builders have moved out of leadership. Biblical examples abound, but one of the best comes through in Exodus 18, where Jethro comes to visit his son-in-law, Moses. “So, Moses,” Jethro says, “how are things going for you?” Moses then describes a huge problem. He’s been doing what a typical charismatic leader might do to run an organization: He solves all the problems himself. In response, Jethro suggests a better way:

“What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. . . . Select capable men from all the people–men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain–and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you.” (v. 17-22)

Clock building! Moses creates processes involving groups of tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands. These processes will do their work far beyond his term of leadership, after Joshua takes over the nation.

Specificity Deployment

God will show Spirit-responsive leaders both the strengths and limitations of their leadership. More and more, a leader will see where he should put his energies and where he should let others take over. He has certain gifts; others have complementary gifts. He learns to take charge and also to give away power–whatever is appropriate in any given situation.

Paul and Apollos, both committed Christian leaders, nevertheless had different roles in spreading the Good News:

“What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe–as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.” 1Corinthians 3:5-9

Notice that Paul, allowing God to be Lord of his leadership, advances the perspective that all leaders are part of what God is doing. God does value each of these men’s roles and will reward each for his labor; Paul simply knows that both are fellow workers and servants of the Lord, who assigns the tasks. This firm sense of being-on-assignment rests deep within the heart of every surrendered Christian leader.

The Critical Test: Can You Let Go?

Is God the Lord of your work? You can tell by considering whether you’re able to let go at the right time, whether you can peacefully allow Him to lift up a different leader to take over where you have finished.

Story after story of great Christian leaders tell us of their sense that “God has given me these tasks . . . for a time.” They seem to know that He’ll orchestrate just how long and how far they are to stay at the helm. When a leader thinks, This is my organization, he tends to overstay his heavenly invitation.

The twenty-first-century church faces a culture increasingly apathetic–and sometimes downright hostile–to “organized religion.” In this environment, won’t our responsiveness to lordship become more and more crucial? Surely if the church is to meet its new challenges, it must stay in close touch with the Spirit’s leading. God is Lord of the church in all ages.

Excerpted from Christ-Based Leadership by David Stark. Copyright © 2005. Used by permission of Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored on other sites without written permission from Baker Publishing Group.

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