FOLLOWERSHIP NOTE #1: Maintaining Faith In Leadership

For the last few weeks I have been posting weekly leadership training notes to a blog for Wildwind’s leaders to read and consider. Yesterday it occurred to me that I am not doing all I should be doing in terms of teaching and training. Most of you are not in positions of leadership (like being a small group leader, ministry coordinator, etc.) but deserve some specific guidance that suits you where you are.

Churches and businesses talk a great deal about leadership. We focus on developing and improving the skills of our leaders, but there is usually very little instruction on how to be a good follower. I want to talk to you about Followership. The truth is that following is as hard as leading sometimes, in its own way! So I want to equip you with some skills and perspectives that will make following a bit easier and more joyful for you.

A little disclaimer before I get started. I am not writing this note or any of the Followership Notes that will come after this one in response to any actual situations that are currently going on at Wildwind, or even directly due to any past situations. As far as I know we are in a tranquil time right now and I’m loving it! That’s why this is the perfect time to get down a few things that I know are going to be critical for us in the months and years to come. If leaders need to learn how to lead, followers need to learn how to follow.

Welcome to class!

I have one point for you today, and that’s that a follower’s first and most important task is to maintain faith in leadership. This is done by evaluating leadership carefully, and frequently ask the question, “Am I being led by people whose intentions for me and for the church are good?” There are three possible answers to this question. “Yes,” “No,” and “I don’t know.”

Let’s face it. Maintaining faith in leadership is not always easy. In fact, sometimes it’s extremely difficult. After all, followers are those who live with the decisions made by leaders. This can be frustrating sometimes! When someone else has made a decision, and something goes wrong, it is easy to get critical and resentful and to think, “Obviously someone dropped the ball or didn’t know what they were doing.” But a follower who isn’t maintaining faith in leadership isn’t really following – they are kind of just letting themselves be pulled along.

So it’s essential to maintain faith in leadership and that is done by asking the question above. Let’s look at each of the three possible answers and what to do in each circumstance.

If the answer is “Yes”…
…then as a follower you should support your leaders and choose to believe good things about them whether you always agree with them or not. They are human just like you and they will make mistakes. And as leaders they will nearly always have access to more information than you do. Always keep in mind when you disagree with something that it’s likely that you don’t have all the information your leaders had when the decision was made. This is as it should be. For leaders to make public everything they know would often be little more than gossip and that is inappropriate. That’s why it is critical that you trust your leaders to make wise decisions. This doesn’t mean you need to always agree with everything they say and do, just that if you believe their hearts are in the right place (that they don’t intend to do you or the church harm, that they sincerely love God and want the best for our church), you owe them your support. Yes, I said “Owe!”

1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 (MSG)
12 And now, friends, we ask you to honor those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. 13 Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!..

So make the determination about whether your leaders are leading faithfully (not perfectly, but faithfully) and if so, support and encourage them.

If the answer is “No”…
…then I would suggest you make sure you are clear on what basis you believe this. Who has intentionally lied to you? Who has intentionally broken confidence with you? Who has intentionally hurt you? Intention to harm is unacceptable in church leaders. The reason I suggest you be so systematic is because people have a tendency to react when they have been hurt. “I can’t believe you did/said that!” Things will happen in every church that will cause difficulty sometimes. Before you react out of hurt, take a moment and say, “Did my leaders get up this morning with the intention to do harm to me, my friends, my family, or the church?” If not, there’s a good chance that what you actually have here are people doing the best they can to manage complex situations among people with interests that are not always the same, where sometimes someone is likely to end up feeling frustrated no matter what they do. So do a heart check to make sure that this is what you really believe and that you are not just reacting out of emotion.

If you have tried every way possible to extend to your leaders the benefit of the doubt (which both you and they deserve because that’s how God treats all of us in his mercy and grace), if you have met and talked to him/her/them and tried to work out your issue but you just can’t find a way through to peace, then you should leave Wildwind. You should not remain active in any church where you do not support the leadership. It will harm you, it will create resentment and frustration in you, and it will ultimately harm your leaders and the work they are doing in the church.

Ephesians 4:3 (NIV)
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Now this whole thing about leaving is not nearly as simple as it sounds. The overwhelming message of the New Testament is that what God really wants for us is to be more agreeable! That means more patient, less critical, less given to judgment, and more loving and gracious. I do not claim that this is easy, but I didn’t write the book, my friends (trust me, if I had the standards would be much lower!). We are all called to live this way. We cannot allow ourselves to get into a cycle of “They made me mad, I’m leaving,” and then, “Now this church made me mad, I’m leaving again.” People who chronically move from church to church need someone in leadership to sit down and explain to them that there’s a spiritual issue of disagreeability, disobedience, and arrogance in their lives. Not that it would necessarily be well-received, but we should not act as if church-hopping is no big deal. It’s a sign of spiritual immaturity.

If the answer is “I don’t know”…
…it’s important that you get clear about that. Ask some questions. Make some phone calls. Take Discovery to find out what is required of those who are in leadership at Wildwind. Find out what kind of people are leading you and decide whether or not you will get behind them and support them. If so, go for it. If not, move on.

John 13:35 (MSG)
35 “This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."

Will we love and bear with one another in the church? The world is watching. If we love each other, they will see in us an extraordinary commitment to one another that they will identify with the people of God. If we do not, they will say, “Obviously these people are not for real.”

In my next Followership Note, I will explain a few details about what it means to support your leaders and be a faithful follower. Because of personality differences, some people do this naturally very well. Others struggle in some areas. As a person who has in the past found it very hard to follow well (and who has never really been taught), I sympathize with that and want to be as helpful as I can. (By the way, good leaders are people who have learned to be good followers – the person who wants to lead but cannot follow does not deserve the privilege of having others follow them). I know how frustrating it can be to have important parts of your life in the hands of other people.

Imagine a church full of leaders who are learning to lead well and followers who are learning to follow well. Sounds like a recipe for the unity God wants us to have in the church. Let’s continue to make it happen!