Leaders who Empower Others
One of my heroes in leadership is Admiral Chester Nimitz. Nimitz took over command of the Pacific Fleet soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor; he had to ascertain the situation quickly and develop a plan effectively to push back against Japanese aggressive expansion. Nimitz was soft-spoken, mild-mannered, and stoic in his expression. Yet he was one who knew how to spot individuals who could perform well under pressure; these individuals were often ones that others had overlooked.
Admiral Nimitz summarized his view on leadership succinctly: “Leadership consists of picking good men and helping them do their best.” In the Navy, fitness reports serve as your “report card,” and many live in fear of its Command Officer statements in block 41. But as biographer Craig Symonds stated, when Nimitz wrote an officer’s fitness report he “offered praise to all, often adding a note at the end about an officer’s potential. Then he showed the report to the officer in question, looked him in the eye, and told him that he expected him to live up to that assessment.” [1] Nimitz challenged and encouraged his people to live up to the potential that he saw within them, knowing he was going to have to continue guiding and leading to help them to grow.
I come from the Churches of Christ, a part of the Stone-Campbell Movement that began in the early 19th century. Within the Church of Christ polity, we have often lived into the concept of the “priesthood of all believers”—we eschew titles, referring to one another simply as “Brother or Sister,” and we don’t make a strong distinction between clergy and laity. Although that is our ecclesial approach, it often doesn’t work that way practically. Tasks like evangelism, teaching, serving, and leading are often seen as “the minister’s tasks.” Many ministers I have talked to don’t feel prepared or equipped for those tasks, and become nervous when called upon to perform them.
Often, our churches feel the same way. I was told recently that we wanted our church services to be “polished and professional,” so we should keep a tighter rein on who got to take part in Sunday morning services.
That mindset, however, makes the church into a service industry: you come to receive the worship service, and it better be polished; you come to hear the sermon, but it must always be erudite and novel (while also being tried and true!); you come to participate in worship, but mostly as recipients and not as integral participants. And when people are not challenged to become full participants in worship and ministry, they cannot fully participate in koinonia, the fellowship or sharing to which the church is called.
I believe this is why Paul wrote these words to the churches in Asia Minor:
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. [2]
As ministers, our main goal isn’t to prepare the perfect sermon, or to have a flawless worship service, or to always make sure that the praise team is perfectly able to cover eight parts or that the worship band is perfectly aligned or that the lights and fog machines are perfectly programmed to match the rise and fall of the music. (Although that is often the only thing that people notice or comment upon, and usually only when they think it is going poorly!) Instead, we are called to minister to God’s people, helping them to discover what it means to continue growing in faith. We work for the maturation of God’s people, helping them to grow in their Christlikeness in every aspect of their lives.
We see this in the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus picked disciples who were “unschooled, ordinary” men and women. [3] He called fishermen and tax collectors and day laborers, not the religious elite of his day. And Jesus then developed their potential over time. They became his apprentices, learning ministry from the Master. This apprenticeship often went by the following formula:
Jesus did, the disciples watched. Then they discussed.
Jesus and the disciples did together. Then they debriefed.
Jesus sent the disciples to do ministry, then they debriefed.
Jesus trusted the disciples to minister.
When ministers see Sunday morning as their main product, that becomes the only metric that matters… and our congregants often remain slow or stagnate in their own faith. We must continue to seek out new ways to invite others to minister alongside of us. We invite them to teach a class with us, or come and visit the hospital with us. We spend time teaching others how to craft a sermon… and sit through some mediocre ones with encouragement. We have to pick good people, and look for ways in which God has gifted them for the works of ministry. We have to help them become equipped for works of service. Only in so doing can we help people become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
[1] Craig Symonds, Nimitz at War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022; 10.
[2] Ephesians 4:11–16 (NIV 2011)
[3] Acts 4:13
