Lisa and I decided about a year and a half ago that we should try to plant a local, Chinese-led church in Jingzhou. It didn't work out like we'd hoped.
Even though things didn't go the way we thought they would, a lot of good things came out of the work:
We're thankful for these good things that we got to be a part of as God worked through us! But as good as these things are, there's still no local, Chinese-led church. That was our main goal and it's disappointing that it didn't last. The story of what exactly happened can be told another day, but there are some good lessons that we can take from what happened. We've talked, complained, and thought about it a lot and we've decided that one of the biggest mistakes we made was in choosing our co-workers. When we started this church meeting, we prayed a lot and looked for some good, adult co-workers. We decided to work together with a young man named John and a middle-aged woman named Li Dan Li. We made this decision partly because they are both committed, adult Christians and partly because they were the "easy" choice.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming other people for what didn't work and I'm not dodging our own responsibility. Several different things and different people are responsible. And most of that responsibility comes back to us. But part of our responsibilty is to choose co-workers who would help this church endure and in that regard, we did a bad job. Looking back, there were 3 main problems with our choice of co-workers. I think looking back and discovering these 3 things is useful for our future work, but I also think it's useful for life in general. What kind of people should we work with? What kind of partners should we seek in the church or in our professional life? Here's what we learned.
1. Expectations
Whenever you start something new, make sure everybody has the same expectations and the same vision. If people aren't on the same page, they're just going to get disillusioned and burnt out from working on something that isn't what they hoped it would be.
When we started the church meeting in Jingzhou, I spent a lot of time talking to John and Li about why we were starting another meeting and what our vision was for the future. Every week we met together to talk about our goals, pray together, and become better leaders. Our goal was to start a church where local adults and students would become stronger Christians and then go into other areas to start new churches. It all seemed great. We worked together on a sheet that listed our goals and how we were going to achieve them. The science seemed so solid. The problem was that we still weren't really on the same page.
Li Dan Li was really excited about our vision of starting new churches in other areas, but after being a part of other Jingzhou churches for 10 years, her idea of a good church was very different than our's. Whenever we changed the meetings, the songs, the style, or anything else to make Li Dan Li happy, most of the other people in the group weren't happy. And when we changed again, Li Dan Li was disappointed. So even though we were excited about the same goal, our idea of what to do while getting there was very different.
John had the opposite problem. His idea of a great church is very similar to our's. He just didn't care that much about our goals. He was happy coming to the meetings and enjoyed our way of doing things, but we werent' committed to the same vision. His expectation was to have a nice meeting that hummed along, but he had very little interest in challenging the other believers or starting new churches.
At the end of the day, people are only as committed to something as they are to the purposes behind it. Li Dan Li and John are both good Christians, but different expectations slowly caused them to lose interest.
2. Priorities
When a few people are 100% behind something, but the others are only slightly invested, disaster is looming! Either the 100%-ers are going to get burned out or the other people are going to get tired of being pushed around.
When Lisa and I decided to try planting a church, we didn't hedge our bets. Our sole reason for being in Jingzhou is to work in the church and we felt strongly that we should focus on this one part of the work. All of our time and future plans were wrapped up in this new church. Our prayers and our concerns centered around the people there and our relationships together.
Unfortunately, our two co-workers didn't feel the same way. Li Dan Li and John both stayed very involved in other churches, even as they worked with us to plant a new church. They were eager to do the work, but if it didn't work out then that was okay, too. And because they were still involved in other things, they constantly had to choose how to spend their time. Go serve with the brothers and sisters from the new church or meet with the family from the old church? As time went on, it became clear that working with this church was not Li and John's first priority. Li Dan Li would be late for meetings at her own house because she'd been at a prayer meeting somewhere else! John would skip Bible studies to play board games with Christians from a church across town.
If the leaders of the church aren't committed, how can we expect anyone else to be? And that's exactly what happened. Other people slowly lost interest or became less involved as they saw that Li and John weren't really putting their heart into the church. When Lisa and I left for the summer, the church limped along because of a lack of leadership. The church never became their church and in the end it became noone's church.
3. Strong Character
A strong leader has to have strong character. Leaders are often called to do difficult things and if they continually come up short, they slowly lose the right to be leaders.
As Lisa and I looked for co-workers, we looked for adults with committed faith. It didn't matter to us what kind of work they did in the church, as long as they were serious about it. Paul said that some are evangelists, some are teachers, encouragers, and so on. Li Dan Li is a wonderful evangelist and John is a great teacher. They have important places in the church and have been used by God to do wonderful things. Their committed faith is a great example to the younger Christians in Jingzhou. But neither one of them were willing to do the "tough" things.
A year ago there was a young man who came to our church named Owen. He had claimed to be the 2nd coming of Christ. All of us agreed that he was wrong and that this was a problem. We talked to Owen individually and then we all went and talked to Owen as a group, but Owen refused to acknowledge the problem or say that he had changed. The next step was a hard one. According to Jesus, the best thing to do in these situations is to cut off contact. Li Dan Li wanted to let him keep coming back, but remain silent in the meetings. John changed his mind and decided that Owen was a really good guy. During the year, the same kind of situation arise again and again. John would have a personality conflict with someone in the church. Instead of facing the problem and talking through it, John would stop coming to meetings for a month and just go somewhere else. Li Dan Li once left our church family waiting for her on the street for a couple of hours because she wasn't willing to tell her old friend that she had to leave a restaurant to go meet us!
Taken individually, none of these things are the end of the world, but they all point to the same problem. The church is going to run into problems, from within and without. Leaders of the church need to be able to handle those problems in a loving, firm way. They need to deal with difficulties and they need to do it in God's way. Peter, the Rock, was chosen as an early leader for a reason. People follow strong leaders and God is looking for strong leaders who are willing to make difficult, sometimes unpopular decisions. God doesn't expect us to be perfect, just strong.
So the next time we start a new work, we're going to have a better idea of what to look for. We won't look for someone who is just a committed Christian. We'll also look for someone with the same expectations and goals as us. Someone who will put as much of their heart into the work as we are. And someone who is strong enough to do the work that we've been called to do, especially when it's difficult.
What do you all think? Do you know of some good leaders who have these qualities? Have you encountered lousy leaders who lacked them? What else should a good leader have?
Posted by daleeatsrice at July 10, 2009 2:15 AMYou've covered a lot of territory in this post. You've put a lot of good thought into it. The insights you've acquired through experience are valid. Thanks for sharing those with your readers.
You specifically invited comments about good leaders. But in what you wrote, I can see several aspects which each are worth individual discussion. Without going into details, I'll mention some of those here:
1. Importance of wisely choosing one's coworkers. You correctly note that is an important consideration today, just as it was with Paul and Barnabas.
2. Development and identification of indigenous leaders. This is best done by fostering discipleship and growth experiences, then observing who it is that rises to the occasions, who the Father is working through, and who it is that other people will follow. Being selected by a foreigner, acquiring some kind of diploma through classroom study, or holding a certain office or position does not turn someone into a leader.
3. Whether to plant churches or make disciples who make disciples. One approach has been widely taught and pursued for many centuries. The other was commanded and then practiced a couple of millennia ago, with tremendous results.
4. Just what is a church and how can it reproduce? Most believers in the western world have experienced a rather institutional type of organization, similar to what has been the norm for many centuries. That is all they know and it's what they seek to replicate. In contrast, a living organism, growing and reproducing in accordance with the seed and DNA of its Father, is something very different. Transitioning from the former to the latter is a really big challenge.
5. Whose vision is it? A vision won't become reality if I'm the only one committed to it. One key challenge is to help others arrive at a shared vision that is bigger than the participants could achieve while working separately, that enables each participant to achieve more than they could achieve apart from the vision, and that is aligned with what the Father is already doing. If several people develop a shared vision like that, great things can indeed happen!
Sorry to make such extended comments. Perhaps someone might like to pursue discussions of topics like these outside of the blog.
They're all good points, but I'm going to pick #3 to respond to.
If the planters or leaders of a church know what they're doing and are really doing God's work in God's way, then I think there will of course be a focus on making disciples.
Timothy was helping to lead a church (in Ephesus?) when Paul told him to pass the good things on to people who will be faithful to pass them on to other people (DT's paraphrase). Paul also said that the work of ministers in the church is to equip God's people to do his work. I think that a minister who arranges meetings and manages events has missed the boat.
A church has also missed its mark if its purpose is to have meetings, service projects, classes, and service projects. These are all good things and they should all help us grow as disciples. As more Christians grow as disciples, the Church will be better equipped to go into more places and do God's work in bigger and bigger circles. I firmly believe that planning bigger events or finding new ways to attract people aren't the key to helping the church grow. Helping individuals grow into stronger disciples is the key.
Like you said, it's hard for a church or minister to move from being event and meeting oriented to being disciple oriented. A good first step though, is deciding that's what you want to do. Making that decision, trial by error, and God's grace will get us moving in the right direction.
Maybe this all sounds wierd if you've never seen this or thought about it. I might talk some about this Tuesday and Thursday at our house.
Posted by: Dale at July 20, 2009 11:41 AM