This write-up was borne out of various
occurrences – where people have to fight dirty because of the feelings for
importance, based on the level of positions that each of them occupy.
When we talk about the church, we are talking
of an organised group of people that believe in the deity of God with a pattern
of fellowship that connotes Christianity, and if we trace the origin of the
church to Jesus Christ, we will see some things that disapprove positional
leadership.
“Then the mother of
Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something
from Him. And He said to her, "What do you wish?" She said to Him,
"Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the
other on the left, in Your kingdom." But Jesus answered and said,
"You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am
about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"
They said to Him, "We are able."
So He said to them, "You will
indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with;
but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for
those for whom it is prepared by My Father." And when the ten heard it,
they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to
Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over
them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be
so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your
servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave — just
as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life
a ransom for many." (Matt 20:20-28, NKJV).
If you read the passage above, you can continue
reading this piece but if you did not read it, please, go over it one more time
and understand it.
From this passage, we have every proof to say that
Jesus did not mandate the church to appoint people for the purpose of filling
positions (should we have to stretch the meanings in this passage – we would
not get over it at once, but kindly follow the thought of this work properly).
What is the style of
leadership from Jesus which the church is expected to follow?
It is servant leadership: check this out, “But Jesus called them to Himself and said,
"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who
are great exercise authority over them.26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great
among you, let him be your servant.27
And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave —28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."(Matt 20:25-28, NKJV).
You will see that the method of leadership
postulated by Jesus Christ was servant-leadership and since that any organised
system of the society must have hierarchy of authority for effective
administration: it becomes necessary for the Church to know the type of
leadership that they are to operate.
Today, so many leaders in the church exact
authority on the people that they lead with the mindsets that they got to those
positions because they were better than the followers. To the extent that some
of these leaders are controlling the privacy, as well as, abusing the
fundamental human rights of some of their followers.
As a result of the positions that some people
occupy in the church, they always direct attention to themselves: they are
always mindful of their persons, insulting the followers’ sense of personality
at will and are quick at pin-pointing a mis-deed (against their persons) which
they think that their followers committed against them. These mis-deeds are
usually the assumptions of those leaders, because often time, the followers
meant nothing toward their person.
Positional leadership:
its relevance to the church
In its totality, it is not that positional
leadership is detrimental to the church, but we only tried to reveal what so
many leaders are doing wrongly with their positions. Without a position too,
some people will not obey orders from their leaders.
So, we could say that – positions, sometimes,
help the church to be effective. Only when position is used by leaders to
manipulate the followers to their advantage, all in the bid for image building,
then positional leadership is unchristian.