Great necessities call forth great leaders.
~ Abigail Adams
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
~ John Quincy Adams
The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it.
~ Elaine Agather
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.
~ Susan B. Anthony
We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.
~ Margaret Atwood
I would rather regret the things I have done than the things I have not.
~ Lucille Ball
When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy.
~ Dave Barry
At the heart of America is a vacuum into which self-appointed saviors have rushed. They pretend to be leaders, and we–half out of envy, half out of longing–pretend to think of them as leaders.
~ Warren Bennis
Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.
~ Warren G. Bennis
Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing.
~ Warren Bennis, in On Becoming A Leader
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
~ Tony Blair
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
~ John Buchan
A leader has to appear consistent. That doesn’t mean he has to be consistent.
~ James Callahan, English Prime Minister, in Harvard Business Review, November/December 1986
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
~ Rosalyn Carter
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.
~ Stephen Covey
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
~ Stephen R. Covey
A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
~ Charles de Gaulle
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
~ Charles de Gaulle
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.
~ Max DePree, in Leadership Is An Art
Never try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
~ Paul Dickson
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?
~ Benjamin Disraeli
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.
~ Peter Drucker
Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not “making friends and influencing people”, that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
~ Peter F. Drucker
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
~ Peter F. Drucker
A fish always rots from the head down.
~ Michael Dukakis
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
~ Dwight Eisenhower
You do not lead by hitting people over the head – that’s assault, not leadership.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Quem metuunt oderunt, quem quisque odit periise expetit. [Whom men fear, they hate; whom a man hates he wishes dead.
~ Quintus Ennius, in Ex fabulis incertis
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
~ Harvey S. Firestone
Who has not served cannot command.
~ John Florio
Today a reader–tomorrow a leader.
~ W. Fusselman
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
~ John Kenneth Galbraith, in The Age of Uncertainty
Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
~ John W. Gardner
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
~ Bill Gates
A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.
~ David Gergen
There are many qualities that make a great leader. But having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader.
~ Rudy Giuliani
Look over your shoulder now and then to be sure someone’s following you.
~ Henry Gilmer
Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can be and should be, and he will become as he can and should be.
~ Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe
The only test of leadership is that somebody follows.
~ Robert K. Greenleaf
There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
~ Robert Half
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.
~ Theodore M. Hesburgh
Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.
~ Matthew Heywood
Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.
~ Kenneth Hildebrand
Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.
~ Dee Hock
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
~ Eric Hoffer
If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
~ Admiral Grace Hopper
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
~ Elbert Hubbard
Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.
~ Lee Iacocca
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.
~ Jesus Christ
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
~ Henry Kissinger
Leadership is getting someone to do what they don’t want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve.
~ Tom Landry
The ability to summon positive emotions during periods of intense stress lies at the heart of effective leadership.
~ Jim Loehr
To lead people, walk beside them … As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
~ Lao Tzu
Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.
~ Lao Tzu
To lead the people, walk behind them.
~ Lao Tzu
Leaders don’t force people to follow—they invite them on a journey.
~ Charles S. Lauer
A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.
~ John Le Care’
There go my people. I must find out where they are going so that I can lead them.
~ Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
There is no such thing as a perfect leader either in the past or present, in China or elsewhere. If there is one, he is only pretending, like a pig inserting scallions into its nose in an effort to look like an elephant.
~ Liu Shao-chi
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent.
~ Abraham Lincoln
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
~ Walter Lippmann
Leadership rests not only upon ability, not only upon capacity; having the capacity to lead is not enough. The leader must be willing to use it. His leadership is then based on truth and character. There must be truth in the purpose and willpower in the character.
~ Vince Lombardi
The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert.
~ Vince Lombardi
In this world a man must either be an anvil or hammer.
~ Henry W. Longfellow
You don’t have to be brilliant to be a good leader. But you do have to understand other people – how they feel, what makes them tick, and the best way to influence them. There are a lot of brilliant people in this world who are, and will remain, ineffective leaders. Why? Because they are so interested in themselves and their own accomplishments that they never get around to appreciating and understanding the feelings of the other people who are sharing this world with them. Sometimes, usually later in life, these talented, egocentric individuals suffer painful hardships. They understand, often for the first time, the kind of problems less talented or less fortunate people have suffered all their lives. They suddenly discover a new and important dimension: sensitivity to the feelings, emotions, and experiences of other people. Effective leaders don’t wait for life to bring them to their knees before they appreciate the kind of problems others are facing. Instead they constantly try to put themselves in others’ shoes – try to imagine how they would feel in the same circumstances. They are constantly aware of what makes others tick, and try to be helpful at the same time they ask others to help them.
~ John Luther
There comes a moment when you have to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear.
~ David Mahoney
The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.
~ Fred A. Manske, Jr.
Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.
~ Groucho Marx
Command doth make actors of us all.
~ John Masters, in The Road Past Mandalay
The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.
~ John Maxwell
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
~ John Maxwell
A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.
~ John Maxwell
All Leadership is influence.
~ John C. Maxwell
The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.
~ John C Maxwell, in The 17 Irrefutable Laws of Teamwork
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Harold R. McAlindon
Great leaders instill a surging sense of purpose, articulate a clear vision, engage talent, purposefully plan, diligently execute and abundantly communicate. At its essence, leadersip is about optimizing people and their potential to advance a cause.
~ Kelly McDermott
The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty, that his forefathers had, and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self- reliance. He is led no longer by Davy Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word mongers, uplifters.
~ H.L. Mencken
Leadership, like swimming, cannot be learned by reading about it.
~ Henry Mintzberg, in The Nature of Managerial Work
No prophet has been raised up who has not performed the work of a shepherd.
~ Mohammed
My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.
~ General Montgomery
A leader is a man who makes decisions. Sometimes they turn out right and sometimes then turn out wrong; but either way, he makes them.
~ Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Co., in Leaders are Made . . . Not Born, Leadership in the Office
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers
~ Ralph Nader
A leader is a dealer in hope.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
The good teacher … discovers the natural gifts of his pupils and liberates them by the stimulating influence of the inspiration that he can impart. The true leader makes his followers twice the men they were before.
~ Stephen Neill
To do great things is difficult; but to command great things is more difficult.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
High sentiments always win in the end, The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
~ George Orwell
Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
~ General George S. Patton
Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader.
~ General George S. Patton Jr.
Leadership skills can be developed, but the right to lead is earned.
~ Earl Peck
People cannot be managed. Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.
~ H. Ross Perot
Eagles don’t flock.
~ Ross Perot
A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible.
~ Polybius
Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.
~ General Colin Powell
The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
~ Colin Powell
The view only changes for the lead dog.
~ Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
~ Proverbs 29:18
An army of a thousand is easy to find, but, ah, how difficult to find a general.
~ Chinese proverb
Rough waters are truer tests of leadership. In calm water every ship has a good captain.
~ Swedish proverb
The leader must know, must know that he knows, and must be able to make it abundantly clear to those around him that he knows.
~ Clarence Randall
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.
~ Ronald Reagan
Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
~ Admiral Hyman Rickover
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
~ Jim Rohn
A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well do even better.
~ Jim Rohn
It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and find on one there.
~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Speak Softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.
~ Charles Schwab
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.
~ Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing.
~ Albert Schweitzer
Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration—of oneself and of others. Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine.
~ Lance Secretan, in Industry Week, 10/12/98
It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.
~ Seneca
What you cannot enforce
Do not command.
~ Sophocles
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.
~ Edmund Spenser
An ill life will effectually drown the voice of the most eloquent ministry.
~ Charles Spurgeon
The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.
~ Casey Stengel
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.
~ Publius Syrus
I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.
~ Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
~ Margaret Thatcher
The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
~ Henry David Thoreau
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.
~ Thucydides
Become the kind of person that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.
~ Brian Tracy
How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?
~ Harry S. Truman
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
~ Plaque on Ted Turner’s desk
There is nothing so annoying as a good example!!
~ Mark Twain
Communicate everything to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.
~ Sam Walton
Be easy and condescending in your deportment to your officers, but not too familiar, lest you subject yourself to a want of respect, which is necessary to support a proper command.
~ George Washington, in a letter to Colonel William Woodford, November 10, 1775
Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
~ Thomas J. Watson Sr.
One word of command from me is obeyed by millions but I cannot get my three daughters, Pamela, Felicity, and Joan, to come down to breakfast on time.
~ Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, Viceroy of India
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.
~ Jack Welch
A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
~ W. Wilcox
Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.
~ Oscar Wilde
The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.
~ Woodrow Wilson
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Mary’s Lamb
by Sarah Josepha Hale
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And every where that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go;
He followed her to school one day —
That was against the rule,
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.
And so the Teacher turned him out,
But still he lingered near,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear.
And then he ran to her and laid
His head upon her arm,
As if he said — “I’m not afraid —
You’ll shield me from all harm.”
“What makes the lamb love Mary so,”
The little children cry;
“O, Mary loves the lamb you know,
The Teacher did reply,
“And you each gentle animal
In confidence may bind,
And make them follow at your call,
If you are always kind.”
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Last week my wife and I went to a Christmas party held in the home of one of my colleagues. Our host met us at the door and said, “Thank you for coming”, to which I responded, “We didn’t want to miss it because we heard that you were giving away $100 bills as door prizes.” We all chuckled at my lame joke and went on to have a great evening. But, …
It seems that The Lighthouse Church of All Nations in Alsip, Illinois is doing exactly what I joked about. During a sermon series on personal finances they have been giving out $1000 as door-prizes each Sunday. During this sermon series / promotion church attendance has increased by more than 10 percent. I can’t imagine why… or can I?
Thoughts?
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Sir, a woman’s preaching in like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
~ Samuel Johnson, in a letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, July 31, 1763
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To expect Christian conduct from a person who is not born again is heresy.
~ D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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How much prestige is associated with your job? If you are a Firefighter you are greatly respected. If you are a preacher . . . , not so much.
In this year’s annual Harris Poll regarding the most prestigious jobs, Firefighters scored highest with 62% of respondents indicating that the position held “very great prestige”. Priests/ministers/clergy was eighth on the list with 41% considering the position to be of “very great prestige.” Oh well, it could be worse. You could be a Member of Congress (28%) or a Union Leader (17%).
Here is their list of positions in order of prestige:
- Firefighter
- Scientist
- Doctor
- Nurse
- Military officer
- Teacher
- Police officer
- Priest/Minister/Clergy
- Engineer
- Farmer
- Architect
- Member of Congress
- Lawyer
- Business executive
- Athlete
- Journalist
- Union Leader
- Entertainer
- Banker
- Actor
- Stockbroker
- Accountant
- Real estate agent/broker
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No Christian community is exempt from the problem of the “complaining member.” This person(s) can find fault with everything the community does, or does not do. “The music is too loud.” “Feeding the poor only makes them lazy.” “Did you see what the pastor’s wife was wearing?” “Can’t the pastor make his children behave?” “The youth group ruined that room when they painted the walls.” Fodder for complaints is limitless. Perhaps the following story throws light on a potential solution.
A prince once asked his shrewish wife to fashion a purple garment for him. During the time she was busy with it, he had peace. When she brought it to him, he exlaimed: “Woe is me!” The princess retorted: “I bring you a fine garment, yet you sigh.” The prince answered: “I sigh at the thought that you may now perchance return to your shrewish ways.”
By the same token, when Israel continually grumbled, God asked them to build the Tabernacle, that they might thus be to busy to complain. When it was completed, he exclaimed: “Woe is Me! It is finished!”
(Talmud, Pesikta Rabbati, 5, 9)
One of the findings from the recent Reveal surveys conducted in American churches is that increasing the level of activity in religious functions does not generally indicate a corresponding increase in spiritual growth. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of church members/attenders who need to increase their level of participation. And, of that group, chronic complainers must surely be at the top of the list.
Chronic complaining is a symptom. It may be a symptom of spiritual immaturity, or it may be a symptom that someone is not adequately participating in the life of the community. Either way, it behooves us to attend to their condition by helping them to get “too busy to complain”.
Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression. The purpose of the corps was to take unemployed workers and put them to work on worthwhile projects. The program benefited everyone; the workers, their families, their communities, and the nation. Giving significant responsibilities to those currently not employed in the ministry of the church has similar benefits; one of which is that those who are actively and enthusiastically engaged in building are not nearly as likely to become engaged in tearing down (complaining).
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Really NOT so beautiful. So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church
is so replete with self-refuting nonsense that I feel like I have already wasted too much time on it and I am not going to waste my time reviewing it other than to say you shouldn’t waste your time reading it.
The below story is excerpted from The Wit and Wisdom of Joe Brumbelow: Favorite Illustrations, Personal Stories, Humor, History, Folklore, and Lessons Learned from Over 50 Years in the Ministry. I believe the practical wisdom found in the pages of this book to be very beneficial for those engaged in ministry and heartily recommend it.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Then, members of Doverside started a Bible club. They began the club in the pastor’s back yard that was at the back of the church property. Later they moved into the Fellowship Hall. Most of the children from the apartments were from broken homes. some had real behavioral problems. Discipline often was necessary. Sometimes a child or two had to be sent home.
One day, as the kids waited in line to go inside, Joe saw a little boy go over to a little girl and kick here in the leg so hard she fell to the ground in tears. Joe grabbed the little boy and gave him a talking to. He spoke so sternly, the boy began to cry. Joe, seeing his tears, then gave him a big hug. He told him that he loved him, but he could not allow that kind of behavior.
Another little fellow saw the first boy kick the girl. He saw the preacher grab him, shake him, and rebuke him. Then he saw the preacher give the boy a big hug and tell him that he loved him. “So help me,” Brother Joe said, “that little fellow went over and kicked the same girl. That second boy was saying, ‘I want to be loved, too. I want somebody to hug me, too.’ The preacher then went throught he same routine with the second boy. Joe said, “It was difficult on the little girl, but I got the message. Everyone out there needs someone to love them.”
We often make the mistake of assuming that navigating a complex world requires complex answers. As a result we end up with even more complexity … confusion … chaos. The absurd behavior of key players in the recent meltdown of the American economy is a macrocosm of the nonsense which results from such thinking and which is ubiquitous in today’s business and social organizations, including the Local Church.
Maybe the current crisis will provide the impetus we need to cut out the nonsense. In some ways it now seems that there is developing a cultural zeitgeist in which people are demanding more common sense in our institutions [perhaps everywhere except in politics and in our churches]. It is time to re-evaluate what we are doing and how we are doing it. It is time to cut through the nonsense and do things right.
So, I heartily recommend Jack Trout’s book The Power Of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right
Trout introduces his book to us with the following quote from John Scully, “Everything we have learned in the industrial age has tended to create more and more complication. I think that more and more people are learning that you have to simplify, not complicate. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
It that sense, Trout’s book is very sophisticated. He argues his thesis straightforwardly in clear language, short chapters and concrete action steps. This book organization is not only consistent with the premise but allowed me to conveniently imbibe bite-size portions. I read it a few minutes each day over the course of a couple of weeks.
The Power Of Simplicity
- He believes mission statements add needless confusion
- He believes long-term planning is just wishful thinking
- He believes that goals sound nice but accomplish little
- He believes growth can be bad for your business
Sound intriguing? Maybe, … but Trout keeps it simple.
Tolle lege.
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Michael Spencer’s pessimism regarding the future of evangelicalism recently went mainstream when his article on “The Coming Evangelical Collapse” was published in the Christian Science Monitor. Michael (a.k.a. Internet Monk) is a nice enough guy, his intentions are honorable, most of his observations are pretty accurate, — but his prognosis seem inconsistent with this diagnosis.
Following are a selection of quotes (collected by my friend Mark Witte) from David Wells’ book Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World
———-
The central argument I want to make is that the rebellion against the Enlightenment project which postmodern thinkers have waged and which they think has produced a clean breach with the modern world – and hence they are postmodern – is only a small part of the story and, in my judgment, not the most important part. Indeed, what I will argue is that modernity and postmodernity are actually reflecting different aspects of our modernized culture. They are more like siblings in the same family than rival gangs in the same neighborhood. (p. 62)
There are important threads of continuity between modernity and postmodernity and not least among these is the fact that at the center of both is the autonomous self, despite all the postmodern chatter about the importance of community. During the Enlightenment, this was worked out in anti-religious ways, the Enlightenment thinkers refusing to be fettered by any transcendent being or any authority outside of themselves. In postmodernity, the autonomous being refuses to be fettered by any objective reality outside of itself. In the end, the difference is simply that the revolt in the first case took a more religious turn and in the second a more general turn. (pp. 67-8)
This is Western freedom and Western commercialized culture. Here, we have the ability to hope for what we want, shop where we want, buy what we want, study where we want, think what we want, believe what we want, and treat religion as just another commodity, a product to be consumed. The reality is that modern consumption is not simply about shopping because what we are buying is not simply goods and services. Modern consumption is about buying meaning for ourselves. … The road to this meaning, however, is reached only by a path that runs through a valley of choice so diverse and so multilayered that it is easy to become lost. (p. 77)
There is a deep sense of frustration with organized religion today which is merging with a renewed yearning for the sacred, and the result is an explosion in these personalized, customized spiritualities. This appears to be not only an American phenomenon but one that is found throughout the West. In a study that was done in Britain in 2000, for example, it was discovered that during approximately the final decade of the twentieth century, regular attendance at church dropped from being a practice of 28% of the population down to 8%. During this same time, however, those who described themselves as spiritual, or who had had spiritual experiences, rose from 48% to 76%. (pp. 113-14)
… seeker churches are brilliantly exploiting this spiritual search. It is producing a seeker’s culture. America is tuned in to spiritual matters but not to religious formulations. This makes it very easy to gain a hearing for what is spiritual but hard to maintain a genuinely biblical posture because that becomes a part of “religion.” It is very easy to build churches in which seekers congregate; it is very hard to build churches in which biblical faith is maturing into genuine discipleship. It is the difficulty of this task which has been lost in many seeker churches, which are meeting places for those who are searching spiritually but are not looking for that kind of faith which is spiritually tough and countercultural in a biblical way. (p. 119)
An outside God, such as we find in biblical faith, is comprehensible because he is self-defined in his revelation; the inside god is not. The inside god is merged into the psychological texture of the seeker and found spread within the vagaries of the self. The outside God stands over against those who would know him; the inside one emerges within their consciousness and is a part of them. Religions have their schools of thought and their interpreters, and always the debate is over who most truly understands the religion. Spirituality, in the contemporary sense, spawns no such debate because it makes no truth claims and seeks no universal significance. It lives out its life within the confines of private experience. “Truth” is private, not public; it is for the individual, not for the universe. Here is American individualism coupled with some new assumptions about God which are being glossed off with infatuations about pop therapy, uniting to produce varieties of spirituality as numerous as those who think of themselves as spiritual. (pp. 130-31)
… this contemporary spiritual search is inclined to oppose itself to religion, to doctrine as a set of unchanging beliefs, to the public and institutional forms in which that spirituality might be expressed. While it is the case that the various religions are sometimes raided for their ideas, today’s spirituality remains a deeply privatized matter whose access to reality is through a pristine, uncorrupted self. And all of this happens without any necessary reference to, or connection with, others. With its individualism, its wholly privatized understanding, its therapeutic interest, its mystical bent, its experimental habits, its opposition to truth as something which mediates the nature of an unchanging spiritual realm, its anti-institutional bias, its tilt toward the East, its construction of reality, and its can-do spirit, it is something which is emerging from the very heart of the postmodern world. This is, in fact, the postmodern soul. And its ancient forerunner was seen in gnosticism. (p. 152)
The dichotomy which postmodern epistemology wants to force is one between knowing everything exhaustively or knowing nothing certainly at all. And since it would be arrogant in the extreme to claim to know what God alone knows, the only other option, it seems, is to accept the fact that our knowledge is so socially conditioned, so determined by our own inability to escape our own relativity, that we are left with no certain knowledge of reality at all. Here, indeed, is the old liberal fear of becoming outdated coupled with the postmodern infatuation with spirituality in its divorce from religion. (p. 158)
That is why in these new spiritualities it is the spiritual person who makes up his or her beliefs and practices, mixing and matching and experimenting to see what works best, and assuming the prerogative to discard at will. The sacred is therefore loved for what can be had from loving it. The sacred is pursued because it has value to the pursuer and that value is measured in terms of the therapeutic payoff. (p. 159)
In religion of a Christian kind, we listen; in spirituality of a contemporary kind, we talk. In religion of a Christian kind, we accept a gift; in spirituality of a contemporary kind, we try to seize God. In the one, we are justified by the righteousness of Christ; in the other, we strive to justify ourselves through ourselves. It is thus that spirituality is the enemy of faith. (pp. 161-62)
Theirs is an experiment in tactics in which innumerable questions have been asked about the ways the Church can become successful in this culture and they are all prefaced by the word how. How do we get the Boomers back into the church? How do we get on the wavelength of Generation Xers? How do we do worship so that the transition from home to church, from mall to church, and from unbelief into a context of belief, is seamless and even unnoticed? How do we speak about Christian faith to those who only want techniques for survival in life? How can we be motivational for those who need a lift without burdening them? How can we say what we want to say in church when the audience will give us only a small slice of their attention, especially if we are not amusing? And what is emerging, as the evangelical Church continues to empty itself of theology, is that it now finds that it is tapping, wittingly or not, into this broad cultural yearning for spirituality, and capitalizing on that disposition’s inclination not to be religious. Evangelical spirituality without theology, that even sometimes despises theology, parallels almost exactly the broader cultural spirituality that is without religion. Evangelical faith without theology, without the structure and discipline of truth, is not Agape faith but it is much closer to Eros spirituality. This, however, is not understood. Church talk about “reaching” the culture turns, almost inevitably, into a discussion about tactics and methodology, not about worldviews. It is only about tactics and not about strategy. It is about seduction and not about truth, about success and not about confrontation. (pp. 162-63)
Revelation, then, is public, not private. It is public in the sense that God’s primary locus of communication is not within the self nor are his intentions accessed by intuition. He has spoken, and he continues to speak, through the words of Scripture which constitute the Word of God. This revelation, however, is anchored by events within the redemptive narrative by which God called out to himself a people, led them, preserved them, judged them, and finally brought the promises he had made to them into final and full realization in Christ. This is a history which took place apart from human consciousness, and not within the human psyche, and though it has to be understood and interpreted, its meaning is always objective to the interpreter. It has to be understood solely on its own terms; Scripture, the Reformers said, is sui ipsius interpres. The Holy Spirit who inspired the Scripture is also its privileged interpreter, which means that the content of Scripture is not subject to being overridden by the interests of the interpreter, or those of a later culture, or those of an ecclesiastical tradition. (p. 174)
In our own private universes, we are free of external constraints, free of social custom, free of the past, free of values we ourselves have not selected and in that selection authenticated, and free of all beliefs which are incompatible with our internally constructed world of meaning. We have all become free in a most radical way, and in that radical posture we have become as light as a feather. (p. 238)
… operating off methodologies for succeeding in which that success requires little or no theology. It produces an evangelism which is modest in its attempts at persuasion about truth, but energetic in its retailing of spiritual and psychological benefits. So successful, so alluring, has this experiment become that it would not be an exaggeration to say that it is transforming what evangelicalism looks like. (pp. 265-66)
… this changed cultural context is producing spiritual seekers. It is to this “shadow culture,” this parallel market of spiritual desire, that seeker churches have been intuitively drawn. Their methodology is peculiarly adapted to this moment because to those who seek spirituality without religion, as so many in the postmodern world do, these churches are offering spirituality without theology. It is, most often, spirituality of a therapeutic kind, which assumes that the most pressing issues that should be addressed in church are those with which most people are preoccupied: how to sustain relationships, how to handle stress, what to do about recurring financial problems, how to handle conflicts in the workplace, and how to raise children. It is these issues, and a multitude like them, which prescribe where Christian faith must offer some answers if it is to remain relevant. While biblical truth is not itself denied, and while the importance of being doctrinally orthodox is not questioned, neither is seen to be central to the practice of meeting seekers who are looking for answers to other issues in their lives. They are looking for answers, perhaps to find ways of constructing a spirituality which works for them, but they really have not come into church to find the kind of truth by which the Church has historically been defined, and by which it has lived, across the generations and centuries. (p. 269)
While the routes taken by the earlier liberals and now by contemporary evangelicals may be a little different, there nevertheless is an important shared belief. It is that the only means to survival in the modern world is to adapt Christian faith in some way. The liberals did this by modifying its doctrinal content; seeker-sensitive evangelicals claim not to be doing this but, rather, modifying its form of delivery. This raises the issue as to whether traditional religion will be unaffected by its non-traditional delivery and practice, whether content is secure from the change which enters its form, how far and in what ways a traditional orthodoxy can be wrapped in contemporary consumer culture and still survive intact. In other words, the very way in which survival is being sought raises questions as to whether that strategy for survival may not itself bring on the demise of its orthodoxy just as it did in liberal Protestantism. Seeker churches, then, represent a coalition bound together not by a theological vision of the world but by a common strategy for reaching particular segments of society and by a common methodology for accomplishing this. Interestingly, it is a methodology that can be hitched up equally as well to evangelical faith as to New Age belief, or to anything in between. Why is this so? The reason is that there is no theological truth upon which the methodology is predicated and upon which it insists, because theological truth, it is thought, is not what builds churches. (p. 281)
The fact that this line between commerce and belief is eroding makes it easy for people to think that there may be a market for religion even as there is for goods and services and that these two markets work in similar ways. This is not an entirely aberrant observation. Yet the parallels are now being pressed so injudiciously, so unwisely, that the promotion of (imperishable) faith has come to be indistinguishable from the promotion of (perishable) products (I Pet. 1:4-5,18-19) as if the dynamic of success in the one naturally duplicates itself in the other. Seekers become consumers, pastors become business tycoons, churches become marketing outlets, the gospel becomes a product, faith becomes its purchase, and increasingly the outcome in people’s lives is no different than if they had made any other purchase. (p. 297)
… for what the marketers have done has been to read the needs of the consumer as being “spiritual” (in the contemporary sense) but not theological, as being psychological but as having little to do with truth, as being more about techniques of survival than about the need to understand that there is meaning in life that transcends the mere business of surviving. That, I believe, has been a fatal mistake, as fatal as the one which the liberal Protestants made earlier. (p. 299)
As seeker churches mine this vein of spiritual yearning in society, without challenging its grounding in fallen human nature and postmodern individualism, they may be finding a marketing niche that will lead them into certain decline. The question they are going to have to ask themselves is whether the clientele they have assiduously courted have the kind of casual relationship to biblical truth, and the low commitment, to guarantee that their churches will go the way that many mainline churches have gone. If they cannot clarify for themselves who is sovereign – God or the religious consumer? – what is authoritative in practice – Scripture or culture? – and what is important – faithfulness or success? – they will find themselves walking the same road and facing the same fate as the churches that failed before because whatever seriousness now remains will dissolve into triviality. (p. 301)
Today, all too often, the Church is not being the Church. It has become a business for the retailing of spirituality, a spirituality in which truth is at best a peripheral consideration and sometimes not a consideration at all. Should we be surprised when we find out that those who are born again, or who say they are, live no differently, ethically speaking, from those who say they are secular? Of course not! This is the inevitable outcome to the massive defection from truth at a practical level which has happened in the evangelical Church. (p. 316)
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Now, go read what my friend Barry Creamer has to say on this issue.
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