Andy Stanley Says There is No Such Thing as Distinctively Spiritual Leadership

Here are my comments on the article: Is Ministry Leadership Different? Andy Stanley and Jim Collins in an unexpected point-counterpoint by Eric Reed at Leadership Journal's Out of Ur blog:

Andy Stanley, pastor of the third most influential church in the nation with more than 18,000 in attendance, is right in urging pastors to practice competent leadership regardless of its source. He says: “I grew up in a culture where everything was overly spiritualized . . . A principle is a principle, and God created all the principles.” He is right in saying that too often churches have permitted abuse, waste, and ineptitude in the name of forgiveness, family, and niceness. He is also right in declaring it makes sense to learn from others. We should be reexamining Scripture for wisdom as well as sifting through leadership and business management books for wise insight. (See my list of recommended business management books that are helpful for pastors here).

But Christian leaders are different from other leaders because of their Christian character (as Andy tacitly indicates in his words about the importance of prayer, counsel, and integrity when he speaks to church leaders). If leaders are not formed by Scripture, prayer and counsel [Eugene Peterson calls these the three angles in his book Working the Angles)], their vision and leadership will ultimately be shallow and self-serving. So I think Andy overstates the case when he says “There’s nothing distinctly spiritual [about the kind of leadership I do].” There is such a thing as spiritual (pleasing-to-the-Holy-Spirit) leadership that is often different from secular business leadership. Spiritual formation will actually change the way we do leadership. Some practices which would violate Scripture cannot be used even to meet seemingly good goals. In other words, Scripture restrains the use of some means. The ends do not always justify the means.

Eric Reed is right in pointing out that many young people are attracted to Andy Stanley but that he does not fit with the “emerging” leader profile which is also popular among young people. Reed writes:

“Stanley is becoming the model for the next generation of large church pastors [note Reed’s adjective large] . . . Because Andy connects well with younger leaders, who in general are bent more toward spiritual formation than church growth . . . I thought I’d hear something that backed up the pendulum swing we have heard prominent emerging leaders identify--that younger leaders don’t buy all the church growth stuff, that the models that built megachurches worked for boomers, but for Gen-X and younger? Fuggidaboudit.”

Many young suburban white young adults are attracted to Andy Stanley. He is what they want to be: attractive, making-a-difference, young, confident, and articulate with a gorgeous facility and a talented staff. But Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger describe in Emerging Churches a different set of young people who don’t want to copy management principles or accept megachurch assumptions. They want to emulate Jesus’ practices – wandering around talking to people, without a building, praying, telling stories, and helping people. Seeker churches like Stanley’s, on the other hand, want people to “meet Jesus” through getting them through whatever means to sit in the seats of their church.

My comments on the Gibbs and Bolger book Emerging Churches are here.

Most of the college students in my classes at Taylor University are attracted to both Andy Stanley and the Emerging church conversation. They are attracted to young charismatic leaders regardless of their ministry approach. Rob Bell and Erwin McManus are probably the two most popular among them since they have all the things Andy Stanley has (attractive, making-a-difference, young, confident, and articulate with a large facility and a talented staff) but also embrace some of aspects of the emerging churches: art, attitude, informality, stories, urban culture, and justice.

See my list of sermon audio links to listen to Stanley, Bell and McManus here.

For a scholarly presentation of how the apostle Paul dealt with secular ideas of leadership when they began to appear in Corinth, listen to New Testament scholar Bruce Winter's lecture "Secularization of First Century Christian Leadership - Inroads of Secular Models." Here is the synopsis.

Bruce Winter questions the word "leader" as the name we use when talking about church ministers. He says Paul intentionally does not use the Greek word for leader to describe the ministers in the early church. Winter also says Paul intentionally rejected the braggart, money-making, attractive orator image that was readily apparent in the culture at the time.

This must cause all of us to pause as we think of the kind of Christian leaders that are so often held up as "making a difference" in our culture. Most often they get famous as successful pastors because they are great speakers and attractive. Perhaps this is always the way to fame and there is no preventing it. But that does not mean we need to try to emulate the famous (as is so natural).

Jeffrey Fox lays out "the rules to rise to the top of any organization" in How to Become CEO. Here are a few out of the 75.

• Keep Physically Fit
• Dress for a Dance
• Be Visible
• Learn to Speak and Write in Plain English
• Say Things to Make People Feel Good
• Look Sharp and Be Sharp
• The Concept Doesn't Have to Be Perfect But the Execution of It Does

I am quite sure that Fox is right that if we applied these we could rise to the top of any organization including the church. The Corinthians would have sent Paul the book. "Work on your appearance, Paul. Don't do manual labor. Charge higher fees. Try to be a bit more polished."

We could work on those things or instead we could learn to pray the Psalms.

1 Sam 16:7. But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart" (TNIV).

May God give us wisdom to do our tasks well - gathering wisdom wherever we may find it - from secular and Christian mentors and books. But may God also form us as people after his own heart so that we do the right tasks in the right way.

Comments

[mark]

great thoughts here. he notes there is nothing spiritual about his leadership. i wonder if he thinks there is anything anti-spiritual?Or if there is just some kind of neutral world of leadership. (i hear the fact-value split loud and strong here)..I think our feminist and liberationist friends would have a good deal to say in response to this article..peace!markmark

[John Mark]

I agree. Good thoughts.However, it seems to me that there is nothing wrong with taking care of your appearance, doing things with excellence, and learning to speak persuasively. Am I right in saying that it is only when these things become your exclusive focus or definition of a leader that they become wrong?Stanley and Winter might use different terms to refer to a Christian leader/minister, but I expect their definitions are quite similar. Both would condemn the leadership that Paul condemned - bragging, money focused leadership. Both would condemn the rather superficial characteristics given by Fox as the focus, but would affirm, them as reasonably good characteristics for a leader to exhibit. For instance, the practice of good hygiene is probably necessary for an effective pastor. :-)In the end, how is this a problem beyond the problem we/college students individually have of "hero" worship? Or maybe the question is "What (beyond being more careful in his un-nuanced desription of spiritual v. secular leadership) should Stanley do differently?"

[Andy Stanley]

Hi Andrew...I appreciated your response to the yet to be released article in Leadership Magazine. As you might have noticed, you are not the only one who has commented. The point that everyone seems to be missing is that there are many, many Christian business men and women who view their "secular" organizations as ministries. They pray... they give... they lead with intergrity... they leverage their leadership for kingdom purposes... and their bottom line is not money. It is ministry. They really believe that everything belongs to God. Novel concept.Everything I've read thus far... your comments excluded... demonizes business and business leaders. The assumptionseems to be that everything about business and business leadership is bad and stands in stark contrast to spiritual leadership...as practiced in the church. But every single ministry I know of receives 100% of their financial support from business...either directly or indirectly. What is distinctive about my leadership in the church? Dinstinct compared to who? Distinct compared to what? Christian business men and women who see their companies as kingdom building enterprises? Nothing. There is no distinction. I downloaded Bruce Winter's lecture. It kept dropping out. I guess I'll order the CD. In other words I guess I'll have to engage in commerce to get this message about the evils of secular leadership.Interesting.

[Andy]

Thanks for the comments above, Mark, John Mark and Andy. Mark is pointing out that while we may see something as neutral - it probably is biased by our perspective. John Maxwell says that leadership is just "influence." We should at least consider how our ideas of leadership have been influenced by military, athletic and business models. Perhaps the influence of Jesus would look quite different. John Mark captures my original glog comment very concisely. There are some practical issues like hygiene which we need to be aware of. But we must be wary of glorifying the best looking. There is a line and it is important that we discern a pragmatic consideration from a concession to our culture. Andy Stanley himself seems to have commented on the blog! Cool! Be careful what you are write, oh blogger, for you know not who is watching. Thanks, Andy for your comments. It is great to read that you are learning and grappling with the issues - even to the extent of trying to listen to Bruce Winter's provocative lecture. So sorry to hear it was dropping out on you. I right click the lectures and download them onto my computer all at once so I don't have to worry about it cutting out in the middle. I hope that helps. See my comments about listening to MP3's athttp://firstmovethyself.blogspot.com/2006/01/favorite-audio-sermon-and-lectures.htmlI think Andy Stanley is right in pointing out that if we criticize business-style leadership in the church, we perhaps need to stop taking money from business people! The truth is that we happily accept money from Christian business people because we expect that they are earning that money ethically. (Of course we need to continue to teach about this and not just assume it is happening). To say that an upstanding business person will have to leave all of their business sense at the door when they enter the church doesn't make sense. If we are thinking about Jeffrey Skilling of Enron and the Apostle Paul, there will definitely be differences in their leadership practices. However, Andy is saying that exemplary faithful Christian business owners look a lot like excellent pastors. They are humble (see Good to Great). They care about people. They are focused. They are positive. They are courageous. But I still think there are things that are practiced in ethical business - strong competition with your competitors for example - that are out of bounds for the church. And I think the goals of the church are more difficult to measure than those of a business. We must not just measure the ABC's (Attendance, Building, Cash) or even "souls won" but rather also the deep discipleship that is taking place in the lives of people. I'm thankful for Randy Frazee's attempt to measure discipleship in the Connecting Church with the Christian Life Profile and also the tools of Natural Church Development. Because of the difficulty in measuring God's work in people's lives, we should always be humble about what churches are "successful" and which aren't. See my comments on the megachurch at http://firstmovethyself.blogspot.com/2006/02/strengths-of-purpose-driven-church-and.html Thanks again Andy for weighing in.

[Anonymous]

The danger every public leader faces is the addiction of "success" marked by technique and efficency which both dehumanize people.Would a leader feel like they were in prison if they had no wealth, no leverage, no tried and true thing?I love Jesus because of his hiddenness (meekness). He led from beneath. He understood (stood under) everyone. His words were so far above and clear yet his ways were through every gutter. To teach on a mount and then heal a leper in the valley. He didn't even own a pillow. By all appearances, after that Last Supper, he seemed like a total failure.Too many leaders define their humanness by their role in society and so few of them define their humanness by their infinite resignation to the one human among the three persons of heaven.Three weeks ago I spent 12 hours counselling a brother and friend - a 30 year old software business leader ready to pawn off one of his companies for mega millions - he wanted to know why, since his teens, all his dreams have been coming true. I spent time taking down the dividing wall in his mind between business sense and kingdom come sense.A year ago I was sitting on a plane reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount when I saw a prominant politician sitting in first class. I was compelled to give that leader Bonhoeffer's book. The kingdom of God stands overagainst the petty kings of this world. Everybody is following somebody. And those who humbly follow Jesus Christ will have the kings of the world clinging to the hem of thier robes.More "Christian" leaders need to be kings without countries and authors without any claims.

[Andy]

There is quite an interesting discussion between Andy and his critics and supporters in September 2005 at Adam Cleaveland's blog. It seems Tim Keller also chimed in. http://cleave.blogs.com/pomomusings/2005/02/north_point_com.html

[Michael McKinney]

I think I understand Andy’s comments about there being nothing spiritual about his leadership and I agree with the point he’s trying to get at. Organizations need structure. Every organization we find in the Bible has a structure of some kind. It helps to eliminate confusion and keep things moving. However, people in those roles are to be or should be governed by God’s principles regarding relationships. When they don’t we have problems. As followers of God’s way, there should be something spiritual about everything we do regardless of the setting. Spiritual leaders must make “business” decisions as good stewards of what God has given them to work with. It is a skill can be learned and should be by anyone claiming to be a spiritual leader. There has to a balance. You can over-spiritualize just as you can over-secularize. Both have their pitfalls. In any event, my take on it would be to say that there’s something spiritual about what “secular” leaders are doing as well. I believe all leadership is spiritual. Many people dislike authority, let alone talk about it, yet all authority is derived from God. All of leadership is about relationships. God’s law and His book dictate how those relationships are to be governed. To the extent that we don’t make them a part of what we are doing we become less effective or downright bad leaders. Leadership itself is not complicated, but it is difficult to carry it out as God intended and apply it to our ever-changing contexts. God’s laws and principles apply and work in both secular and religious settings whether the participants know it, understand them or not. We have been created by Him and He’s knows what makes us tick and how we work.

[Jonathan Schellack]

Henri Nouwen's book "In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership" is divided into three sections: 1 "From Relevance to Prayer", 2 "From Popularity to Ministry", 3 "From Leading to Being Led". A basic point is that you need to serve to lead, and serving removes the importance of self-relevance, popularity, and accomplishment from the equation of being a leader. According to Nouwen, the process is very spiritual, as it involves much prayer, confession, forgiveness, and "theological reflection". Nouwen reflects, "Most Christian leaders today raise psychological or sociological questions even though they frame them in scriptural terms. Real theological thinking, which is thinking with the mind of Christ, is hard to find in the practice of the ministry. Without solid theological reflection, future leaders will be little more than pseudo-psychologists, pseudo-sociologists, pseudo-social workers."

The kind of leader leader being discussed is not one confined to a church, but is a Christian. Christian leadership, which is, by default, the best kind, requires a spiritual dimension. That does not require you to be a minister/pastor/priest. It does ask that the Christian leader, leading other Christians, focus on the spiritual on an individual basis.

Christ, of course, provides our best example of a leader. He could certainly talk to crowds in ways that would make business leaders and politicians envious. But Jesus was more than just a good speaker and teacher. What he taught and said was just as important.

Perhaps we are talking about two different kinds of leadership?