http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheForgottenWays/~3/316375661/
In passing it is worth noting that one important reason why we should be suspicious of hierarchical top-down notion of leadership is because we know from history and from human nature that institutional systems confer social power and concentrates it at the top. The problem is precisely because of human nature that we should be very wary of such power in human hands. It almost always corrupts and damages the relational fabric that constitutes the church. Very few people can handle it and not be altered by it—perhaps only the great. History is quite clear of that. At least we should learn this from the Lord of the Rings trilogy where the ring of power exercises a powerfully alluring and corruptive power on those who wield it. Besides, the servant/slave image of leadership (dis)qualifies all forms of top-down power leadership and establishes the bottom-up servant approach (Rom.1:1, Tit.1:1, etc.) Jesus could not be more explicit when he says to his disciples, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves” ( Luke 22:25-27
.) Snyder is right when he says that “The New Testament does not teach hierarchy as the principle of either authority or organization in the church” and that “Jesus seems to be opposed to both the abuse of power and the hierarchical structure on which (such) power was based.”
But there are powerful metaphors that help us to avoid the alluring notions of top-down coercive power; ones which aid us in understanding our task of creating environments where missional church can arise. At Forge Mission Training Network, we like to think of ourselves as midwives to a new dream. Our stated mission is to ‘help birth and nurture the missional church in Australia and beyond.” And while this describes is our own particular calling, the idea of being midwives is both a very biblical and humane image of leadership and I recommend it to you here as describing the actual mode of leadership which informs all authentic apostolic influence. A midwife aids and assists in the birth of a child. All that he/she makes sure that all the conditions are right for a healthy birth—the birth is the result of things beyond the midwife’s influence. It is interesting that Socrates called himself a midwife and that he saw his role as helping others discover the truth for themselves. This he did by the constant use of questions which drove the learner to their own insights and observations. Jesus is very ‘midwifey’ through his use of questions, stories, and parables.
But perhaps one more image of this quality of leadership is needed to pin this concept down in our minds, and this is the image of a farmer. A good farmer creates the conditions for growth of healthy crops to develop by tilling the soil, replenishing it with nutrients, removing weeds, scattering the seeds, and watering the field. He/she is wide open to natural rhythms of nature which are out of hihe/sher control and so they are reliant on God for the sun and rain. The seed itself, if given the right conditions, will flourish in this type of environment and produce good crops. All that the farmer does is to create the right environment for this mysterious process of life to take place.
Apostolic ministry works in precisely the same way. Paul even alludes to similar organic processes in 1 Cor. 3:5-8 when he says “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….” In fact the bible is laced with organic images that engender an ‘ecological view’ of church and leadership (seeds, ground, yeast, body, flock, trees, etc.) If we remodeled our leadership and churches with these organic metaphors in mind we would develop a more fertile communal life. And organic view of church is much richer because it is truer to, and more consistent with, the inner structure of life and cosmology itself.
