Chapter One The Uniqueness of Missionary Leadership The world is changing. In order to keep current in our world the church must also change. It must continually reevaluate, refocus, and readjust. Our message is a never-changing message of grace and love, but the methods we use to communicate that message must be fresh and current. In the face of these changes, many of our stereotyped images of the missionary must change. Mission agencies are caught in the never-ending circle of change, both on the field and on the home end. Many developing countries have made massive leaps forward in economy, culture, and technology. At the same time, young people in our home countries have new values and focus. Along with this, the traditional sending nations have now been joined by a host of new nations that are now sending out fresh new waves of young missionaries. The world has gone global, and now missions must become global in order to effectively communicate the gospel message to a world that increasingly thinks globally.

Globalization

The traditional team of western missionaries, all from the same culture and denominational background is quickly becoming a thing of the past. New missionary teams are increasingly multi-ethnic, multinational, and multi-denominational. They contain young and old, males and females, couples and singles, and experienced and novice. The job of leading these new missionary teams is tough for organizational issues, cultural issues, personal issues, and theological viewpoints can become confused and confusing. Leaders who are unprepared and untrained for such a task may eventually find their job of leadership an unbearable burden.

My own experience with WEC International has allowed me to participate in teams that were made up of missionaries from a wide variety of ethnic, national and denominational backgrounds. The team that I am currently working with is made up of nine nationalities, as diverse as American, Brazilian, British, Canadian, German, Singaporean and New Zealanders. Our ethnic backgrounds stem from Mennonite, Chinese, Hindi, Brazilian, Scottish, American, Canadian, German and more. Some WEC teams have had over fourteen nationalities serving on them.

In the last few years, our mission organization, WEC International, has grown to contain over forty nationalities, with less than 25% of the missionary force coming from North America. The fastest growing sources for new missionaries are now countries such as Nigeria, India, Brazil, Indonesia and Korea. The day of the American missionary is quickly coming to an end, and is being replaced by an era of global cooperation. This trend has been welcomed in some circles and is being resisted in others. Nevertheless, no matter how great the resistance, the writing is on the wall. Almost every church denomination around the world has gone global. Our churches are filled with people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Even churches that were traditionally from one ethnic background have changed. For example, there are now more Mennonites with brown skin or from Chinese descent than there are Mennonites from a traditional Dutch/German background.

Therefore, no matter where you turn, if you are serving as a missionary, the chances are you will be serving in a multi-ethnic and perhaps a multi-denominational team. Can this new globalization of missions be considered positive? Some give a resounding yes answer, and some see only the difficulties. To see a list of some of the advantages and disadvantages of working with international teams, turn to Appendix 2.

Secularization

Along with the globalization of missionary teams, another recent trend has emerged in missionary leadership circles. During the past fifteen years I have noticed increasing numbers of Christian leaders turning to secular leadership styles. Most of this thinking originated in the USA where special organizations developed to study how to better lead America's huge corporations. These organizations have produced leadership teachings that have slowly been adopted by a growing number of missionary leaders. In doing so increasing numbers of Christian leaders are beginning to confuse and mix business leadership styles and principles with Christian leadership styles and principles as taught in the Bible.

The secular marketplace and even the Christian marketplace are full of excellent books on management and leadership. Secular books and many Christian books however, approach leadership and management from a western business perspective. This works fine for business.

However, the globalization of today's Christian world and the inclusion of Christian workers from non-western, non-business backgrounds compel us as Christians to reexamine our understanding of the Christian leader. Many Christian organizations are expanding from being western oriented or eastern oriented and become increasingly globally oriented, they face the problem of how to develop leadership that meets the needs of this new globalization. The task, however, is not to define some new type of leadership style, but to discover basic Biblical principles that both east and west can accept and operate from.

In this book I will attempt to introduce some Christian leadership principles from a Biblical perspective, and then examine some of the issues that have come to my attention during my years as a full time Christian worker.

As I researched this topic, I was amazed at the amount of material available to leaders and managers today. Upon further study I began to realize that a great deal this material is applicable only to the business place. The needs of missionary leaders, especially those leading volunteer missionaries are very different from leaders and managers who can hire and fire employees according to corporate need.

And so I began to collect clippings and notes to help me get a better grasp of what it means to lead a group of volunteer missionaries. In time, the clippings and notes were gathered together, and eventually this book began to take place. I trust that what I have written here will be of help to those trying to sort through the many schools of leadership and management thought.

Understanding Some Terms

There are many types of Christians serving in ministry. Some are employed by Christian organizations and their relationship with their organization is very similar to an employee/employer relationship. There are many good books for leaders of employed workers in the market place. On the other hand many Christians minister as volunteers (such as most Sunday school teachers or evangelistic teams). These people work for nothing or they may receive a small stipend to help with their needs. Below I have illustrated this with a list showing the two extremes: employed and volunteer.

 

1. Employed Missionaries

2. Paid Missionaries

3. Faith Missionaries

4. Volunteers

In the middle, (between number one and four) are many mission organizations with their complex systems of raising and paying support to their missionaries. Some of these mission organizations are very similar to employers. They collect money from their supporters and pay their missionaries. A percentage is skimmed off to run the central operation. Some of these organizations use their missionaries as fund-raisers. Rather than have the organization raise support for the missionaries, the missionaries themselves have to raise their own support and they also have to pay the home office for the privilege of being a member of that particular organization. This is done through a system of levies or deductions for administration. This payment can vary from a small percentage to over thirty percent in some organizations. However you calculate it, in this book I will classify these as Paid Missionaries. There is another group of missionaries, which I consider Faith Missionaries. These missionaries and their organizations trust God for their daily needs. The amount that these missionaries receive varies from month to month. They do not pay their organizations, but rather the mission organization does all it can to support the workers on the field and stands with their workers in seeing them receive an adequate amount of support each month. These I call Faith Missionaries. In practice, various organizations fall somewhere on this line, and where they fall varies according to who is doing the evaluation.

Along with this, there are a wide variety of organizational structures. Some organizations make all the decisions at the top of a pyramid-like structure, while others have empowered local teams to make decisions. Whatever the structure, most Christian organizations desire to know the will of God for their organization and for the daily work of their missionaries. In the western world, in the last several decades, Christian organizations that have given freedom and empowerment to local teams to discover God's leading for their ministries have experienced an unprecedented popularity with Christian young people. My tendency in writing this material is to focus on these kinds of groups.

Please understand that in this book I am not suggesting that anyone change their organizational structure. However, recent studies in the business world have indicated that organizations that empower local teams are far more successful than those who dictate policies from a head office.

It has also been my observation that organizations on the top of the list above tend to be more centrally structured, while organizations on the bottom seem to have more success in empowering local teams.

The Task

Leading a team of volunteer Christian workers can be challenging, difficult, and immensely rewarding. It can be challenging because there are few good role models that we are all acquainted with and few good practical Christian resources available. It can be difficult because it usually means bringing together highly motivated people, each with their own vision, and molding them into a team with a single vision. It can be very rewarding because many Christian workers are the kind of people who set out to do the impossible against incredible odds, and when a team is successful the elation and sense of fulfillment can be tremendous.

The great challenge for Christian leaders is to know how to go about the task of bringing these diverse people together, finding the will of God together, and keeping people focused on the task until God directs differently. I believe this requires that we understand the Biblical perspective of leadership and that we apply good leadership principles, as found in the scriptures, and as the Lord (and common sense) leads us.

In the business world, leaders and managers can use leadership and management principles to build effective teams of people. Life in the missionary world is quite different. The two lists below illustrate the challenge that missionary leaders can face.

In the Business World

• Leaders provide and promote vision.
• Leaders direct people.
• Employees do the company wishes and pursue company goals. Companies pay lip service to employee vision.
• Leaders recruit team members.
• Leaders can recruit high performers for their teams.
• Leaders promise benefits to performers.
• Leaders promise good working conditions.
• Leaders can provide rewards now.
• Leaders can fire people for poor performance, but have little to say about their moral life.
• Employees usually work for a salary and expect regular raises.
• Leaders can try any of the latest leadership fads to see if they work.

In the Missionary World

• The Holy Spirit provides the vision.
• The Holy Spirit directs people.
• Volunteers often come with a ready-made vision and are looking for teams with similar vision and values.
• Leaders must work with those God provides.
• God gives benefits to performers.· Most missionary organizations have difficult working conditions.
• God gives rewards in heaven.
• Leaders can fire people for poor moral life but struggle to know what to do with poor performers.
• Workers often volunteer, might raise their own support and usually work for reasons other than money or rewards.
• Leaders must test all leadership material against Biblical principles.

As you can see, the challenges of being a missionary leader are quite different than those faced by a typical leader in the business world.

Who can be leaders?

Have you ever noticed how many people are attracted to the idea of being a leader? Just mention choosing a leader and most everyone seems ready to be nominated.

Imagine a schoolyard full of children. The teacher announces that they will now choose two leaders. Hands quickly rise all over the schoolyard.

"Choose me miss, choose me" they all beg. As there are obviously too many volunteers, the teacher decides to take a different approach. "OK, someone nominate a leader for us."

In a moment the schoolyard is silenced. Everyone stands numbly, with hands at their sides, waiting for their friends to nominate them. Sensing that this approach is not going to work, the teacher tries a different tack. She picks two children from the crowd. They are her favorites. She knows that they will do a good job and will obey her instructions. Now that two leaders have been chosen, the children can form into two teams.

Why is it that we are so attracted to the concept of leadership? Why are `successful people' listed in magazines most often leaders? Somehow we have developed the idea that leaders are better than others, or more successful than others, or simply that leadership is more desirable than being a team player. After all, leaders get to make the decisions. If things go well, they get the credit. If things fail, they often blame others. Perhaps the most telling thing is that leaders usually get paid more!

There is another side to the story as well. I remember as a young boy, learning that my brother Tom had been asked to be the supervisor of his work crew. I was surprised when I learned he had turned down the offer.When I asked him why, he replied "It isn't worth the bother. They'll pay me 50 cents an hour more, and I take all the blame. In the morning I have to drive around and make sure everyone is out of bed. I have to get thee drunks up and get them going. Then when someone on the crew makes a mistake, I take the blame. It isn't worth it. Why do you think the position is open?"

After that I began to notice how varied people were on the subject of leadership. Obviously some people are not interested in being leaders. They prefer the quiet life away from the decisions and the action. This is very understandable, as leaders are responsible for making decisions and seeing that they are carried out. This is often the part of leadership that leaders struggle with. Consequently the west has developed patterns of leadership that allow a leader to hide behind a committee. This makes the leadership task much easier, but is it biblical? We will have a chance to look at this in Chapter six.

But can anyone be a Christian leader? It seems that almost anyone in the business world can be a leader, provided he or she learns some basic leadership skills. But is this true in the Christian world? Is leadership open to anyone who wants to do it? Are there basic skills or prerequisites that are required for the job? In chapter three we will examine the Biblical principles for deciding who can be a leader.

Table of Contents Chapter 1 The Uniqueness of Missionary Leadership Chapter 2 Rockets and Parachutes Chapter 3 Biblical Leadership Chapter 4 Stepping Out Chapter 5 Motivation Chapter 6 Exploring Motivation Chapter 7 Communication Chapter 8 Manipulation Chapter 9 Teams Chapter 10 Stress Chapter 11 Pastoral Care Chapter 12 Inter Personal Problems Chapter 13 Discipline Chapter 14 Putting It All Together

Appendix 1 Bibliography Appendix 2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Multicultural Teams Appendix 3 Motivational Activities for Organizations Appendix 4 Management Tools for Motivation Appendix 5 Orientation & Training of New Workers Appendix 6 Evaluation Form for Team Building Appendix 7 De-motivation Check sheet Appendix 8 Leadership Styles Appendix 9 Leadership Strategies Appendix 10 Leadership Approaches to Avoid Appendix 11 Ten Commandments of Leadership Appendix 12 Notes on Conflict Resolution Appendix 13 Instigating Change

This book includes a wealth of resources, worksheets, and more. It is illustrated with cartoons drawn by Jon Clime. A must for every missionary leader. $18.69 from Xlibris Publications