Catholic mystic Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) continues to influence Christians across a wide spectrum. His books that have most influenced me include The Wounded Healer, In the Name of Jesus, Clowning in Rome, The Life of the Beloved and The Way of the Heart. I am pleasantly surprised at how often evangelicals quote him. I do, however, wonder if they understand him. His textured biblical reflections challenge a number of our presuppositions, especially about leadership. Since ACT 3 exists to “equip leaders for unity in Christ’s mission” I find Nouwen to be one of my most important resources because he was both deeply spiritual man and a real, practicing ecumenist.

Index In the book, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, which is one of my favorite Nouwen works, he wrote the following about effective ministry:

My movement from Harvard to L’Arche

[a ministry to the mentally challenged] made me aware in a new way how much my own thinking about Christian leadership had been affected by the desire to be relevant, the desire for popularity, and the desire for power. Too often, I looked at being relevant, popular, and powerful as ingredients for effective ministry.

The truth, however, is that these are not vocations but temptations. Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” Jesus sends us out as shepherds, and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led to places where we would rather not go. He asks us to move from a concern for relevance to a life of prayer, from worries about popularity to community and mutual ministry, and from a leadership built on power to a leadership in which we critically discern where God is leading us and our people

In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, Crossroad Publishing, 1989, 91-92.

My friend Dr. Timothy Gombis, a New Testament professor and first-rate Pauline scholar, wrote the following in a recent Christianity Today article:

If we encountered Paul today, he would not be the strong and decisive leader we often imagine. In fact, many of our contemporary churches would hardly consider him a viable pastoral candidate.

Evangelicals place a high priority on leadership, perhaps because historically our movement has been carried along by strong leaders. The great figures in our heritage have been powerful speakers and compelling visionaries, many of whom have built colleges, seminaries, and, in some cases, entire denominations. These are also the traits we want to see in our pastors.

Thus we intuitively assume that Paul was someone just like this. We think he must have been a compelling figure, a charismatic and decisive leader, and a powerful speaker. From the moment of conversion, he immediately put his great abilities to work for Christ, taking over the leadership of the church and becoming its powerful spokesperson. When we look at the evidence from the New Testament, however, we find a very different picture…If we encountered Paul today, we might be disappointed to find someone quite unlike the strong and decisive leader we often imagine.

I continually encounter false expectations about leadership among Christians. We have adopted the Strong Natural Leader (SNL) model as desirable and then turned the Type-A personality into the norm for effective mission. We want our pastors to be visionaries who lead by the sheer power of their personality. This cuts across the modern Christian world in one of two ways:

1. It discourages and destroys the effective ministries of men and women who are not SNLs. There are many very good leaders who will never be acknowledged as great leaders because they do not fit the model we’ve adopted, a model generally taken from the world not from Christ.

2. It exalts one style and type of personality and thus creates a natural tendency to seek after those personalities to build bigger corporate models that we call ideal or successful “local churches” or movements.

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Comments

  1. Pablo Giacopelli August 15, 2011 at 4:55 am

    I love Nouwen. The return of the prodigal son was a great inspiration to me in my journey of discovering who I really am and where my home really was. I also read much about his move from Harvard to work with that one mentally ill patient which was one of his best periods as far as the work he shared with all of us. Your blog speaks of one of the reasons I have a problem with organized religion. I have seen it happen so many times that the followers of Christ become the followers and even smaller clones of the leader or Pastor himself, hence focusing on behavior and being in a particular way to fit instead of living their lives from the new heart Christ gave us, thus focusing on discovering how much God loves and us and how instead of being in a particular way or tradition. Thanks for sharing this with us. Pablo

  2. Chris Hanna August 15, 2011 at 6:22 am

    John,
    I found this piece very thought provoking and encouraging. Thanks again for pointing out the real problems in the church and not the symptoms.

  3. George C August 15, 2011 at 9:35 am

    So next you’re probably going to tell us we have to actually rely on the Holy Spirit to do God’s work.
    I stumbled across “In The Name Of Jesus” a few years ago before I even knew who Henri Nouwen was. I think he hit on what is the source of much of the church’s problems.

  4. James Kim August 15, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    John, thank you for the post. This is eye opening to me. Henri Nouwen said in his book, “Prodigal son’ we are going through the stage of the prodigal son and the elder son. But eventually we should grow up to the father who unconditionally accept his sons with great love. Maybe this father’s image is the true spiritual leaders’ image rather than charismatic and visionary one.

  5. John H. Armstrong August 15, 2011 at 9:18 pm

    This insight from The Prodigal Son is one we should all ponder and consider very deeply. We should strive, by grace, to grow up into the great love of the Father who accepts the wayward son. This a leader does, embracing sheep who stray and wander, with love that flows from the Father through the Son and into the heart by the Spirit.

  6. AdamR August 15, 2011 at 11:56 pm

    I read Nouwen on leadership, and I tremble. I have loved In the Name of Jesus for a while, and I try to re-read it every year at least. No, I’m not a church leader, but so much of it applies anyway.
    John, I don’t know if you have read David Fitch’s The Great Giveaway, but he’s got an entire chapter on the implications of the Church adopting the CEO leadership model. He argues, in part, that the CEO, dynamic leadership model requires the leader to be a flawless model, and many Christian pastors fall into sin because they are utterly alone in the dark, without a confessing community to bear them up, just as we expect them to do for us.

  7. Outdoor playground equipment August 16, 2011 at 2:54 am

    I think he hit on what is the source of much of the church’s problems… I really am and where my home really was. I also read much about his move from Harvard to work with that one mentally ill patient which was one of his best periods as far as the work he shared with all of us.

  8. doral real estate August 17, 2011 at 1:50 am

    We should strive, by grace, to grow up into the great love of the Father who accepts the wayward son… I also read much about his move from Harvard to work with that one mentally ill patient which was one of his best periods as far as the work he shared with all of us.

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