Leadership is a word that gets bandied around a fair bit. We’re all leaders, or so we’re told; and yet, “leadership” is a skill that acts as a criterion for selection for ordination in the Church of England.
So what is this elusive leadership? Is it simply living holy lives? Or is it actively challenging others to seek better things? Is it actually self-reproductive management (leaders growing leaders etc.)? Here comes the problem: the word has been used to mean so many different things that “leader” now means either a very specific “in charge” position, or a watered down quality of being that we all have.
And so there are some activities which appear to fall under “leadership”, such as “Worship leader”, pastor, small group leader, and so on and so forth. That shoves the rest of the activities in church into a lump of facilitating activities. Welcoming. Providing tea and, yes, even coffee in some churches. Being a server. Working at the sound desk or with the slideshow. Reading out Scripture. Things that are done because they need to be done.
Photo: Wikimedia user Bridgman, under CC license
That doesn’t stop these activities from being appealing. Far from it – I think in some cases, the lack of responsibility associated with the absence of perceived leadership is very appealing indeed. And for a wealth of other reasons, people (and I include myself in this) end up helping out in a church, but passively and without meaning. Because the work needs doing, and that’s it.
I was being a server because, or so I thought, for the sake of tradition, someone needed to hold up the candle; and someone needed to help prepare the Table. It’s only after I had been doing it a while and through talking with the coordinator that I realised that the purpose of “high” church liturgy, and through it, acolytes, was to lead people into worship. In carrying the candle, I was leading people, encouraging them to look towards God. The role and the actions of being a server never felt the same after that.
The same goes for reading Scripture. If you’re called upon to read Scripture at your church, and you’re just thinking it’s a necessary first step so the sermon can build on it; and that the true leadership rests within the preacher’s hands, you are wrong. Yours is the responsibility to make the text come alive. Yours is the responsibility to draw people to it, through your speaking.
The list goes on, and on, and on. Every single role in a church, from flower arranger to preacher, from musical director to welcomer, is there to point towards God and to help others in that direction. So let’s stop all that nonsense about calling specific positions of “leadership” when all they are is positions of management. If we don’t, we risk turning those jobs into mundane tasks, rather than parts of the supernatural event of heaven meeting earth.
And if you help out, in whatever small or big way, at your church, then be sure of this: you have a great responsibility; and you’re not just facilitating the smooth operation of the service: you are pointing people towards Christ and directing their gaze in the right direction.
