Is Your Organization Actually Working?
Healthy Leaders | Issue 70
Welcome back to Healthy Leaders! In this issue, there’s one characteristic of a healthy organization that you need to focus on.
Hello friends,
Organizations rely on a lot of different metrics to determine whether things things are going well — busy calendars, quantitative reports, effective programs, good turn-out. But there’s always going to be an underlying problem with this mode of evaluation, because it’s only measuring what you do, not whether you’re actually healthy.
Perhaps your organization, ministry or church operates like this. You’ve got scores of programs targeted to different demographics, great online presence, a burgeoning bank account… but the life has seeped out of your people.
One of the pastors we served in Nigeria identified this problem in his own ministry. He and his team were running things the way they thought they should be run, out of their own understanding and strength. What they got from doing this was struggle, worry, stress, and frustration.
“If your life is not right with God, whatever you are doing, you are simply going through the motions. Therefore, you cannot produce what you are not. As far as God and His work is concerned, I cannot do anything for Him of eternal value without experiencing Him. This calls for total dependency.”
Most of us can spot — or at least feel — the brokenness and burnout in an organization that has lost its spark. But how do you go about bringing the life back?
Here’s Malcolm with more:
Christ Is the Center and Source
Malcolm mentions this important passage in the video above:
… from Him the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:16)
Where does true life come from here? It’s not from ourselves, or our infrastructure, or even the people, despite the fact that they are who we need to focus on when we’re thinking about nurturing our culture.
It comes from Jesus! Let’s back up the passage and check out the context:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)
For Christian leaders, the center and source for all of our leadership is Christ Himself. And Christ Himself is not in it for what we do, but who we are.
This means that the important questions facing you in your organization are not ultimately, “which programs are most attended?” or “how do our numbers look?” These questions misunderstand the real goal of a healthy organization: that each member is functioning the way God intends them to function. Instead, we should ask questions like:
Are we right with God?
Are we seeking His face or doing the work in our own strength?
Are we moving toward His purposes or maintaining the status quo at the expense of our people?
A Case Study: Going from Burnout to Abiding in Christ
One of our beloved sisters in East Asia, before she came to one of our long-term training program, was hitting all the external ministry markers you would expect to see in a high-capacity leader. But inside she was burned out.
Our team leader shared this observation of the change she experienced in the program:
We were startled at how lifeless this sister seemed. There was not much response to whatever we were saying or doing. We were concerned at how big a challenge it might be to build her.
The program began with strong focus on union with Christ, taking extended time to soak in His presence. This sister became deeply engaged in these times. One day, as we were telling stories of how Jesus served each one of us as a servant leader, the overwhelming presence of Jesus came to us. We were all quiet, with deep emotion. Then, she spontaneously and tearfully began to speak from her heart to Jesus, like talking to a friend who used to be so close and dear, then long lost, and re-found.
She and her siblings were sent away from their parents at a young age, to be raised by their grandparents. She faced intense emotional starvation and rejection during her early childhood, eventually developing a hard and strong personality just to survive. When she came to know Christ in her twenties, she immediately began to experience God in very dramatic ways: miraculous healings in her and through her, unusual hunger for the word of God, long hours and seasons of fasting and prayer, and very close fellowship with the Holy Spirit. She lived in this state of God’s presence and anointing for 7 years!
By then she had grown to be a well-recognized leader in the movement. Then a huge spiritual confusion came upon the church movement she was in, and she was hurled into a great spiritual darkness. For the next 15 years, she still faithfully served in the church, but mostly out of the spiritual stores of her early years. These gradually ran dry. She was a member of an extremely ministry-driven leadership team, so she never stopped to take care of herself. She lived and served like this year after year, until she reached the point of extreme burnout and physical illness for three years. After so many years of following God, she despaired.
Then she joined our five-month program.
Here, she met her Lord again! Not once or twice, but every day, in everything we did, learned, and talked about. She abides in Jesus every day now, in a much deeper way than even her early years as a believer. Her mind has been opened and renewed through life-giving biblical principles for life and ministry, through Christ-centered, holistic models, and through the example of our staff living out the words we say. She has been resurrected!
What About You?
If you are a leader in your organization at any level, one of your goals must be to build your people so that they are not just surviving, but thriving. They should be pursuing God’s purposes fully, in dependency on God.
But if you’re not depending on God, it’s going to be nearly impossible to help them do it.
Leave a comment below — what are the primary obstacles that stop you from depending on God in your organization?
Recommended Resources
Video Course: Building Healthy Churches
Model Brief: Summary of the ConneXions Model of Leader Development
For more resources, visit our website.
As always, we’re so grateful to our friends at Fifty-Four Collective for helping us create these videos and for providing top-notch leader development online training. Check out what they’re doing!