"As far as I can tell, Ugly Pop died of a case of acute irrelevance."
--Chris Slaughter
“We think success means being so good or so great that no one can do without us, yet a successful scholar is one whose work continues in his students long after he retires, and a successful entrepreneur is one whose company chugs merrily along while he’s taking a holiday on the beach. A successful parent is one who, eventually, doesn’t have to be there.
“Success is a movement into invisibility. Success is decreasing so that others may increase. Success is a seed dying in the ground and bearing fruit upwards. Success is becoming dispensable. The successful man is the one who will not be missed.”
--Peter Leithart, from the June 2009 Touchstone
I confess that I automatically suspect Leithart's writings because of his ties to Doug Wilson and the New Perspectives on Paul. However, in this case I think he is absolutely right.
When we were at Grace & Peace Fellowship in St. Louis, our pastor, Kurt, took a sabbatical. Before he left, he urged us to go about business as usual. He reminded us that we really didn't need him to function as a body. Like I was with many things Kurt said and did, I was struck by this, and thought about it for a long time. This was a church into which he poured himself daily, and now he was insisting that he was unnecessary, even irrelevant? What was with this guy?
A close friend has been talking to me about some struggles with the leadership at his church. Ironically, what I perceive as weak is the opposite of the position Kurt took: a need, a demand for relevance. A pressing desire to be at the center of things, to be consulted, to be necessary. And it chokes the creativity of the body, because everything has to be filtered through this one (fallible) person.
When our church, Christ Community PCA in Johnson City, drafted its mission statement, our pastor John was forbidden from participating. His church planting coach instructed him to stand aside and listen, watch, guide, ask questions--but basically refrain from inserting himself. As a result, the congregation began to develop a vision of who they were in Christ, and what their unique calling is. And John, despite a desire (I'm sure) to change a word here or there, became, along with others, steward of that vision.
And oddly, this makes him relevant
Would that were the case with more PCA churches! Spirit led, natural emerging leadership and gifts.....this does not replace the need of the pastor, only shows him his place in the whole.
Posted by: Linda Bedsole | September 12, 2009 at 08:35 PM