The Sky is Falling?!?I met with Northminster’s Transition Team on Monday night to continue our discussion of Roxburgh and Romanuk’s The Missional Leader. At one point in our discussion I said, “I am so glad the days of the pastor as CEO are coming to an end because I’m just not a CEO.”

I used to think that I wouldn’t be a good senior pastor because I didn’t have CEO tendencies—y’know, come in with the plan, lay out the strategy, tell everyone what their jobs are in accomplishing the plan, etc., etc… (at least, that’s my impression of the CEO pastor). But the more I read about leadership in a missional church, the more I discover that I don’t have to be a CEO.

In The Sky is Falling!?!, Alan Roxburgh proposes four types of missional leaders: the leader as 1) Poet, 2) Prophet, 3) Apostle, and 4) Pastor/Teacher. And then he adds one final leader—a leader of leaders really, which he calls the Abbot/Abbess.

I’ll describe each one briefly.

The Leader as Poet: The poet is a leader whose calling is to help people begin to understand who they are, what they are feeling, where they are, and where they might go. “Leadership at this point is about cultivating an environment that will give voice and meaning to events that seem to be determining people’s lives” (p. 163).

The Leader as Prophet: The prophet is similar to the poet, but focuses more on getting people to move in a certain direction based on what the poet has helped them become aware of. “As the poet calls people to an articulation of their pain and loss, the prophet pushes them toward a vision of how and where God is shaping them at the moment. The poet gives language to people’s experience; the prophet brings them back to the words of the narrative, addressing people with the decisions and direction of the Spirit’s future” (p. 170).

The Leader as Apostle: The apostle says, “Based on what we’ve learned under the poet and prophet, here’s how we can put this into action.” Apostles tend to push the envelope—highly creative, out-of-the-box thinkers. Because of this, they may be seen as a threat and tend not to be welcome in more traditional/liminal forms of church. As a result, “such leaders have tended to move outside these systems (joined the Emergent tribe)” (p. 175).

The Leader as Pastor/Teacher: This is the leadership role that we tend to think of when it comes to church leadership. The Pastor/Teacher “has been the primary and almost only form of church leadership for almost two millenia. The Reformation didn’t address or change this form of leadership, but shifted some of its functions from priest to teacher/care-giver…. Pastoral leadership can function as the primary role identity of leaders only within long periods of cultural stability. We are far from such a period at the moment. This does not mean the pastoral role is unimportant. It remains essential; but it must be seen in relationship to the other leadership types and not as the sole type of leadership to be desired” (p. 176, italics added).

Then Roxburgh adds one other leader—the Abbot/Abbess. This person is a leader of leaders, helping the other four types of leaders to work together, mentoring them and helping them to grow in their gifts as they help the community of God’s people grow.

So which one am I? I’m not sure yet. But I suspect I’ll figure it out as I begin leading Northminster Presbyterian Church. In reading these descriptions, I’m leaning toward somewhere between poet and prophet. And I think that’s exactly what Northminster needs at this time.

My prayer is that, given time, all four types of leaders will eventually be in active leadership at Northminster. And notice that these leaders don’t have to be ordained clergy! That’s the exciting thing about missional leadership!