Chasing Stewardship

Bill shares his long-running frustration that most people and churches don't seem to ever seriously consider Paul's teaching in Romans 15:14: I am fully convinced, my dear brothers and sisters, that you are full of goodness. You know these things so well you can teach each other all about them. In particular, he felt that we spend too much time focusing on "better leaders" as the solution for all our problems, versus at least trying to explore superior "leaderless" models. Ernie challenged Bill to come up with a clearer critique that acknowledged that a) we are all dependent on one another, and b) we all have different roles and responsibilities within the Body of Christ. In particular, we need someone to take responsibility for the success of the context as a whole, not just their individual contribution. Bill clarified that his real concern is that we get so caught up in roles and titles -- and the people who hold them -- that we lose sight of the larger purpose. This led to a helpful distinction between "healthy" groups where the roles and responsibilities line up with the stated purpose, and "toxic" groups where they do not. We discussed our experience with models of shared leadership, program managers, and "Designated Responsible Individuals" at Apple. We eventually converged on the term Stewardship to describe having authority over a particular domain, perhaps even individuals, but explicitly accountable for serving a larger goal. The larger problem, we both agreed, is that existing structures are explicitly designed to hide the shame of their leaders; though was willing to concede that was necessary for human institutions to survive. Which implies the great challenge before us is to demonstrate that it is possible to flourish with Christ as the center, and all of us owning our shame before Him through the cross -- while still doing what needs to be done.