the mark driscoll controversy

Mark Driscoll’s recent decision to step down from leadership at Mars Hill Church triggered a feeding frenzy on the interweb. I have no connection with the people involved (except a friend and former Vineyard staff member who’s been quoted frequently in the press as one of Mark’s protestors!), so it’s not fair to comment based solely on press releases and bloggers. Pastoring—whether you’re the lead pastor or the elders—is difficult enough without me dogpiling on.

But of course we all have opinions, don’t we? I personally don’t subscribe to Mark’s reformed theological views (consider me a Wesleyan Spirit-filled egalitarian of sorts) or what’s been referred to as his “frat boy” speaking style or his alleged domineering—some would say bullying—leadership approach, but I have appreciated his passion for the Kingdom from afar.

I was admittedly surprised, though, by a leaked internal memo about the way finances were handled in respect to what was called the Mars Hill Global Fund. By all appearances, this was a designated fund for international missions outreach, but according to Warren Throckmorton’s obsessive reporting, only about 6% was actually going out to world missions concerns; the rest was simply filtered into the general fund. Earlier it was disclosed that Mars Hill paid a publicity firm a couple hundred thousand dollars to get his book on the New York Times bestseller list. Aggressive-marketing campaigns are not uncommon for pop authors but certainly ethically questionable for a church.

That’s not smart. John Wimber used to warn churchplanters that money and sexual impropriety can absolutely ensnare and bring down leaders and churches. Never touch the money and keep your office door open. Though the Global Fund memo seemingly didn’t come from Driscoll himself, the danger is that pastors can get so busy in traveling or promoting their latest book that they lose their eye on the flock. Or in Jim Collins language: when CEOs start showing up on talk shows, it’s all over for the organization.

Scott Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t, articulates the danger of creeping entitlement and how leaders can begin to feel arrogantly bulletproof in their decisions. In describing true leadership, he writes:

(Leaders) are often willing to sacrifice their own comfort for ours, even when they disagree with us. . . . Leaders are the ones who are willing to give up something of their own for us. Their time, their energy, their money, maybe even the food off their plate. When it matters, leaders choose to eat last. . . . The leaders of organizations who rise through the ranks not because they want it, but because the tribe keeps offering higher status out of gratitude for their willingness to sacrifice, are the true leaders worthy of our trust and loyalty. All leaders, even the good ones, can sometimes lose their way and become selfish and power hungry, however. . . . What makes a good leader is that they eschew the spotlight in favor of spending time and energy to do what they need to do to support and protect their people.

I’m not implying that Driscoll falls into any negative leadership category; again, I’m not close enough to any of the parties involved to know nor have any real responsibility to comment on Mars Hill polity and accountability. But when Forbes.com calls your church “the Enron of American Churches”, you have a p.r. problem of the first degree.

And one final thought: this has nothing to do with the size of churches. I’ve known very small ones with spiritually abusive leaders and a controlling culture with little transparency.

It simply has everything to do with leadership. Period.

imagination and leadership

I’m working my way through writing a new book…this one is based on my observations and experience of leadership and the necessary elements it takes to lead well, whether it’s your family, team, department or organization. One of the key elements I’m currently working on is: imagination.

I’m convinced that the power of imagination and creativity is way too often overlooked in management and leadership circles. Many times we relegate imagination to the exclusive domain of artists and creatives, forgetting that we are all made in the image of a God to whom we are introduced in the opening pages of scripture via an explosive flurry of creativity. We have the same spiritual DNA, regardless of how artistically-challenged we may consider ourselves. If your best doodles are stick people and the only poetry you recall is “There once was a girl from…”, fear not: your true creativity is not limited to sketches and poems.

Ed Catmull, the president of the creative powerhouse Pixar, began his leadership life in front of a computer with a single dream: to somehow create animation with a computer. His boyhood had been shaped by two heroes—Walt Disney and Albert Einstein. Even though he worked his way through the comic-book-advertised Jon Gnagy’s Learn To Draw art kit (which I remember buying as a kid myself!), he sadly discovered that he would never reach the talent arc of Disney’s animators. So eventually he turned his attention to computer science and graphics.

Twenty-five or so years later he would help lead and manage the creative team that developed the industry-changing movie Toy Story. But he writes tellingly that after they had finally released the movie, he “felt adrift”. Is this really what he wanted to do—manage a complex, messy company mixed with insanely creative people, bean-counters, bottom-line investors and now skyrocketing expectations? Would he miss personally using his own artistic, creative abilities?

Catmull would ultimately make a paradigm shift in his thinking: he could use his restless creativity to think imaginatively about how an organization could develop a “culture of creativity” and how structures, processes and values could be creatively designed to bring the best out of their employees while satisfying their audience with stories and characters of incredible emotional depth brought to life from zeroes-and-ones.

In other words, he could shift his creative juices from graphic programming to thinking innovatively about organizational structures, systems and culture. Management didn’t have to just be about maintenance and metrics; he began to see a much larger picture for his creativity-starved leadership role. In his book Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, he writes tellingly:

. . . Figuring out how to build a sustainable creative culture—one that didn’t just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, excellence, communication, originality, and self-assessment but really committed to them, no matter how uncomfortable that became—wasn’t a singular assignment. It was a day-in-day-out, full-time job. . . . My hope was to make this culture so vigorous that it would survive when Pixar’s founding members were long gone, enabling the company to continue producing original films that made money, yes, but also contributed positively to the world. . . . That was the job I assigned myself—and the one that still animates me to this day.

How is your imagination being used in leadership? What kind of “what if?” questions are you mulling and tackling with your team? How much time do you allot for creative thinking?

“Best way—bar none—to stay creative is to manage ‘hang out.’ Religiously. Hang out with weirdos (on any and all dimensions) rather than ‘same old, same old’ and you automatically win.”                 ~Tom Peters

the withness factor

Years ago when our oldest daughter was thirteen, we moved into a new school district. Since Rachel was typically an internal processor and often learned through quiet observance, it was sometimes difficult to know what she was wrestling with in her inner world, particularly since she tended to be even-tempered and optimistic.

One night my wife came out of Rachel’s room and said, “I’m not sure what’s wrong. She’s just being very quiet.” It was a hot August night—almost midnight and she was still up. All the Workmans tend to be late-nighters, especially during the summer.

We had moved to the new district over the Easter break but were driving our girls to the old school for the remaining couple of months so they wouldn’t have to switch mid-stream. Now five months later, we had settled into a new neighborhood over the summer and Rachel had kept her friends at church. But after eight years in a small school, she would be attending a very large one where she knew no one. To us at the time it didn’t seem like a major issue, particular since she was so involved in the youth group at church.

But she was clearly down. And the reality is, any problem is big when it’s big to you. I knocked on her door, walked in and sat on the edge of her bed.

“You okay?” I asked.

Without looking up, she responded, “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

A pause, then, “I don’t know.”

You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that from here on out it’s going to be short answers. We sat there in silence for a few moments, then I asked, “Have you ever gone on a bike ride at midnight?” She looked at me quizzically.

When I was a little boy, I idolized my big brother. He was five years older than me and the coolest guy on the planet. Or at least in Augusta, Kentucky, population twelve-hundred. One summer night when we were kids, he invited me to go bike riding after our parents had long gone to sleep. He didn’t seem to be embarrassed to be seen with his little skinny baby brother, but then again maybe that’s why we went out at midnight.

We taped flashlights on our handlebars and took off down Bracken Street. We made our way to a pitch-black country road heading out of town along a marshy field bordering the river. My eyes suddenly widened: the field was littered with what seemed to be thousands upon thousands of fireflies. It seemed as if we had somehow coasted our Huffys beyond the rings of Saturn into a sea of twinkling stars.

I can close my eyes and still see it to this day. It’s a wonderful memory; I owe my big brother for that one.

Still sitting on the edge of Rachel’s bed, I looked down at her and said, “Let’s go for a bike ride.” She flashed a puzzled grin.

We pulled our bikes out of the garage after I duct taped a flashlight on my handlebars.  We rode past the massive eighty-year-old WLW diamond-shaped radio tower, once powerful enough to broadcast on children’s braces. Seriously. A few cars slowed to look at the white-haired man on a bike with a flashlight and a blond thirteen-year-old. We didn’t talk much as we rode across the moonlit blacktop, past darkened houses, sneaking glances voyeuristically at the windows with a slight blue glow from televisions. We simply gulped in the warm midnight air. How often do you get to do that in life with your thirteen-year-old?

We eventually made our way home. Rachel smiled, gave me a hug, and went off to bed. Sometimes we just need someone to be there, to be with. What words, rational explanations and clever justifications don’t do, withness does.

In C. S. Lewis’ poignant journal kept after the death of his wife, he writes:

“There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anybody says, or, perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet, I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”

Lewis, former atheist and one time confirmed bachelor who became the greatest apologist for Christianity in the 20th century, found he simply needed people…people to be with.

We were wired for this mysterious thing called community, for withness. I struggle with it, but understand more and more as I age how critically vital it is. It doesn’t take much for any of us to feel valued, to feel loved, to feel accepted. The inevitable changes and losses of life are much more manageable in the withness of others.

Are you experiencing the withness factor in your life?

“...And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” ~Jesus (Matthew 28:20)