Four Types of Leadership Team

 THE APOSTOLIC LEADERSHIP TEAM

There are a group of spiritual leaders in the city who give more than pastoral care. They give Leadership and direction to the spiritual leaders.  No-one wants to appoint oneself to such a role.  On the other hand if God or other city leaders encourage a leader into such a role, as with other areas of service, we must pay the price. 

As Stan Shaw, an older pastor from Dunedin, who has done a sterling pioneering work and pastored others into the process commented, "no one, just no one wants such a role, it is just serving, serving, serving..."

Such a group may include: 
·        The apostles^[35] of the city - those who have pioneered movements
·        the prophets to the city - those who discern and speak the word to the issues of the time and the city
·        the pastor of the pastors (functioning bishop)
·        the city networker
·        the researcher for the city
·        the leader of women
·        the leader of the intercessory movements
·        the spiritual leaders of the business community.
·        a leader of  citywide inter-church diaconal ministries (such as Lovelink)^[36].
·        a spiritual leader in the business or political community. 

One of the best models of such a team has been in London, where Roger Forster, Graham Kendrick and a number of leaders of movements have developed relationships together from which has grown unified ministry thrusts - one of the notable ones being "March for Jesus".

The Pastoral Eldership

The role of pastoral eldership is equal to that of the Leadership team, but different.  The pastoral ministry in the local church is the nodal ministry to which the prophetic, apostolic and evangelistic ministries give linkages, vision, unity and growth.  Leadership of both these stationary nodes (churches) and the linkages (networking) are crucial but have very different in style of operation, perceptions and roles.

Leadership In The Secular Sector
·        The Secular City Leadership 

There may only be 20 or 30 men or women who determine the major directions of your city.  By placing Kingdom people alongside of them the principles of the Kingdom can determine the direction of the city.  Who are they?  Who informs them of Kingdom values?  Who befriends them? Who advises them on ethics?  They may not be saved, but their decision-making may be influenced by Kingdom principles.  Daniel became advisor to five kings.  We can talk of Esther and Mordecai, of Nathan and Gamaliel.
·        The Christian Business Leadership 

Pastors are pressed with the needs of their flocks.  Much of what happens in terms of the city is determined not by the pastoral wing of the church but by the businessmen of the city.  Most businessmen, while attending church, find their primary relationships with other businessmen, not the churches. How then do you generate a businessmen's movement across a city?

Industrial chaplains in many cities are  bridges to this reality, as day by day they apply the pastoral ministry in the workplace setting.  They are paid by the companies they serve to give spiritual and moral counsel to the workers.  They find access to the decision-makers to give ethical and moral counsel.

 Women in Citywide Leadership

Since the foundations of city Leadership are in the character of the building blocks, and that character is formed in the home during the early years. Hence mothers training children in godliness are central to the well-being of the city.   This role needs frequent biblical affirmation, as the secularization and specialization of society has increasingly denigrated it, women's magazines today focus on supermodels and corporate managers, and the nucleation of families has put increasing levels of stress on the mother much of which in the past were carried by the sider extended family relationships.

 There are other more public roles of women in city Leadership.  Six of us were sitting in an executive room around a table bathed in sunlight, seeking to discern the Lord's strategy for Leadership in a city. Several times during the conversations, I quietly questioned whether there should not be some women involved.  The response was "yes", but then there was a perplexed frown, "who?" and "how?"  We turned to the leader of the business forum,  "Are they involved in the business forum?"  "No.  They are invited, but  it was too male an environment and they rarely came back."  "Are they involved in the pastors' monthly gatherings?"  "Yes, but again they rarely come back."   They were the leaders in many of the government organizations but that role had not been recognized much by the church leaders.

The breakthrough began to come as we diagrammed the key networks in the city.  At least four of the major ones were lead by dynamic women.  Encouragement of some kind of women's forum was important, but that needed to be meshed with these men's networks at the larger Leadership level.  One of the difficulties in this proposal is that many women in Leadership prefer to be working with men in their area of expertise.  They feel more effective in complementary roles and skeptical of purely women's gatherings.     

When the question surfaced at one pastor's gathering, "What about the citywide Leadership of the 51% of your people that are women?"  there was a disturbing silence.  Some good women leaders were mentioned, as the pastors grappled with the question, but no-one could identify a citywide movement of women.  Indeed the meeting had only one woman present.

 As we explored this then, and again in a number of other cities, the reasons are not theological.  No-one has voiced objections to women being in Leadership.  While some of us may be more conservative  and there may not be agreement on the Biblical basis for women in "eldership" roles, this is not seen in any way by the pastors in these meetings as a means of limiting women in Leadership. 

 So the questions focused on whether the pastors had encouraged the emergence of such women Leadership.  The answer may be that none of these citywide Leadership roles, including that of women had really been  well developed.  One simple step toards uplifting the role of women in Leadership is to encourage to make sure that for any major pastors, there is a parallel time given to the pastors wives and other women leaders, while the husbands babysit.