Ashley Hibbard provides a guest-post at Dashhouse which ponders whether management skill and leadership have supplanted serving as the marker of pastoral leadership in the church.
Avoiding polar extremes, the problem identified is whether the motivation to engage with others is for their benefit, or to be noticed.
From the post:
There are many unhealthy aspects of the Christian “celebrity culture” that has infiltrated almost every corner of the church, but one of the most deadly may be one of the least addressed: the need to be noticed. It seems to me that all too often, the need to be noticed masquerades as leadership.
I once heard an individual go a struggling church leader and offer help if he needed “someone to lead things or run things.” I knew of another, more mature individual who offered his help as “anything you need; anything at all.” While this is only one incident, I have seen evidence of or heard tell of many others like it. And it makes me wonder if we have come to a place where “leaders” have replaced servants, and service has been detached from real, Christ-like leadership.
