Leadership Crisis in the Church

As a church ministry team consultant I regularly talk with pastors about the challenges they face in ministry. As with any profession there are certain themes that seem to always be near the surface.

George Barna has done an exceptional job of noting trends and areas of interest for church leaders. His latest book focuses on some of the key issues leaders face in 2009-2010

The Barna Group, the gold standard of Church life recently released a powerful study on Church Leadership. Here is a sample with a link:

According to the research, the specific behaviors that leaders do most poorly include:

* Negotiating agreements that maximize benefits at minimal cost

* Attracting new resources to the organization – especially human and financial capital

* Developing and implementing individualized developmental plans for emerging leaders

* Nurturing robust relationships with existing colleagues, demonstrating sufficient care and attention to their needs

The research also discovered that leaders sometimes perceive themselves to be more effective at specific aspects of leading than their performance suggests. A prime example relates to vision. While an overwhelming majority of leaders believes that they are very effective at using the organization’s vision as their chief decision-making filter, the study found that one of the greatest weaknesses of most leaders is relying on the vision to protect the organization from over-commitment. “Leaders tend to point to their vision as the reason to say ‘yes’ to opportunities,” explained George Barna. “But our research showed that there is much less willingness to use the vision as a reason to say ‘no’ to opportunities that are not in the best interests of the organization.” Link to the article