leadership

There are interesting things going on in our local church life these days. 2011 will be a big and significant year.

In the latest issue of our magazine (which isn't quite out yet, so I shouldn't really quote from it now!) I've likened the thing to what's called these days the 'perfect storm'. Three meteorological phenomena which combine to create ... well, a storm of massive proportions.

In the 'weather' of our local church life, three significant movements of the wind of the Spirit of God are coming together. In the realm of spiritual meteorology, as in the natural realm, you ignore such things at your peril! More of that anon.

It's a time, though, without a doubt, for strong and godly leadership.

Which is part of the reason we're taking such time at our Sunday evening services to explore what Paul had to say at the conference for church leaders he held with the folk from Ephesus. That one talk which he delivered there (see Acts 20.17ff) is a powerful, challenging thing.

He pretty much says it all.

But I've been interested, too, to have been reading my way through Tony Blair's A Journey. I wouldn't have gone out and bought the book myself - political biography has never really been my sort of thing. I was given the book at Christmas, and the giver suggested I'd get no little benefit from taking a read.

In many ways, the book is all about leadership. Tony Blair's leadership in particular, obviously. But issues of leadership nonetheless.

Now I'm only maybe half way through the book, but already there have been some very striking comments which he makes. One in particular rang huge big bells in my mind.

He has a whole long chapter (and I mean long - almost 50 pages) on Northern Ireland, and the process by which the 'Good Friday Agreement' was reached. Early in the chapter he has this paragraph: he's talking about the different factions in the province, whose history is littered wth complexity and grief - the deeply held, entrenched, ingrained positions that there are, and the long-running sores of dispute: then he writes this -

"What happened in those circumstances is in essence what happens in countless such disputes: the unreasonable drives out reason, by the use of unreason.The way this happens is very simple: those who do not hate, who want peace, who are prepared to countenance 'forgive and forget' (or at least 'forget') become slowly whittled down in number, seeming unrealistic, even unpatriotic to other members of the group. What starts as an unreasonable minority ends up consuming the reasonable in its snares and delusions." [p.153]

I found the whole paragraph, and the last sentence in particular, an extraordinarily apt commentary on much of what's been going on in recent times within the church here in our land.

The unreasonable drives out reason, by the use of unreason. ... What starts as an unreasonable minority ends up consuming the reasonable in its snares and delusions.

One part of strong and clear leadership surely involves being able to see what's going on. And another part surely involves being bold enough to stand against that overwhelming tide and figure out how best the process is reversed.

It's an interesting read, that chapter he has on Ireland - not just for the inside account that it gives of how such a thing was resolved, but also as a mirror on so much that's going on within society at large these days.

And in the church as well. Those with ears to hear, let them hear!