Leaders

          Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self—controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap. (I Timothy 3:1-7)

          Some people think that humanity is evolving… improving. They seem to believe we were animals who slowly developed into savages, then barbarians. After that, we became increasingly civilized and intelligent until – voilà! —  we became what we are. Soon, they’re sure, we’ll make another evolutionary leap to become this perfected ideal that would likely make us weep to watch because so much of what is “us” would have to be cut off and thrown away, both good and bad. I call this the “Star Trek” vision of humanity

            Something that the progression is going in the other way, that the animal us was the best, and we’ve gone down hill ever since. Others hold a less linear view and claim we’re on a roller coaster, with long, hard climbs up the hill followed by plunges into the depths.

            Your perspective of humanity will color your perspective of our leaders. It’s interesting that some people are so upset about our secular leadership because it doesn’t live up to the standard that the people, and most of those they hold up as models of society, also fail to achieve. They believe an illusion about the leaders they approve and believe a delusion about those they don’t. And this is part of the problem that the Church faces.

           Paul has given us a daunting list of criteria for the leadership of churches. The overseer is to be the epitome of Christianity. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with this list for leadership in the Church. It seems to me, however, that there are two problems. First, as a church seeks a pastor (if they are even part of the process) they seem to run down this checklist with an attitude of, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, OK, yep… OK, now let’s get on to the important stuff…” The second is the assumption that we believe that whoever we pick will not only fit these criteria but whatever other items we add to the list – whether we’re choosing a pastor or a secular leader. When it comes down to it, we want our leaders to be our messiahs, solving all our problems as a community, behaving in such a way as to show everyone else how wonderful we must be (because, well, look at our leader!)

           The other perspective, which seems to me to be the Conservative one, is that while the list above is our goal, the leader chosen for us is not going to pass an evaluation on every item on our list. He (or she) is going to fail, probably in the most embarrassing way possible, at the worst possible moment. This is why our pastors and leaders need our prayers so desperately.

          But, there’s another point that I want to make using this passage. The characteristics described aren’t just for leaders. It does  us no good to say, “OK, I’m going to be a leader now,” and expect that all of these characteristics will magically appear in us. Yes, they’re the characteristic we want in a leader, because they are the characteristics we want in ourselves. The only way we’re going to have leadership with characteristics like these is to train ourselves, our children, and everyone with whom we have contact to develop these characteristics, at least through our example. It’s not fair to set one standard for our leadership, and another, far lower, standard for ourselves.