Church leadership needs to make decisions, not by majority vote or dictatorial decisions from the pastor down, but by consensus. Consensus, according to the ever reliable dictionary.com means: "An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole." Consensus is oftentimes confused with total agreement; it isn't always such. Sometimes members of the group concede their view and become willing to head in the direction the rest of the group wants to go in although they might still feel there is a better alternative. Until the whole group of leaders are willing to head in the direction some of the group of leaders wants to go in, the leadership should continue to pray and wait patiently to do what they feel needs to be done.
The house church in Lansing practiced decision-making by concsensus. This was in an environment that had more people than most church leaderships, so it can definitely be done. We waited patiently till everyone was okay going where we felt we needed to go or we didn't go at all. I think we never "didn't go at all." We always came to a decision through prayer.
The purpose of the church is not in getting tasks done but in building healthy relationships with God and one another. This can't effectively happen if people are being forced to head in a directions they haven't chosen to go in. But making decisions any other way is destructive to more than just the relationships in the church, it is destructive to the individuals that are in the leadership who are told to submit and to lead out on the vision of the church.
The leadership is the vision casting element of the church. If the individual members of the leadership aren't in agreement, then how can they cast a vision that people will latch onto and head forward with? Only by being hypocrites. That's a quality we shouldn't insist our leaders exhibit, but we do just that by forcing them to submit to an idea that they aren't comfortable with. They either have the option of being a hypocrite or of being divisive. Neither is good.
We need to make decisions in church in such a way that the leadership will be able to sincerely lead. Everyone needs to be okay heading in the same direction. Unity starts at the leadership level, and it is as simple to start as changing the method in which we make decisions. Throw out Robert's Rules of Order and start making decisions in a way that shows we totally care about one another's opinions. You can't have a healthy church unless you have a healthy leadership.
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Lindsay deserves some credit for helping me write this blog today. She brought me a cup of juice. That was just meant as a joke, but it got me really thinking. She listens to my ramblings all day long. If you think the things I write are bad, imagine the ideas that aren't fit to print. Poor Lindsay. Isaac and Eli are doomed.
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I applied to be a participant on Wheel of Fortune. You can do the same. Go here. It is a Java page or something, so I couldn't give an exact link. You then have to click on the Wheelmobile and apply. It's easy. If you get on Wheel of Fortune as a result of this, please say "hi" to me while on air. You would win extra kudos if you put a plug in for this blog.
And if you're a person of adventure, you could apply to be one of Jeopardy's Clue Crew. It is a little more exciting than what I would want. I also don't know how it would work with a family. If you want a little more adventure in life and are good looking, then I bet this would be something you might like. I'm just assuming you have to be good looking. They don't put it down as one of the requirements, but that is probably only for legal reasons. I'm betting they will only hire a good looking person.
Watch out for the potholes.
