The brother in Christ, a long-standing and faithful member of the church in another country, was not seeking confrontation or conflict. He only wanted clarification. “What is this thing called leadership that you are talking about?” Where does the Bible use the word? [Good question, and worthy of a thoughtful, well reseached answer!]
Leadership (and leader) are relatively recent in origin and common use, and the meaning of the words has been influenced by secular uses more than biblical concepts. I spend a lot of time in Latin America presenting seminars. One purpose of the seminars is to help develop mature Christians in local congregations so that the congregations can be biblically organized. I describe these as seminars focused on congregational and spiritual development. Sometimes I use the phrase leadership development to describe these seminars, but I wish there was another word. I wish there was another word because what I mean by developing leaders is not what many hear. I wish there was another word because many aspects of leadership as the word is used in the modern (and post-modern) world are unbiblical. [Another claim that deserves a more detailed explanation!]
In the next few days, I will post a few blogs to deal with these and other “leadership” concerns in the contemporary church.
What difficulties have you encountered? Many of the problems in local churches are related to how we understand “leadership.” What problems have you personally encountered?