As I unpack my life and try to fit a square peg into a round hole at least I am being entertained by Jimmy Kimmel Live’s musical guest for tonight as they sound check outside only a few yards away. If you want quiet don’t move to Hollywood!

Phil sent out a newsletter today and one of the posts jumped out at me. Real Leaders Don’t Expect A Free Pass. I don’t know how I missed it! I dare you to read his post and the comments. As I was creating the hyperlink one comment jumped out at me:

Leaders who have to rely on position and power for compliance from their followers are one bad decision away from becoming toxic leaders …..

Thanks Bart. The term toxic leader is not only a good band name it stuck in my database!

Does anyone see a pattern here? I could list pages upon pages of similar posts on multiple blogs, yet I really have to get my life out of a box so I can go back to enjoying LA. The church is changing. Yes, the change is slow but because of the internet authoritarian or toxic leaders can no longer manipulate people to be silent.

Wake up church! We are not effective and we are not growing. We are hemorrhaging good people like crazy. We are lying to ourselves and we refuse to be self-aware. We are turning people off to a real relationship with Christ because we are so set on pushing a personal agenda. Is it better to do it your way or is it better to have an opened spirit and grow into what God wants for your life and your ministry? The more we white-knuckle the control the less God can work through us. His way or your way?

The explanation “we are building the church God’s way” is a rationalization to protect oneself from having to change. Real change and healthy honest communication would only expose the truth so we build toxic empires to hide our insecurities. Until those masks are destroyed and the church in reality becomes transparent and vulnerable we will not be able to do what we are called to do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 6:45 pm and is filed under My Big Mouth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.