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The Myth of the all knowing Christian Leader


Information is control, or is it?

In today's world information overload is common among churches. Tweets, web sites, emails, newsletters and Sunday morning announcements are rolled out with repetitive regularity. This is not always a good thing, people don't need to know everything but they do need to know that their Christian Leaders are taking them in the right direction. However it is also felt that Christian leaders should know most things and be in control of everything. This too is a dangerous thing.

But, is there something to this myth? In today's society, leaders need to have a healthy appetite for information. Information gathering about what is going on in each of their church departments is vital for giving the senior leader an overall picture of their church. This information is always passed upwards and in return the control and direction is passed downwards.

It is true after all that information is control, the more information the more in control they can be. Or can they? Too much control leads to a feeling that other leaders are not to be trusted. Information control needs to be finely balanced with trust in order to avoid what could be seen as micro-management.

Information  given by department heads is always past tense, it is always about what has happened. What the senior leaders need most of all is information that leads them into the future, a way of taking their church forward in vision and mission. This is in itself very difficult and needs the Church Leader to gather intelligence. To do this a Church Leader needs to climb down from their mountain top and see what the ordinary folk see.

If for example the Senior Church Leader is developing a community program as an outreach arm of their church. Then  formal reports by local authorities on what is happening in the community need to be read and perused. Not only that but the leader needs to get out into the community and meet community leaders and ordinary people and discuss local issues, problems and aspirations, challenges and opportunities. From both these formal reports and the informal information gathered then a good picture (not perfect) of the task in hand can be drawn and developed.

Then climbing back up the mountain they take with them some of their team leaders and share what can be seen from the top. Not a clear defined future but an informed future developed not by individuals who know everything but by trusted teams that see what their leader sees.

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