Jim Collins wrote a great business book called “Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap….and Others Don’t.” It’s one of my favorite books. It was written based on actual data from well-known companies and explains why some companies no longer exist (or have lost a lot of market presence) and others have become mega-companies. The reasons he gives may surprise you.

It's about the people, not the products, not the infrastructure, not the money or assets or financial resources (although all of that helps). It’s about the people, and specifically the leaders. If you have the right leadership, with the right attitudes, success happens. Go figure.

I would dare to say that the same thing is true in the church and I want you to indulge me for a moment in a brief comparison of the kinds of leaders it takes to make a great company and see if it doesn’t ring true also for churches (and all kinds of organizations).

The main thing that Jim Collins talks about is the need for Level 5 Leaders to lead your company into greatness. One of his chapters is called “First Who….Then What.” Isn’t that what we have been talking about all along. There are a lot of similarities between a L5 Leader in a great company and an Anointed Leader in the church. But I want to point out just one thing that makes all the difference in the world.

An L5 Leader is more interested in the success of the company than in his own career. That frees him from the entanglement of politics. He also surrounds himself with potential L5 Leaders who are on their way and need to be mentored into positions of leadership. He looks for them and incorporates them into his team even if there isn’t a position available for them yet. They are too valuable to pass up.

An Anointed Leader is more interested in the “success” of his church than in his own career, his own reputation, his own needs. Lee Iaccoca is a great negative example of what is not an L5 Leader. Perhaps I’m dating myself, but I remember when he took over Ford and balanced the books by firing a bunch of people. He became famous. He was on all the talk shows and everybody thought of him as the golden boy. But the truth is that all he did was solve an immediate problem and the company got into trouble again quite quickly. But he moved on to another lucrative position, leveraging his fame into a lucrative career.

Not so the L5 Leaders, most of whom you have never heard about, but you know the stories of their companies – Gillette, Circuit City, Hasbro (to name just a few). Other companies, like Kodak, actually created the first digital camera but refused to commercialize it because they believed that their company was about selling “film” rather than selling “memories.” We all remember getting our film developed at a Kodak store, don’t we? Well, some of us do.

There is so much more to say about L5 Leaders and what they do to create a great company that can help church leaders as well. I recommend reading it from cover to cover. But I want to go in a bit of a different direction for this post. Bear with me for a moment.

The one thing that confused me about Jim Collins book is that he never explains how a company came to hire an L5 Leader in the first place. It sounded like some of them got lucky and some of them did it on purpose. Some companies had Boards that had to be totally overhauled after they hired their L5 Leaders and some had Boards that were already functioning well and just had to have a tune up (with maybe one or two replacements). The issue is the Board.

The same thing is true in the church. The Board hires the pastor, even though the pastor leads the Board. Sometimes God brings you just the right person but most of the time, the Board is as clueless as the Pastor they are trying to hire about the kind of attitudes, abilities and vision the Pastor (and the Board) must have to create an effective church ministry.

If I ever get a chance to ask Jim Collins that question, I will. I think it is absolutely key to figure out how to motivate a Board to hire the right kind of L5 Leader or Anointed Pastor. It isn’t as easy as you might think, especially if the Board has no idea what it is doing (which is often the case in business as well as in the church).

So, I want to ask the Elders a few questions just to get the ball rolling. After all, it starts with them. Perhaps they are the ones that need to become anointed leaders first, then they might recognize an anointed pastor when they see him or her. These questions are just “getting started” questions and there are better ones to ask and more things to say. All of that will come. But if the elders and deacons (or whoever makes up the Board) isn’t on the road towards anointing, then all is lost before it even begins.

By now you must realize that when the Bible talks of ministry and leadership, it includes you.

Perhaps you aren’t the Pastor or a teacher of the Word, but you are involved in ministry. Through your life, through your spiritual conversations, through your spiritual gifts, you have a ministry. A Life Ministry. Your discipleship is practical. And so it should be. You are already a leader, influencing others for Christ.

And it is likely that at some point your efforts will be recognized as useful in the role of an elder or deacon in the church. You are already a leader but your sphere of influence may be limited or may be outward-focused. If you are being called to serve in the role of an elder or deacon in the church, it is a specific calling. We call it church leadership but that is a misnomer.

It’s true, of course, on a church-wide basis but it is also true that there are many spheres of influence and leadership both within and without the church. We do not want to fall into the trap of thinking that there is only church-wide leadership and that the rest of us are simply not leaders, only disciples. That would be unbiblical thinking.

In the NT, we are all prophets, priests, and kings and we must act like it. However, some people are called to a church-wide leadership position because they have been recognized as spiritually mature and functioning within their limited sphere of influence as leaders already. Yes, they could have some creational leadership skills in business and the like but it is spiritual leadership that matters most here.

So, before you embark on that journey, I have a few questions for you.

Beyond the general maturity in Christ expected from all leaders, a few more questions might reveal the beliefs and values you hold on to when the going gets rough. Many other questions could be added, but these get to the essence of whether or not you are ready for spiritual warfare and have some idea of what the strategic and tactical plan of God is in the context of the church.

Spiritual Focus

1. What is the purpose of leadership in the church? Is the idea to simply support the Pastor in whatever he wants to do (a leader with a thousand helpers) or to help prepare the people to do the ministry? Is the role of an elder, deacon, or Board member a spiritual role or an administrative one? Can administration (stewardship) be done in a spiritual manner? If so, how? What is the focus of your ministry as a leader? Is it different from your life ministry? If so, how? What makes the church special in terms of its role in the kingdom of God? What is the focus and purpose of the ministry of the church that you can’t find anywhere else? Do you know how to have a spiritual conversation? Do you know what the goal of the conversation is and how to get there? How fundamental is prayer to that goal? What is your prayer life like?

Spiritual Maturity

2. Is it possible for a leader of the church, one who truly loves God and has good intentions, to make fundamental and dangerous mistakes in morality, life, and spiritual management of the church and be blind to it? Which things are essential for every Christian (and even more so for a leader) to protect them from the ignorance, blindness, and willfulness of the flesh?