LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Assignment Title: The work of Christian leaders
Course: CHMN 699 - Internship
Student: Kristine Sage
Date: January 29, 2022
Professor: Dr. Joel Breidenbaugh
The work of Christian leaders
What a manager does in a business is not necessary what a Christian leader should be about. The
work of a Christian leader is to lead the people of God to the direction and the place where God want
them to go. Christ specifically warned about taking our leadership patterns from the outside world:
‘Those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them... not so with you.' The biblical
pattern of leadership is complex but can be seen as being grouped around four Lords: Servant;
Shepherd; Steward; and an overseer . Each word serves as a focus for a galaxy of other biblical ideas and
titles, and they are not independent of each other. There is considerable overlap between hem and it is
impossible to fit each idea precisely into place. They can be seen as four interlocking circles. Each word
lies on a continuum stretching from care for each person to concern for the corporate whole.
As we shall see some of the hardest decisions in Christian leadership come from the tension
between the various roles. For example a member of the congregation may be doing a job very badly.
For the good of the whole Body of Christ it is best for that person to be removed from that work, but as
minister you know that it will cause great pain. The Overseer says the member must go, while the
servant/shepherd says that he or she must stay and the other members of the congregation learn a
lesson in forbearance. Such decisions can tear the heart of any leader.
a. A Leader as a Servant
The towering verses in Mark 10:43-45 are part of the mental furniture of every Christian leader:
Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first
among you must be your slave. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many. But while this is a great truth, it is important to recognise that there
are more frequent references in the New Testament to the leader as a servant of God than there are to
him or her as a servant of people. While a mere totting up o texts is not definitive it indicates that there
is a balance which must be kept in mind. Otherwise the minister sees himself, and is seen by the
congregation, as being at the beck and call of everyone's demands, and tries to fulfil the expectations of
all. That way lays a subjugation of leadership to the democratic wishes of the people, or the tyranny of
every manipulator in the congregation. Christ's primary task was to ‘do his Father's work'; only
secondarily was he a servant of the people. There are a variety of ‘servant' words, each of which shows
us something of this role of the minister.
Jesus Christ himself exemplifies both: he rules with power “far above all rule and authority and
power and dominion” (Eph.1:21), but he also stoops down to wash the feet of his disciples (John 13). We
can see this same example of power combined with servanthood in the role of parenting. In their
relationship with children, parents have authority that includes right and power; good parents also love
their children with a servant love, and use their authority through this love. Authority, power, and
servant love, all properly understood, are not set over against each other in the New Testament—and
thus should not be set over against each other in discussions of leadership (Matt. 20:25-28).
The New Testament emphasis upon servant leadership reminds leaders to be careful in their
exercise of power and authority. Leaders must realize the ways that positions of leadership can
inherently create an imbalance of power, and must take seriously their responsibility to exercise power
as servants of the one who has all power and authority.
In John 13:14 Jesus makes it clear that those who follow Jesus must practice his servant love: “So if
I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.” In
Ephesians 5:1-2, Paul calls believers to imitate God in his self-giving actions: “Therefore be imitators of
God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant
offering and sacrifice to God.”
Leadership in Christ's church must be different from the Gentiles' “lording it over” approach to
leadership. The goal of servant leaders is to love and serve those they lead by helping them find and
productively use their gifts in the ministry of the body. Leadership in the church is essentially and
radically a matter of servanthood, love, forgiveness, redemption, sacrifice, justice, and obedience. The
principle for leadership selection is that the leader should consider the giftedness of emerging leaders;
spiritually, emotionally, and personally
b. Church Leader as a Shepherd
One of the greatest roles of a Christian leader is to be a shepherd. The New American Standard
Bible defines Shepherd as “a caretaker or tender of sheep and goals15. They are trained to be the pastors
who care, guide and counsel. One would note that the image of shepherd as leader would have been
perfect, given that many of the “Israelites were sheep farmers and knew exactly what the job of a
shepherd entailed16. It is the traditional word of the Christian minister, and it is the one which is most
expected by others. It has deep roots. To understand the nature of leader as shepherd, scholars have
asserted that shepherd metaphorically represents “God the Father, Jesus and the leaders of a
congregation who help the flock to feed on the Word of God and protect them from false teachers and
unsound doctrine. The Pastor as a shepherd never fail, in rain or thunder, in sickness or distress, will
tend, visit, and shepherd his flock with staff in his hand.
One could argue that the metaphorical use of shepherd throughout scripture points to the
leadership style required by God of those he places in positions of authority. Therefore, as a shepherd
one presumes an authority over those being shepherded. If one were to refer back to the NASB
definition, one could argue that shepherd leadership includes organizational goals. The pastor's
responsibility is ‘to feed and provide for the Lord's family; to seek for Christ's sheep that are dispersed
abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through
Christ for ever', has a well-understood and honoured role in history. The need for pastoral care is even
greater in the modern world. The increase in divorce and unemployment, the turbulent place of change
and changing political attitudes, all leave their wake an increasing and demanding army of the ‘walking
wounded', those who cannot cope and who have emotional and personal needs which cannot be met
within normal medical services and family context. Indeed the Christian church should be a haven for
such folk, for a church should be a place of love. The church will be a lighthouse beckoning such people
to the love of Christ expressed in the people of God.
Indeed I find that a good indicator of the reality love in a congregation is the proportion of such
people in the congregation. If everyone is competent, well-adjusted, pleasant and undemanding, it
suggests there is little love, or the ‘walking wounded' would have been more in evidence, for every
social group has many. It is likely that the national position is not going to change, except for the worse.
To take only one example; it has been found that the children of divorced parents are three times more
likely to be divorced themselves: what will the next generation be like?
Throughout scripture, there are many examples of God giving authority for a specific purpose. In
reading scripture, one could argue that one would need authority to become a shepherd over those in
which they would lead. For example, starting in Exodus 3:1 we find Moses who was “pasturing the flock
of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness
and came to Horeb, the mountain of God17. From this scripture, one will note the authority given Moses
by his father-in-law over the flock. To parallel this idea of authority, one can look to the later dialogue
between God and Moses in Exodus 3:10 in which God says, “Come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh,
so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel out of Egypt.”
Moses already obtained the needed skills to lead the Israelites out of Egypt through his upbringing
in Pharaohs palace as well as his experience shepherding the flock of sheep belonging to Jethro. Further,
2 Samuel 5:2 illustrates the authority given Moses to shepherd as leader by stating, “And the Lord said
to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will be a ruler over Israel The idea that Jesus show
of the shepherd leaving the 99 in the wilderness and going in search of the individual ‘until he finds it', is
so powerful that we tend to think that the duty of the shepherd is primarily to look after the individual:
this is reinforced by the individualism of much western thinking. But the overwhelming balance of the
whole Bible is to see the shepherd as being particularly concerned with the corporate, the flock rather
than the individual sheep. Comparatively, Matthew 9:36 states, “Seeing the people, He [Jesus] felt
compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd18. The
scriptures capture the idea of leading, serving and providing a covering of safety for those whom God
gave responsibility over. In many Old Testament passages the ‘shepherd’ is the king of the nation who
cared for the whole. In the New Testament, apart from the parable of the lost sheep, every other
passage speaks of the shepherd looking after the flock; and in many the prevailing idea is of the
shepherd sacrificing himself to carry out the task: The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
(John 10:11)
The concept of shepherd leadership, one notes the need to serve others. Shepherding appears on
the surface to be in conflict with the worldview definition of leadership. To understand shepherding
leadership one must understand and define servant leadership. A servant leader is that of a leader who
“seeks to serve, and that this serving is a natural component of the leader. Ezekiel illustrated this notion
through the idea of taking care of the flock, strengthening them and protecting them. One can look to
Isaiah 40:11, which states that, “Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the
lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.”19
Jesus charges his leaders “ be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own
blood... savage wolves will come among you”. (Acts 20:27) Be shepherds of God’s flocks that is under
your care... eager to serve... being examples to the flocks (1Pet. 5:2) It is seen as a high calling that
demands much Christian leaders are to “ pastor those who are most in need’. But this can too soon
become a matter of giving most pastoral care to those who demand it most frequently and most
insistently.
Notes
New American Standard Bible (2000).
2 John W. Gardner, On Leadership.
3 Means, James E.1989: p60. Leadership in Christian Ministry. Grand Rapids
4 Hemphill JK, Coons AE 1957: p7, Development of the leader behaviour description questionnaire.
In RM Stogdill and AE Coons (Eds),Leader behavior; Its description and measurement.
5 Suber. C, 2010, Philosophy of Christian Leadership; the Influence of Vision — The Supremacy of
Influence
6 Washington Gladden et al., The Christian Pastor And Working Church (New York, New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons,1911), 176.
7 Berkely D James, Leadership Handbook of Management and Administration, (Grand Rapids
Michigan: Baker Books), 2007, 20
8 Ibid., 4
9 Ibid., 9
10 Berkely D James, Leadership Handbook of Management and Administration, (Grand Rapids
Michigan: Baker Books), 2007, 20
11 Maxwell, John C , et al. Developing The Leader Within You, (Nashville,Tennessee: Thomas Nelson,
1993),
12 Galloway, 20/20 Vision, 90.
13 Berkely D James, Leadership Handbook of Management and Administration, (Grand Rapids
Michigan: Baker Books), 2007, 4.
14 Richard W. Clinton presents six characteristics for potential leaders: Appetite for the Word of
God; Orientation toward applying the Word of God; Orientation toward righteousness; Orientation
toward prayer; Orientation toward healing from God; and A selfstarting orientation (1996:34-36).
15 New American Standard Bible (2000). Holy Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
16 Van Vuuren, Gerrit (2010), “The Leadership Style of Jesus Christ Part 2.” Retrieved September 19,
2010 from http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/The-Leadership-Style-Of-Jesus-Christ-part-2-/1503509
17 New American Standard Bible (2000). Holy Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
18 NASB
19 NASB
