The Futureproof Leader
Poor leaders with too much time and too much money on their hands who have no idea how to reach a current lost generation, and no idea how to train their people to live in the Babylon of our big cities, and disciple them beyond an events-based ministry, won’t last. Not that they see it yet themselves. Or if they do they may be thinking like King Hezekiah, that at least it will be peace in their time. These are not leaders who are prepared for wartime. They are peacetime leaders.
The Need For Futureproof Leaders
In my new book Futureproof: How to Live for Jesus in a Culture That Keeps on Changing, I outline the manner in which the seismic shifts in the West are putting pressure on the church as well as the wider culture. And I point out how the church is equipped to deal with these pressures and changes in a way that the world is not. It is Jesus’ church after all.
But there’s a missing component in it, or at least something that I did not emphasise in the book, and that’s the topic of futureproof leadership – the types of leaders that the church is going to need as it goes forward.
Now that’s not to say that my book isn’t applicable to leaders in the church, as I run plenty of seminars for church leaders on the topic. However, it seems to me that the type of leader that the church will need going forward into the “away game” era of Christianity in the West is going to have to be different than in the “home game” era.
Futureproof Leaders Will Know Themselves
The biggest problem facing leadership in my theological tribe is the sheer lack of insight many current leaders have about their poor behaviour and problematic personalities. Too many leaders have low IQs, are insecure, insensitive and unwilling to think that they might need to change. They haven’t done the hard yards of personal self-examination.
But if you get to year fifteen of your ministry and you grumble about the fact that you can’t find good staff who stay for any length of time, then the problem might be you!
I say that off the back of some fairly unhelpful – and downright ungodly – examples of leadership within my own theological orb and experience over the past few years. Indeed the worst leadership examples I have seen, the most insecure and those displaying ungodly attitudes and behaviour, have been within my own tribe. At times it’s been shocking to hear the sheer self-interest and desperate deception being undertaken by terrible leaders whose main agenda is to self-justify and save their own position.
And as someone who has blown the whistle in a very public way in one such case, I have ended up being a person to whom many others who have fallen victim to such ungodly leaders, wend their weary way with equally familiar tales of woe. There’s nothing new or surprising about bad leadership stories. Nothing original.
Of course that’s not to say that such bad leadership is not to be found elsewhere and in other theological structures, and that I just haven’t seen or experienced it because I’m not familiar with other tribes. But it is to say this: the theologically reformed tribe to which I belong can often pride itself on its theological acumen, and not only on the acumen of their theology, but the safety that such acumen brings.
There’s often an implicit – sometimes explicit – understanding and it goes like this:
Now of course there’s some truth to that. Theology shapes practice. And it shapes your heart. But don’t underestimate your hard heart. And don’t underestimate your determination to use your good theology to justify your poor practise. I’ve heard the word “gospel” put in front of so many other words in order to shut down argument, reject correction, and control communities, that I’ve become suspicious of it being used. It’s become the tip of an iceberg that has sunk many a church community ship.
It’s simply not the case that once the North Star of theological orthodoxy is lined up, then the rest will pretty much sort itself out.
So you think your latent psychology, your upbringing, your unspoken expectations, your sinful assumptions, your subterranean drives, the types of people you can work with; all of that will follow in the train of your theological orthodoxy? Not true!
As I have experienced, and as I have heard from dozens of leaders and ex-leaders who have fallen under the wheels of the most theologically orthodox and ardent leaders they have ever known, yet who were at the same time, graceless, insecure, self-interested, greedy and vain, good theology is not enough.
Clearly it’s not enough. Character is so central. And two of the best preachers I have ever heard on an ongoing basis were completely lacking on godly character. Yet somehow their preaching gave them a hall-pass – for a time at least – among those who considered that the good (the public platform) somehow outweighed the bad (the private personality).
How we could ever come to that conclusion given how the God of the Bible constantly warns that he knows the heart, and that he will expose what is done in secret, is kinda beyond me. Yet we have done. And we continue to do.
The sheer shock people express at the huge gap between how they have been treated by a leader, and the leader’s platform or public ministry which ticks all of the theological boxes, is all too common. The questions are always the same: How did this person get into this senior leadership role? How did his or her peers turn a blind eye to allow this to happen? Why, if this person is supposed to be so godly and servant-oriented, are they so ungodly and so greedy for gain?
Now of course this has always been a risk for the church since Diatrophes in 3 John, who “likes to be first”. But from where I am sitting, it’s become an increasing problem. And at a time that the church can hardly afford it.
Futureproof Leaders Will Be Junkyard Dogs
But here’s the good news, I’m starting to meet a generation of leaderships – futureproof leaders – who won’t put up with these flabby vestiges of late Western Christianity. They’re realising that they’re going to have to be braver than many Christian leaders in the recent past.
Futureproof leaders in the churches that flourish will be more junkyard dog than thoroughbred. They won’t be waiting for the conditions to be right to go into leadership.
-
Reckoning with Tech
McLuhan’s darker pessimistic side gave him reservations about where our great global hookup was taking us. In his mind there were two possible destinations: Christ, or chaos. Toward the end of his life he contemplated how the Apocalypse might reckon with our new lightspeed visual technologies where new tribal chieftains would replace democratic-oriented politicians.
The doctrine of last things certainly has to reckon with all these things.[1]
The above quote comes from an interesting little paragraph in Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, “the concluding high point” of four centuries of Dutch Reformed reflection.[2] By “these things,” Bavinck means the technological developments in communication up into the early 20th century. He writes,
“The inventions of the past century—for the purpose of mutual contact, the exercise of community, hearing and seeing things at a great distance—have shrunk distances to a minimum; and it is likely that they are a mere beginning and prophecy of what will be discovered in the centuries ahead.”[3]
The new communication technologies during Bavinck’s life time (1854-1921) included telegraphy, the “wireless,” the telephone, the radio, and cinematography. As early as 1900 enthusiasts were even discussing the possibilities of something called “television.” That Bavinck relates the importance of these inventions to the coming apostacy, the Apocalypse, and the Parousia is . . . well, interesting. Humans have harnessed electricity to see and hear from afar; might this play some part in understanding John’s unique descriptions in his vision (e.g. the image of the beast)?
Bavinck contrasts these all-at-once technologies with the glorious appearance of Christ, an occurrence that includes a series of events: the resurrection of the dead, a meeting in the air, the defeat of Christ’s enemies, and the Judgment. Bavinck says all of this cannot possibly take place in one moment, but will probably happen within a 12-hour or 24-hour time span.[4]
Of course, one is hard pressed to believe that television is required to fulfill the prophecy that every eye shall see Him (Rev. 1:7). Yet while Jesus does not need television (despite what some televangelists might believe), the Beast of Revelation might make good use of it. For that matter, the antichrist might even benefit from the kind of surveillance technologies now being used in places like China.
Read More -
What Is a Liturgy?
The way a service is structured will inform the way we are structured. A God-centered and gospel-focused service will produce people who are the same. Corporate worship is one of the primary ways we behold the Lord and are “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).
I recall guest preaching at a church once and the blank stares I received from the congregation. Blank stares are never ideal, especially when you are a visiting preacher. I had said early on in the service, “I invite you to turn with me in your liturgies…” None accepted the invitation. No one turned. Then I realized the problem: we were lost in translation. I started again, “Turn in your bulletins…” There we had it!
Who Is Liturgical?
“Liturgy” does sound like a foreign word to some of us, and, in one sense, it is. It comes from the Greek leitourgia, which is a combination of two other words: people (laos) and work (ergon). Literally, a liturgy is a “work of the people,” or perhaps more helpfully, a “public service.” Therefore, at its most basic, “liturgy” refers to the order of a corporate worship service.
All churches from every denominational stripe have an order of worship. Sometimes we think “liturgical” is only a fitting adjective for churches that meet in cathedrals and still use Gregorian chant. Not so. If your church worships, it has a liturgy. Churches that claim to be “non-liturgical” still follow a pattern of worship. Maybe it begins with announcements, then singing, a sermon, and some more singing, before concluding with a sending prayer. That is a liturgy. “Liturgical,” therefore, is perhaps not the most helpful descriptor—much like “canine” would be a less-than-satisfying answer when someone asks what type of dog you have.
Since we are all liturgical, the question to ask is what kind of liturgy do we have? What should our services look like? While the Bible’s relative silence on this point offers latitude and freedom, the Reformed have sought to structure their services on key principles gleaned from Scripture. I will mention four.
Read More
Related Posts: -
Naomi Wolf Wants Us to ‘Face the Beast’
“We were not in a normal time of normal bad human politics and normal bad destructive material choices. I realized gradually that the degradation taking place on the material plane simply reflected or manifested a much larger battle—indeed a spiritual battle; one between Good and Evil themselves, and that God—whom till now I hesitated to mention in public—was of course central to what we were witnessing; and He is central, I slowly realized, to whether or not we will survive. And I discovered that it is only in human love, care, and intimacy, ultimately, that God lives, and moves in, and rescues, if they are to be rescued, our lives.”
It is interesting how some individuals make a radical about-face as they become aware of inconvenient truths and unpleasant realities. That was true of so many people who endured the Covid years. They came to see that something was not right, and that so much of what we thought to be true just wasn’t. They came to realise that they were being lied to. They were being conned.
Many such people can be mentioned, but American writer Naomi Wolf is certainly one of them. She has been on a real journey in this regard. In her brand-new book, Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith, and Resistance in a New Dark Age (Chelsea Green, 2023) she continues to speak out on vitally important issues that she has addressed in previous volumes.
For example, in 2007 she released The End of America, and in 2022 she came out with The Bodies of Others. See my review of that later volume here.
Everything that happened in 2020-2022 really turned her world even more upside down than it had been. Like so many others, she came to see that something very sinister – even Satanic – was happening. She had been such a key part of the woke, progressive left for so many years, but the Covid Wars made it clear that most of the left was NOT on her side anymore. Or rather, she was no longer on their side.
Her new book deserves a proper review, which I hope to do soon. But just alerting people to it, in the form of quoting from her Introduction, will have to suffice here. It alone is worth sharing far and wide. Early on she speaks of how the world changed, pre- and post-Covid. She says this about how things so radically changed:
This story begins in the “Before” world.
“Before” the years 2020 to 2022, when a set of policies based on abject lies posed an existential threat to our democracy and our way of life….
“Before” the Left – the subculture that used to stand for human rights, freedom of speech, real science, critical thinking, and skepticism about Big Government and Big Corporations, let alone about their merger, and that used to fight against discrimination and inequality—fell into a trance in which that same group became champions of censorship, and of a two-tier society in which some people, as the pigs declared in Animal Farm, are “more equal” than others; and fell prey to magical thinking and cultlike behavior.
“Before” the media—which used to see itself as the source of investigation of elite powers; which used to ask questions about received narratives; which used to demand that its journalists produce evidence and independent verification before drawing conclusions in print—were bought out by Big Government via the CARES Act, and by Big Pharma directly, and by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to the extent that almost all legacy media became unquestioning stenographers for interested parties aligned with the global powers who dictated the harmful nonsense.
I miss the “Before Times.”
She goes on to discuss in detail how she was cancelled by the very people and organisations she was once such a big part of:
The moment I began asking basic questions on my Twitter feed specifically about the novel mRNA injections—the kinds of questions I had asked for three decades about silicone breast implants; about high estrogen levels in birth control pills; about dangerous IUDs; about vaginal mesh, or industrial hospital birthing practices and high for-profit C-section rates—my bio changed everywhere, online, and all at once.
Read More
Related Posts:
