On Specialists Without Spirit
'We live mainly by forms and patterns,' the renowned storyteller Wallace Stegner warns, 'and if the forms are bad, we live badly.'1 In a prescriptive commentary on today's leadership styles, one might substitute the word 'live for the word 'lead.' Certainly, we are inundated with forms and 'models.' And if this is the case in the general field of leadership, it is also the case in the particular field of ecclesiastical leadership. One may note two research 'currents' that are rarely analyzed together.
The first 'current' entails an increasing corpus of church leadership advice distinctly influenced by Western management philosophy. The Association of American Publishers reports annual growth of 37% in the religious publishing sector, calling it a 'growth business.' Sales are projected in excess of five billion dollars per year. And similar ratios are reflected in the growing body of literature on church leadership.2 Popular works include, Jesus CEO, The Management Methods of Jesus, and The Purpose-Driven Church.3
The second 'current' entails a growing corpus of scholarly research on the present work of the Holy Spirit characterized by a revitalized pneumatology. Indeed, cessationism seems to be fighting a losing battle. And as Philip Jenkins notes, Christianity is spreading fastest among the 'empowered evangelicals.' Jenkins observed that while this movement emerged only at the start of this century, by 2040 it will likely reach one billion followers – far outnumbering the world's Buddhists and roughly equaling the world's Hindus.4 This increase in 'believers' is matched by a substantial increase in books and literature on the leadership of the Spirit.
So then, we may note two currents: one that emphasizes Western management philosophy and one that emphasizes the leadership of the Spirit. Even a cursory review of these two streams indicates a radical difference in language. The former is a language of control while the latter is a language of dependency.5 And while church leaders seem to use both languages, in practice they most often reflect the Western management approach.
As an indication, one needs only to look at the leading title6 on church leadership, Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Church. With more than one million copies sold and more than 300,000 pastors using its ancillary materials in twenty-two languages, the book is a prime example. It liberally employs such terms as 'assimilation,' 'programming,' 'psychographics,' 'target markets,' 'composite profiles,' and 'pastoral management.'7
Beneath these terms is a philosophy of 'successful ministry' as defined by the twin Western ideals of celebrity and scale. If the size of the ministry and the popularity of the pastor/priest are the defining metric, then the ambitious leader must master the primary elements of Western management science: vision, strategy, objectives, and goals – all programmed into an infrastructure simulating a contemporary corporate or political organization.8
But is this emphasis on 'the Pastor/Priest as Executive' really helping?9 In the past fifteen years, the Western church has spent more than five-hundred billion dollars on ministry. Yet the combined membership of all protestant denominations has decreased 9.5%, while the national population has increased 11.4%.
- In the US each month, 2,700 churches close down.10
- In the UK between 1980 and 2000, the Church of England has suffered a 27% decline.11
Since 1987, attendance at Anglican churches by youth between the ages of 14 and 17 has decreased by 34.9%. And 'If the same rate continues to apply, there may be no young people at all in the church in twenty years' time.'12]
And even more telling is chronic, pervasive deformation professionnelle among the leaders of the church, where there is an epidemic of 'burnout' and disillusionment. According to a recent survey:13
- Seventy percent of the clergy constantly fight depression.
- 1,500 leave the ministry each month due to 'moral failure,' spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.14
- Fifty percent are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but confess that they have no other way of making a living.
- Ninety percent admit their ministry is completely different from what they thought it would be.
- Ninety percent state that their seminary or Bible school training did only a fair to poor job preparing them for ministry.
Clearly, we are at crosscurrents.15 Eugene Peterson argues that church Leaders have 'adopted the language of the market and of the entrepreneur (depersonalizing "souls" into consumers or causes),' allowing their 'pastoral vocation to serve the criteria of success as defined by the American culture.'16 One is reminded of Max Weber's warning that his sophisticated theories of management could result in 'mechanized petrifaction,' to 'specialists without spirit,' and to 'voluptuaries without heart.'17 To reprise Stegner: '[I]f the forms are bad, we live [lead] badly.' It seems an appropriate time to question the 'forms' that are shaping our ecclesiastical leadership philosophy.