While preparing to teach my Pastoral Theology class at Every Nation Seminary, I discovered a book I wish I had read forty years ago: The Other Side of Pastoral Ministry by Daniel Brown. Don’t let the ugly cover fool you; this book is leadership art.
Consider two pictures representing vastly different concepts of leadership. The first image is a commander in charge of riot police whose orders are to keep an unruly crowd from getting out of hand. In this concept of leadership, the most important thing is to be in charge, to keep people under control. The second image is the trail boss on a wagon train. In this case, leadership means finding a way to get a group of people from one place to another.
The process we want for our leadership is the process of taking our people somewhere, not keeping them somewhere. Church leadership is not about control but about movement.