{"id":8568,"date":"2020-06-17T11:22:58","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T16:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedisciplemaker.org\/?p=8568"},"modified":"2020-06-17T11:22:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T16:22:58","slug":"followership-is-greater-than-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2020\/06\/followership-is-greater-than-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Followership is Greater than Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div>\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><em>The following is an excerpt from&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/2V9fBRt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Letters to a Young Pastor<\/a><em> in which Eugene Peterson, bestselling author and translator of&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/2UUYnqy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Message<\/a><em> Bible, reflects on pastoral ministry in a series of letters to his son, Eric.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Dear Eric,<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Sunday morning and you\u2019re getting ready to lead your congregation in worship\u2014present them to God, present God to them. I woke up early this morning, thinking, in my half-sleep state, that I was going to do it myself; out of a tangle of dreams, I was trying to get my sermon into focus, anticipating being in the Christ Our King sanctuary. And then I was fully awake, with a feeling of letdown. That doesn\u2019t happen very often, but when it does, I compensate by thinking about you entering your pulpit in Colbert, in your praying and preaching.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve been working hard the last month on talks I\u2019m going to give to The Navigators this week at Glen Eyrie\u2014and then again at Regent in the spring. I think I\u2019ve told you something about this\u2014the idea for the subject came during our trip to Israel last year at this time: Follow the Leader. [i] I\u2019ve had to work harder on these lectures than I anticipated, but I\u2019m glad I had it to do, for it has given me occasion to work through a lot of what I have lived through pastorally.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>One of the irritants that got me going in this was my sense that one of the primary seductions to pastoral faithfulness and integrity these days is this drumbeat of emphasis\u2014throughout church and society\u2014on leadership. All these books and conferences and tapes on <em>leadership<\/em>\u2014how to be an effective leader, a successful leader, a powerful leader. Leadership distilled to technique and strategy and method. And much of it\u2014maybe most\u2014good and useful. But so much of it has little to do with what it means to be a pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-coblocks-click-to-tweet\"><p class=\"wp-block-coblocks-click-to-tweet__text\">One of the primary seductions to pastoral faithfulness and integrity these days is this drumbeat of emphasis\u2014throughout church and society\u2014on leadership.<\/p><a class=\"wp-block-coblocks-click-to-tweet__twitter-btn has-button-color\" style=\"background-color:#d19f2a\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?&amp;text=One%20of%20the%20primary%20seductions%20to%20pastoral%20faithfulness%20and%20integrity%20these%20days%20is%20this%20drumbeat%20of%20emphasis%E2%80%94throughout%20church%20and%20society%E2%80%94on%20leadership.&amp;url=https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/followership-is-greater-than-leadership\/&amp;via=NavPress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n\n<p>Every pastor is subjected to these images and counsel and advice constantly, unremittingly. Maybe a new church pastor is especially vulnerable to it, since so much depends on what you are doing\u2014you don\u2019t have several generations of congregational tradition and leadership backing you up. And so I think of you a lot as I\u2019ve been going over all this stuff, the minefield that you are picking your way through as you work with those people in the formation of a church of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>My renewed conviction is that pastoral leadership is, as the scholars say, <em>sui generis<\/em>, absolutely unique. It is in a different category entirely from what goes on in a business or school or corporation. Barth and Bonhoeffer made a big thing out of the uniqueness of the Christian congregation\u2014that baptism (which you\u2019ve been dealing with so much the last couple of years and to such good effect) creates an identity that can\u2019t be subsumed under any of the usual sociological categories for understanding people. Well, I think the same thing goes for pastoral identity.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>We get out of bed each morning and pray, \u201cLord Jesus Christ, I follow you. I deny myself, I take up my cross, and I follow you.\u201d Our basic identity is not leader but follower. Jesus never tells us to lead; he invites us to follow. Followership is previous to and more comprehensive than leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Ray, who led our Israel group last year, made a big thing of \u201cfollowing the rabbi.\u201d He said it was an old, old tradition\u2014he was sure going back into pre-Christian Galilee. The subject came up because people in our group were always saying, \u201cRay, what are we going to do today? Where are we going? When are we going to have lunch? Why are we going up this trail?\u201d And Ray wouldn\u2019t answer\u2014he just ignored the questions. And then, once in a while, he would say something like, \u201cListen, I know where I\u2019m going. Trust me. If I tell you ahead of time what we\u2019re doing, where we\u2019re going, you start forming ideas in your mind that will be wrong\u2014walking by faith involves an openness to seeing, hearing what you don\u2019t know, can\u2019t anticipate. Follow the rabbi, let the rabbi do it his way, with his sense of timing. Trust him to make the right decisions along the way and get you where he wants you to go.\u201d And I remembered how often Jesus didn\u2019t answer questions.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/2V9fBRt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img src=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/PetersonLetters_AMustRead-1024x256.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8574\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>So I reflect on this in the swirl of leadership talk. If our leadership involves clear and focused \u201cvision statements\u201d and \u201cattainable goals\u201d\u2014if it means an obsession with knowing where we are going, our aptitude for following atrophies. If our primary identity is \u201cleader,\u201d we marginalize our \u201cfollower\u201d status, which is the only thing Jesus seemed to care about with us.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>And the point is that as followers, we don\u2019t know that much about what is ahead. We just don\u2019t. Jerusalem, yes. But Jesus\u2019 followers had hardly any idea of what that was going to involve.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>So here\u2019s what I have been doing as I\u2019ve tried to understand what we pastors are doing in this \u201cleadership\u201d world in which we\u2019re trying to maintain our previous and primary identity as followers. I\u2019ve taken three prominent leaders in the first century and contrasted them with Jesus: Herod, Caiaphas, and Josephus. They range themselves in a nicely symmetrical schema: Herod at Jesus\u2019 birth, Caiaphas at Jesus\u2019 death, and Josephus in the world of Jesus\u2019 resurrection. Herod, the powerful politician who virtually defined the world in which Jesus grew up. Caiaphas, the most prominent religious leader, who controlled the Temple establishment and worship. Josephus, the consummate opportunist who was a brilliant success, first as a Jewish diplomat and general and then as a Roman military leader and writer, wheeling and dealing his way to the top at the very same time that Paul was in prison and the Christian church was struggling to survive at the margins of society.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>The striking thing to me is that at the end of the first century (Herod died at the beginning of the century, and Josephus died in AD 100), those three leaders were the most admired and most successful. I think they still are. Jesus is better known now, celebrated and honored. But he is not much followed: Herod, Caiaphas, and Josephus are the models for leadership, both inside and outside of the church, that are most frequently emulated.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>And here\u2019s another interesting thing: All three of those leaders operated in the context of protest\/reform movements out of Judaism: the Pharisees were the protest\/reform movement against Herodianism; the Essenes against the Caiaphas\/Sadducee domination of Temple worship; and the Zealots in contrast to Josephus. All three protest\/reform movements were strong and effective in their own ways\u2014and had many good and admirable people in them. But Jesus did not join any of them. He did something unique\u2014neither \u201cfor\u201d or \u201cagainst\u201d the big names.<br \/>This accentuates the uniqueness of Jesus in the condition in which he worked and the conditions in which we follow him.<\/p>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-coblocks-click-to-tweet\"><p class=\"wp-block-coblocks-click-to-tweet__text\">If our primary identity is \u201cleader,\u201d we marginalize our \u201cfollower\u201d status, which is the only thing Jesus seemed to care about with us.<\/p><a class=\"wp-block-coblocks-click-to-tweet__twitter-btn has-button-color\" style=\"background-color:#d19f2a\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?&amp;text=If%20our%20primary%20identity%20is%20%E2%80%9Cleader%2C%E2%80%9D%20we%20marginalize%20our%20%E2%80%9Cfollower%E2%80%9D%20status%2C%20which%20is%20the%20only%20thing%20Jesus%20seemed%20to%20care%20about%20with%20us.&amp;url=https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/followership-is-greater-than-leadership\/&amp;via=NavPress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tweet<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n\n<p>He didn\u2019t shape his leadership (and we don\u2019t acquire our followership) by paying too close attention to what the world is doing. Jesus is unique. Pastoral \u201cfollowership\u201d is unique. We have to do it in the world of Herod-Caiaphas-Josephus and the world of Pharisee-Essene-Zealot, but not let them define us. Jesus was very much immersed in that world, but he simply went about his work, revealing God to us, inaugurating the Kingdom, and inviting us to follow him.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>The complicating factor in all of this for pastors is that much of what these leadership models provide us is good and right\u2014and we can\u2019t help, if we are going to get on with our work\u2014employing a lot of it. But how do we use what we need to use without getting defined by it, without becoming any of those identities?<\/p>\n\n\n<p>What I am feeling\u2014and this is so much of what I have felt from the day of ordination\u2014is that very few people are helping us understand the absolute uniqueness of the way Jesus leads us in this world.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Anyway, getting inside the first-century Jesus world in the conditions of three leaders and three reform movements has been good for me, and has given me a lot to think about, both for myself and in relation to you as you make decisions that incrementally form both your pastoral and congregational identities: the decisions about architecture and finances, the details of worship and mission, parenthood and husbandhood. And I think it is incremental: We don\u2019t make big decisions and then work from there; the decisions are in the details that add up to something we don\u2019t know much about yet. The followership thing again.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Jan I and leave Wednesday for Glen Eyrie, where I\u2019ll deliver these lectures to mostly laity\u2014men and women who think of themselves (I am guessing) as the movers and shakers of the evangelical world. I wonder how they\u2019ll receive them.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Leif and Amy and Hans and Anna are coming for dinner after church (leg of lamb!), and we anticipate a couple of hours of cross-country skiing first.<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/PETERSON-Eugene-Signature-e1590699025264-300x145.png\" alt=\"This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is PETERSON-Eugene-Signature-e1590699025264-300x145.png\" width=\"150\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-coblocks-author\"><figure class=\"wp-block-coblocks-author__avatar\"><img class=\"wp-block-coblocks-author__avatar-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/PETERSON_Eric-Author-Photo-bordered.png\" alt=\"Eric Peterson\" \/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-coblocks-author__content\"><span class=\"wp-block-coblocks-author__name\">Eric Peterson<\/span><p class=\"wp-block-coblocks-author__biography\">You&#8217;ve been reading with <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/tag\/eric-peterson\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Eric Peterson<\/strong><\/a>, author of <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/2V9fBRt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong><em>Letters to a Young Pastor<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3fCAtrJ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong><em>Letters to a Young Congregation<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. <em>Letters to a Young Pastor<\/em> features a series of letters from Eugene Peterson, bestselling author and translator of <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/2UUYnqy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong><em>The Message <\/em><\/strong><\/a>Bible<em>,<\/em> to Eric (his son) in which he reflects on pastoral ministry. Follow the links to engage further or to read the first chapters for free.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/tag\/eric-peterson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">More from Eric<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/PETERSON-Letters-Books-3D-1024x650.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8363\" width=\"600\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:10px\"><strong>Sources<\/strong><br \/>[1] The series of lectures here referenced as \u201cFollow the Leader\u201d was eventually published as The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways that Jesus Is the Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following is an excerpt from&nbsp;Letters to a Young Pastor in which Eugene Peterson, bestselling author and translator of&nbsp;The Message Bible, reflects on pastoral ministry in a series of letters to his son, Eric. Dear Eric, Sunday morning and you\u2019re &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Followership is Greater than Leadership\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2020\/06\/followership-is-greater-than-leadership\/#more-8568\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Followership is Greater than Leadership<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":8576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[181,188,315,321,322,516],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Followership is Greater than Leadership - The Disciplemaker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2020\/06\/followership-is-greater-than-leadership\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Followership is Greater than Leadership - The Disciplemaker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following is an excerpt from&nbsp;Letters to a Young Pastor in which Eugene Peterson, bestselling author and translator of&nbsp;The Message Bible, reflects on pastoral ministry in a series of letters to his son, Eric. 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