If you haven’t seen Mark Riddle’s piece titled Not Making It Happen, it’s definitely worth reading and discussing. Riddle, a long-time student minister/author, wrote the article for YS a couple of weeks back aimed at youth pastors, but IMO it’s great for all of us in ministry.
Somewhere along the way, we’ve bought into the lie that our job is to ‘make things happen’. To build programs, to attract people in the name of ministry, or to build the Kingdom. We’ve believed that our success or failure is tied to our ability to motivate people and move them through our self-erected plans and dreams in the name of vision. (I’m paraphrasing Riddle). The bottom line is we are infatuated with visionaries who can make things happen.
He’s right. Part of the reason I love being a Youth Pastor (and love worship, for that matter) is to see creative ideas take form and feet. The problem is that the vast majority of us are evaluated by how efficiently you bring others on board with your ideas and visions…and how well you produce results. After all, you’re only as good as your last camp, right?
But this understanding of leadership is deeply flawed and destructive, with unintended consequences including isolation, entitlement, and passivity that enables the congregation to abdicate their God-given responsibility to staff leaders…who gladly take it.
We have to understand something.
You aren’t called to make things happen in your church.
Of course, you may get paid by your local church to make things happen, but God’s not calling you to build it all, sustain it all, and convince others to carry it all out.