Lead (eBook)

1.

Achievement

Every leader leads while being in desperate personal need of the full resources of God’s grace. This inescapable reality must be a major influence on the way those in the leadership community see themselves, conduct themselves, and do the work to which God has called them. It’s not just the young pastor who needs grace or the struggling pastor or the fallen pastor; grace is the essential ingredient in the success of anyone’s ministry, any time, at any age, in any location, and in any type of ministry.

The next chapter will unpack what it means for a leadership community to function like the gospel community that it was designed by God to be. In this chapter I want to consider how the good thing—achievement—can become a bad thing for leadership because it has become a ruling thing. Now, I know that achievement is not only a wonderful thing; it is also a vital thing. Salvation is all about achievement. There would be no hope of forgiveness, of present help, or of a new heavens and a new earth if it weren’t for the unstoppable ambition of the Lord of lords to achieve what only he could achieve in extending his grace to his people and in redeeming and restoring his groaning world. But there is more.

God’s saving grace ignites in the hearts of all his children a radical shift in ambition. Where once our thoughts, desires, words, and actions were motivated and directed by our ambition to achieve our definition of personal happiness, by grace they are now shaped by our ambition for the kingdom of God to achieve all God has designed for it to achieve. Where once we were ambitious for what we want, we now are ambitious to do the will of God. Further, God calls us to be ambitious for the growth and expansion of his kingdom between the “already” of our conversions and the “not yet” of our home going. Human beings are achievers, meant to build and rebuild, to grow and expand, to uproot and to plant, to tear down and to build, to dream and to achieve dreams. But every ambition and every achievement must bow to the lordship and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So it must be noted that the rescue and redirection of the desire of our hearts concerning what we seek to achieve is a work in progress. I wish I could say that what always motivates me to do what I do and say what I say is a heartfelt ambition for the glory of God and the success of his kingdom, but it is not. I wish that the ways I spend my money and invest my time was always motivated by vertical ambition, but they aren’t. I wish I could say that God is always at the center of every ambition of the thoughts of my heart, but he is not. I wish I could say that I always want every achievement in my life to be a finger pointing to God’s existence and his glory, but I can’t. So it must be said that for me, and I’m sure for you, ambition is a spiritual battleground, and it must also be said that in the leadership community of the church, ambition for God’s glory and his kingdom easily and subtly morphs into something else.

What Glory: An Achievement Story

They were young and ambitious. They loved the gospel, and they loved their city. They really did want to achieve great things for God. They didn’t just want to be gospel sayers; they wanted to be doers as well. They believed that the transforming grace of Jesus had the power to transform every aspect of people’s lives and the communities in which they lived. They were determined to be big-kingdom achievers who God would use to rescue thousands of little-kingdom captives. They weren’t proud; they were confident in God’s presence, power, and promises. In their gatherings they preached a clear, well-applied gospel message and invited people into God-exalting worship. And they took the gospel to the streets, not only proclaiming grace but doing acts of mercy that directly addressed the particular groaning of their community. They worked hard, planned big, and trusted that God would produce results.

Of course, they revised and revised again their gospel achievement plan, but as they did, they began to see results. It was dribs and drabs at first, but before long people began coming to Christ, and community ministries were noticed and welcomed. Before long they outgrew both their building and their staff. They looked for a much bigger facility to better house what they wanted to achieve and hired people to make sure they accomplished their goals. No one on the inside would have noticed it, but a shift was taking place. Thankfulness to God for what he had done had begun to compete with pride in accomplishment. Less and less time was invested in fellowship and worship during leadership meetings, and more and more time was spent analyzing the stats and strategizing goals. Leaders progressively separated from the body of Christ and became less candid, approachable, and accountable.

Thousands attended across multiple campuses each Sunday, and millions of dollars were collected each year. The leadership community had become a very different culture from the humble, grace-based community they once had been. The elders no longer functioned as the pastors to the pastors or as the spiritual guides and counselors of the congregation. No, they functioned week in and week out like the corporate board of a religious institution. The only thing that distinguished their board meetings from the corporate board down the street was a short devotional and time of prayer before each meeting. The deacons were no longer a mercy ministry board but more like the church’s executive accountants and property managers. Growth and money now dominated their discussions and their vision.

Increasingly staff members were afraid of doing anything that would get in the way of corporate achievement. So few pastors and staff had the courage to confess to personal struggle or ministry failure. Staff that didn’t achieve or who questioned decisions or values were quickly let go. Much of the staff was discouraged and exhausted, but few would confess it. Burned-out pastors and staff members resigned with little desire to continue in ministry. No one seemed to ask how the church could be the church as described in the New Testament if the leadership no longer functioned as the gospel community that the church was redeemed to be.

None of this happened all at once, and little of it was self-conscious or intentional, but subtle changes had radically altered the culture, mentality, and values of the leadership community. It was all masked by the hungry crowds that still came and the many ministries that continued to grow. The church was no longer just a much bigger rendition of what it had been in its early days; it had progressively become something very different. At the heart level, leaders had changed, and before long, the changed leadership community would, in pride of achievement and unapproachability of spirit, destroy what God had so graciously built. Could it be, in your leadership community, that there are signs that the glory of achievement has begun to replace the glory of God as the most powerful motivator in the hearts of your leaders and of the way leadership plans, assesses, and does its work?

Gospel-oriented achievement is a beautiful thing, but the desire to achieve becomes dangerous when it rises to rule the hearts of the leadership community. Below are signs that indicate when achievement has become dangerous. Use these to evaluate your leadership community and for the purpose of honest leader self-examination.

1. Achievement becomes dangerous when it dominates the leadership community.

Let me begin by acknowledging that God has ordained us to do ministry where money is a needed concern, where there are necessary business aspects to what we do, where strategic planning is important, and where the numeric growth of the church requires more property, bigger buildings, a greater focus on facility maintenance, and a progressively growing community of employees to staff it all. None of these things are wrong or dangerous; they are necessities of a wise stewardship of a growing ministry. But these things must not become so dominant that they begin to change us and the way that we think about ourselves and the ministry to which we have been called. We cannot allow ourselves to migrate from being pastor and ministry leaders to being the corporate board of a religious enterprise. We cannot allow ourselves to move from being humble, approachable gospel servants to being rather proud and not-so-approachable institutional achievers.

Achievement plans for a local church are not necessarily enemies of humble gospel ministry, but as you experience ministry success and numeric growth, they are difficult to hold in proper balance. When humble, gospel-passionate pastors, preachers, and leaders over time morph into institutionally focused administrators or vision casters, they tend to lose some of their gospel passion, and the church or ministry suffers as a result. Yes, we should be ambitious for the expansion of God’s kingdom of glory and grace, but we must also recognize that as long as sin still resides in our hearts, achievement is a spiritual war zone that is not only littered with pastor or leader casualties but has reduced many who are still in ministry to the ranks of the walking wounded. Hear the cautions for us in the spiritual history of Israel, as they tasted the success and affluence of the promised land:

It was I who knew you in the wilderness,

in the land of drought;

but when...