Church Leadership During the Crisis

What makes a good leader?

If I had to start out anywhere it might be with a phrase that appears contradictory. It’s what I call ‘humble strength.’ The leaders whom I’d call truly ‘great’ have had a real humility that permits them to be seen as vulnerable, conscious of their limitations, and wish for wise counsel. They carry a humility that causes them to believe God in every area of their lives. Great leaders also carry a quiet strength that permits them to rally people towards an objective and to form the tough decisions necessary to maneuver forward.

What are a number of the specific challenges of trying to lead during tough times?

When times are tough leaders often face the depletion of two vital commodities; resources and morale, and therefore the two are often linked. Leaders may first of all discover that they simply don’t have the required tools at their disposal to get the work done. In today’s economic climate, this will include financial resources, and it also can end in a depletion of human resources.

Secondly, tough times can cause shoulders to sag. People lose hope, and leaders can have a way harder time trying to motivate people to ‘stay the course.’ The Bible says, “where there's no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). When difficult situations cause people to lose hope, it’s like their dreams have died. For a leader, this sense of despair in people represents a good challenge.

What difference can a good leader make in times of crisis?

Leaders are very important at all times within the lifetime of an organization, church, or ministry, but where great Christian leadership really shows is during the time of crisis. Without a leader, during a time of crisis, there's a way of overall panic and despair. And it really takes God raising up a leader to offer order thereto. I often consider how Scripture talks about ‘the evil one’ because of the author of chaos. So bringing a godly perspective through a robust leader during a time like this makes all the difference.

What are the characteristics of great leaders who have risen to the occasion?

Leaders who need to intensify to the plate during tough times must have the technical skills behind them to try to so. they need to be people of character. and that they got to have good people skills.

They need an ability to conceptualize a special ending, to be ready to say, ‘here’s another way that we could approach this.’ Some leaders get paralyzed in times of crisis because they only know a method to try to things, but great leaders have the power to be abstract thinkers; to think outside the box.