The eCrozier

Justin Lewis-Anthony’s new book, You are the Messiah and I should know: Why Leadership is a Myth (And probably a heresy), wins my award for the longest book title of the year. His previous book was entitled: If You Meet George Herbert on the Road, Kill Him. He’s got the provocative title thing down cold. In that previous book he challenged readers to redefine how clergy should lead their congregations (the title gave away his thesis that we should not lead as George Herbert led). In this book, he creates a straw man of leadership as defined in western culture (a whole chapter on John Wayne alone, oh my!) and then he proceeds to tear down that straw man. OK, we get it.

Lewis-Anthony suffers from the same problem with leadership that the Occupy Wall Street movement did, to wit, it is by definition a bad thing (or in Lewis-Anthony’s case, a heresy). I’m the first one to agree that many leadership practices, past and present, in the church and in the world, are wrong-headed and don’t reflect the virtues of God’s Kingdom as declared in Jesus’ Gospel, but the reason the Occupy Wall Street movement fizzled and the reason many of our congregations are not thriving is not because leadership is a heresy. Rather, it is because our clergy and congregational leaders are not equipped with the requisite skills to lead effectively in a post-Christian context; a context that requires them to jettison their role as a chaplain to a declining church.

Our Church’s seminaries are still training clergy to serve congregations (See: Lake Wobegone Episcopal Church) that rarely exist anymore. So, new clergy aren’t sufficiently prepared to serve most of our congregations. Most seminary professors have little experience in leading congregations and they serve up an academic/theory based approach rather than an experiential/action one where those in training must actually develop the capability to do what they are primarily called to do: lead people in God’s mission of making disciples and making a difference in the world. Our seminaries have absolutely no accountability in our system for the clergy they produce. Until there is accountability there’ll be no change. We simply can’t have another generation of clergy who are trained to be congregational chaplains and grief managers for further decline.

Our clergy need to have the spiritual depth and practical training to resist the chaplaincy role thrust upon them by congregations who just want their priest to take care of them. Religion, across the board, has become utilitarian for more and more of its adherents for the purpose of creating lives of contentment and happiness. So, this demand for chaplaincy will only increase. We need clergy who won’t get sucked into that role. Rather they must train the baptized (who have the spiritual gifts) to be caregivers so the clergy can be freed up to lead the whole congregation in disciple and difference making.

In reading the Gospel, Jesus seems quite unconcerned with his disciples’ contentment and happiness or even if they have the correct doctrinal position. Rather, he’s most concerned that they inculcate in themselves God’s one-way love, which we call grace, and then live sharing that one-way love in their lives. In order to make this crystal clear, Jesus incarnated God’s one-way love on the cross. We need one-way love leadership.

+Scott