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Greg Colley's avatar

An arrow through a keyhole, huh? And I thought I need to get a life.

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David Feiser's avatar

Interesting article on partnership in the office. As a pastor, I’ve seen this in ministry for years, although the majority of my “business” experience has been with volunteers (and that does bring with it its own set of factors and limitations). While this particular model was nowhere in mind twenty plus years ago, when I was a youth pastor, I made “partnership” a goal because that was the model I was essentially trained in when I was a volunteer and then an intern in college. Empowering my volunteer youth leaders, sharing vision, sharing credit and taking blame? These were regular parts of how I treated those who volunteered to do ministry to youth and their families. And I’ve tried to carry that over in my position as senior pastor, working with Elders, as well as “regular” volunteers.

I’ve found that this sort of organic form of leadership and team building is natural in the church for two (there may be more, but it’s Monday morning; so, …) main reasons. First, in the Christian traditions I’ve the most experience in (Anglican and Presbyterian), we view Jesus Christ as the head of the Church. Pastors are understood to be under-shepherds, who serve the local church. Second, we are literally given an organic model for the local church (along with many others) — the church as a human body, where again, Jesus Christ is the head, and everyone in the local church is a different part of the body (cf. the New Testament book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 12). By way of a necessary caveat, when you’re actually looking at the local church in real time, it’s obviously going to be at least as messy as the Apostle Paul made it out to be, because we’re talking about real people and the baggage each of us brings with us — and then factor in American hyper-individualism, and oye!!! But I digress.

It’s a good model, and when practiced consistently and well, it makes for a better, healthier, and nurturing environment.

Thanks for sharing this, Bill.

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