Facilitating Leaders I Cor. 3:5-9
Illustration:Labor mightily for a healing spirit. Away with all discriminating names whatever that may hinder the applying of balm to heal your wounds...Discord and division become no Christian. For wolves to worry the lambs is no wonder, but for one lamb to worry another, this is unnatural and monstrous.
Thomas Brooks, quoted in Credenda Agenda, Vol. 5
The facilitating leader functions best with a group of cooperative people who are willing to carry out their full responsibilities for the good of the organization. The facilitative leader furnishes the oversight of the fellowship by helping to coordinate the resources and the efforts of the people. Mobilizing the people for action, the facilitator acts as a catalyst for continual improvement. Since the facilitator knows how to resort to the other styles of leadership, he knows how to take different paths to balance out his peoples’ needs at each varying situation. When there is a network of integrative ministries happening in his organization, the facilitative leader is at his best. With a whole host of trained, motivated, and equipped people, the catalytic leader is able to maximize individual and corporate contributions to the achievement of great goals. The facilitator knows how to multiply his resources and personnel’ contributions through coordinative strategies.
Adaptability remains one of the facilitator’s greatest strengths since he knows how to become all things to all men for most situations.
This is one of the reasons that the apostle Paul is perhaps the most excellent example of a catalytic leader whoever lived. The facilitator exhibits the patience necessary for people and programs to come to fruition. He is skilled at enlisting a wide array of talent in his organization by encouraging and challenging his people to give their best. Occasionally, people can feel like they are standing in a wind storm when the facilitative leader comes into the room. He is eager to push people to reach their potentials. Blessed with a healthy self-image, the facilitator exudes confidence which draws many people to him.
Facilitator have a way of encouraging people through their example to learn how to love oneself as God love us. They emit a radiance of confident assurance of their God given abilities. No wonder a statement like, "I can do everything God asks me to do with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power," (Phil. 4:13) came from the chief catalyst - apostle Paul. Constantly, the facilitator has to be careful that people are not following him, but His Lord. Many great facilitative leaders have subtly allowed their organizations to slip into an organization that revolves around their dynamic personality rather than the Lord or His purposes. The Corinthians experienced this problem when some said, "I am of Apollos and others said I am of Paul. The apostle Paul wrote back to them with a scathing rebuke saying,
"What, after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe - as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his labors. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building." (I Cor. 3:5-9)
Facilitator seek to develop fulfilling relationships by bringing people together for loftier goals than any individual can accomplish on their own. Paul emphasizes this catalytic function in Ephesians 4:11-13:
"It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
Here is a classic catalytic leader’s statement of the importance of preparing God’s people to maximize their contributions. The facilitative leader is constantly looking for ways to build people up in faith, knowledge, values, and skills to improve their ministries and promote unity. It takes great courage and perseverance to be a facilitative leader, but Paul gained that through His new life in Christ. As a result, Paul could be described as assertive in his leadership. Even when he found himself chained to a Roman guard in a prison, he wrote these words to the Phillipian:
"And this is my prayer; that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God."
A facilitative leader knows that real love needs to constantly grow, develop, and be nurtured for it to improve.
The way a spiritual man matures is through a continual cycle of spiritual intake and output.
If either element in the cycle slackens there will be a gradual retarding of the growth of the person’s development. Discernment gradually increases with the help of a facilitative leader who increases insights by practice of righteous principles. The facilitative leader is ever learning about better ways to communicate the truth of the scriptures in contextually appropriate, effective, and culturally suitable ways. The burden of the facilitator is to give God the greatest praise, honor, and glory through the maximization of his will in personal and corporate lifestyles. Only through knowing and making Christ known is this potential realized through cooperative ministry endeavors.
Paul was progressive in his approach to facilitating the will of God in people. There are constant signs of progressive growth in, through, and with Christ in Paul’s letters. Paul writes,
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have told hold of it. But one thing I do. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 3:12-14)
Paul strived for perfection with everyone he came in contact. He believed in excellence in his writing, ministry, and relations. The word teleios that Paul uses in this passage does not mean an abstract perfection as much as a functional perfection. It means an adequacy for some given purpose. According to Barclay it means full-grown in distinction to underdeveloped; for example, it is used of a full-grown man as opposed to an undeveloped youth. It is used to mean mature in mind, as opposed to one who is a beginner in a subject; it therefore means one who is qualified in a subject as opposed to a mere learner... it often means without blemish and fit to offer God. when it is used of Christians, it often means baptized persons who are full members of the Church, as opposed to those who are still under instruction of the Church. In the days of the early Church it is quite often used to describe martyrs. A martyr is said to be perfected by the sword, and the day of his death is said to be the day of his perfecting. The idea is that a man’s Christian witness and maturity cannot go beyond martyrdom.... so when Paul used it in verse 12, he is saying that he is not by any means a complete Christian, but he is for every pressing on. p. 82, Barclay’s Commentary on Philippians, 1959)
At the same time a facilitative leader knows how to help reduce the obstacles for growth. For example, recently, one facilitative missionary decided to reduce the fears of the women in a village he was trying to plant a church in Nigeria. He used his wife as a model of faith in God’s protective powers. Apparently, Pastor Shekwagu Jabai felt lots of pressure from the people of Bokoland to put his wife in their smoke house to drive the demons out of the fetus in his pregnant wife. The Boko people believed that unless all pregnant women sat in the smoke house for at least one hour every day they would deliver a baby possessed by evil spirits. The elders and chief of the village threatened to remove Shekwagu from the village if he failed to comply with their custom. Agonizing over the decision, Shekwagu sensed that God wanted him to use this instance as a demonstration of His greater power than the powers of the local demonic spirits.
For six months, Shekwagu endured the scorning, mocking, and rebuffs of the Boko people. Eventually, he and his wife not to give into the local customs as a sign of the faith’s ability to conquer the fear from spirits.
Shekwagu recalled the truth of the great facilitative leader who once wrote a fearful Timothy, "God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and discipline." (2 Tim. 1:7) After the day of the delivery of Shekwagu’s second child, everyone in the village feared sharp reprisals from the spirits and ancestors for violating one of their sacred traditions. However, after six months it became evident that the baby girl was healthy, lively, and completely free from any evil spirits. Within two years, nearly all of the women of Boko insisted that they would no longer sit in the smoke house before their deliveries.
Shekwagu had facilitated the deliverance of the people from fear and the influence of evil spirits. This incident was the chief catalytic factor that contributed to the beginning of several new E.C.W.A. churches in Bokoland. Facilitator have a knack for helping people reduce their fears, inhibitions, and obstacles for faith development.
The facilitator is willing to learn new approaches as he recognizes the trap of getting into old traditional approach to problem solving. Paul, the apostle said, "I will continue for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me." (Phil 1:26) Later, Paul was released from prison and met with his friends on his fourth missionary journey. Paul was a man in perpetual motion in his mind, spirit, and when possible with his person. It takes tremendous energizing from the Spirit to continue to function as a catalytic leader.
Facilitative leaders must possess the courage to stand strong in the face of opposing viewpoints. As a facilitative leader, Paul was not afraid to confront Barnabas and Peter with their sins of hypocrisy. Even though Paul could be very confrontational by nature, he had learned through the Spirit to be conciliatory. Paul understood that even when his motives were pure, he was often misunderstood. Instead of complaining about his abuse he writes from a Roman prison cell these words, "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like starts in the universe." (Phil. 2:14) Paul appreciated the power that a statesman like approach could have for the gospel. He diplomatically presented the truth to King Agrippa in a way that the king was almost persuaded to change his thinking.
Few Christians seem to master the art and science of Christian diplomacy. Many tried to avoid acting like a hypocritical politician. However, the great apostle Paul knew when to praise, when to console, and when to confront. His balanced approached showed an amazing adaptability and contextual appropriate manner. Oh, that more leaders would be willing to be more patient, diplomatic, and statesman like in their approaches to problems. At least 50% of the problems of leadership could be solved with greater diplomatic approaches that speak the truth in culturally acceptable ways. It may make one feel uneasy at first, but eventually the Christian who is able to be at peace as far as it is possible will in the end be the one to make the greatest impact.
Paul knew that often people accused him of being mild in their presence by aggressively harsh in his letters. The Corinthians suggested that Paul had hidden motives for acting in such a duplicitous manner. Yet, Paul did not run from these apparent contradictions. He knew the nature of the people to exaggerate. He continually looked to the root cause of issues rather than trying to treat symptoms. Paul knew that many people simply get used to certain bad habits and then assume that these are normal.
As a facilitator, Paul continually challenged people to grow up into all aspects into Christ. Paul avoided any tendency to grow complacent about his own spiritual, intellectual, social, emotional, or behavioral development. No doubt, Paul was constantly studying, thinking, and working through love to make the most of every opportunity for the qualitative and quantitative expansion of the kingdom. Even though many assumed Paul to be pushy, he strived for the maximization of His will. Paul knew that his undying energies were given to him by the Spirit who he wrote, "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13) Paul’s assertiveness help many clarify their identities, purposes, and relations to the will of God. Catalysts make it difficult to remain neutral toward Christ’s will for their lives. These are people who remind me of a conversation with an outstanding facilitative leader, Dr. Ralph Winter, founder and director of the U.S. Center for World Missions who said,
"For every Bible-believing Christian in the world there are only four people who are still sealed off behind cultural and linguistic barriers from any normal Gospel witness.
Never before have we been so close to the end of the fulfillment of the missionary task! There are two billion unreached who may never have heard of Jesus as Savior, and are not within reach of Christians of their own people. There are, in fact, some 2,000 peoples or nationalities in which there is not yet a vital, indigenous church movement. You will find it helpful to think of them as belonging to smaller ’people groups’ which perceive themselves as having an affinity with each other (e.g. a common culture, language, home or occupation). The most effective messengers to reach them will be those believers who already belong to their culture and know their language. Otherwise, cross-cultural messengers of the gospel will need to go, leaving behind their own culture and sacrificially identifying with the people they long to reach for Christ.
There are now about 12,000 such unreached people groups within the 2,000 larger groups, so that the task is not impossible. Yet at present only 7% of all missionaries are engaged in this kind of outreach, while the remaining 93% are working in the already evangelized half of the world. If this imbalance is to be redressed, a strategic redeployment of personnel will be necessary...
We are deeply ashamed that nearly two millennia have passed since the death and resurrection of Jesus, and still two-thirds of the world’s population have not yet acknowledged him. ON the other hand, we are amazed at the mounting evidence of God’s power even in the most unlikely places of the globe.
Now the year 2000 has become for many a challenging milestone. Can we commit ourselves to evangelize the world during the last decade of this millennium? There is nothing magical about the date, yet should we not do our best to reach this goal? Christ commands us to take the gospel to all peoples. The task is urgent. We are determined to obey him with joy and hope!" (Quoting from the Lausanne conference of the Manila Manifesto, March 1992)
To be with Dr. Ralph Winter is to receive a clinic in facilitative leadership. To listen to him talk or to read his writing is to feel the hot prod of the Spirit in his soul urging one on to greater service for Jesus Christ.
Every time one hears Dr. Winter speak, one gets the feeling that here is a modern day apostle Paul. He wants the gospel preached where no man has gone before. He longs to see the unreached presented with the truth. Many people chafe around his leadership style (recently the members of his board resigned in protest over such domineering leadership), but they all respect this man’s vision. It seems that Dr. Winter is constantly coming up with new catalytic ideas to advance the frontier peoples’ movement ministry. Those who work with Dr. Winter appreciate that for every hundred ideas that he comes up with, if only 10 come to fruition, there is added advancement of the kingdom of God. It may be tiring to be in such close association with facilitative leaders since they are pushers, drivers, and pioneers in their fields. However, these are the men, like the apostle Paul, who knew how to provided catalytic leadership during good and bad times. These were people who were willing to attempt great things for God and accomplish great things through Him. Facilitator are involvers of people and projects.
Conclusion - Learn to be all things to all men. Acquire the ability to utilize all four of the above leadership and follower styles. Adjust your ministry approaches to correspond to the most contextually appropriate situations. The leader who is wise will learn how to mix and match the approaches to his leaders and their perceived environments. Flexibility, adaptability, and contextualization are the keys to successful leadership with these four styles. The leader who stays fixed in one style will soon find that his credibility is reduced.
The Spirit of God gives each leader supernatural guidance in modifying his approaches to various followers and circumstances. Remaining locked into one particular leadership style is a formula for failure. Learn the art and science of matching goals with outcomes by seeking optimum congruence between leadership styles and the mind sets of your followers and their contexts for maximization of the Lord’s will and blessings.
Note - Some of the above ideas are adapted from Robert D. Dale’s Ministers As Leaders, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tenn.1984
