Actual Leadership

There's a wide gulf today between the type of church leadership that is celebrated and the type of church leadership that is actually working.

On the one hand an authoritative form of leadership is popular. To succeed, according to legend, you need a super strong pastor and a super strong elder board and a super strong pastoral team who makes all of the decisions so that people in the pews can just come to church and know that the people they trust have everything under control.Ideally, it operates like The Donald. What Mr. Pastor says goes and his lieutenants act on his direction.Go ahead, put on your best Seth Meyers or Amy Poehler, and say REALLY. I mean... really?Isn't it odd that we would never accept that type of leadership outside of the church?I dare you to try that with your spouse. Or your kids. Or a soccer team. Or anything that isn't leading people out of a burning building.Fear is a short term motivator. And when you try to power play or hoodwink people to get what you want done you simply erode trust.Authoritarian leadership in the church is a fable. That's not how people are lead today. And it certainly isn't how you lead a revolution which will change people's hearts.Actual leadership comes when you surrender your power over people and ask them to come alongside you. 

• It's collaborative.
• It's simple, based on mutual love and respect.
• It's agenda lacks manipulation.
• It's freeing.
• It inspires dreams that are big and audacious.

That's actual leadership. Leadership which moves people and changes things.And there are lots of examples of this in the church today. So let's celebrate and recognize THAT.Welcome to The Youth Cartel. Where we will celebrate that.