It is theological!

Following a single charismatic leader, aligning everyone in the process and making things happened - all these are popular proven method both in organisational and church world.
But what is the problem with this?

Efficiency is up, productivity is high, success is almost guaranteed.

The subtle challenge is we have moved from a communal structure (of a family) into a hierarchical structure (of an organisation). We have replaced people as mean to achieve goals. We have skipped the necessary step for relational development for corporate effectiveness. And the deception of it all, we do get what we want as a result. But at what cost?

People feel used.

Relationship is abused and functional.

Personal aspiration is denied, at best, to be redefined.

Over time, people decided for a change; be it in church or workplace.

Leadership alignment is something i did and taught in the past. i don't think it was wrong. but i felt i (together with others) might have overused it.

Thomas Sergiovanni challenged the over use of leadership. By that, he meant the over-emphasis of leadership and leadership methods which would inevitably deny any personal ownership and development among the masses. In fact, he made a bold claim that when leadership is absent, true authentic (personal) leaders will arise. People will take more personal responsibilities when there is lesser top-down intervention. There is much to chew about.

Interestingly, while the above was a simple summary of my educational reflection, Elder Freddy Boey of Riverlife made the same challenge this Sunday too. He was also addressing the over-reliance of secular method adopted by churches.

Personally i have always wondered why the church is turning to the world for wisdom while the world is turning to Jesus as a model? My humble conclusion is that we have not invested in biblical christian thinking. We, like Singapore, prefer to be pragmatic rather than ideological in our views of life.

Elder Freddy made a personal stand against this tide by recognising that it was not a call for management efficiency that the church should be bothered with. Rather the church should stand for what is theologically sound and biblically right.

Amen to that!