Leadership in the Church

This book, Leadership in the Church, is highly motivating, instructive, and didactic. As the title implies, this book is intended to provide leadership within the church, but the corollary adventure of the book goes beyond the church enclave. The world is deeply entering an era of “muddling through”—in which the publishing market is saturated with half-baked and smoke screen authors who value quick moneymaking ventures over deep-rooted, researched work that will largely contribute to knowledge. Reverend Gabriel Oluwasegun has shown his stuff by tackling the burning and most daring issue of our time: Leadership. To start with, leadership is a household concept. Everyone is a leader somewhere. Every parent is a leader, first to their children and then to others. Every political office holder, pastor, lecturer, civil servant, etc., is a leader. People look to leaders for their pronouncements and actions. Leadership has multiple definitions. Some of these were made in the context of the perceptions of certain leaders. Each definition is defensible in the context within which the authors present it. Leadership may be defined as the relationship in which one person, the leader, influences others to work together willingly on related tasks to attain that which the leader desires. It is a means of direction. Leadership is the ability of management to induce subordinates to work towards group goals with confidence and keenness. Leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less. The essence of leadership is fellowship. It is the willingness of people to follow that makes a person a leader. The three major factors in leadership are: the people (both leaders and those who are led), the tasks, which must be accomplished, and the goals, which are to be achieved. Good leadership requires balanced attention to these three factors. There is a dearth of seasoned leaders in the Church of God of today. Gatecrashers have taken over the pastoral fields from the professionals, and they are bulldozing their ways here and there, doing the Lord’s work haphazardly. They exhibit only their authority of office and not of professional competence. The majority of these gatecrashers are “half-baked” and untutored “leaders,” taking over the Lord’s pasture and causing a lot of havoc to the welfare of the sheep. Our Lord Jesus Christ referred to them as “blind guides” (Mt. 23:16, 24). True leaders, who are living examples of integrity, honesty, consistency, deep and real spirituality, are few these days. Self-made leaders, who only possess a form of godliness but deny the power of God in their actions, abound. For the body of Christ to get into her prophetic promised land, this situation must change. Isaiah 9:16 says, “For the leaders of this people cause them to err, and they that are led of them are destroyed.” When capable leadership is not in place, most things do not work out as they should. In all ages, God’s people have suffered because of lack of proper leadership. There is perhaps no place like in the work of the ministry where the devastating effects of leadership defects are most apparent. Beginning with Abraham, God has always called and equipped leaders to motivate, inspire, and enable His people to meet the challenges of their days. God’s method is to lead through human instruments. Leadership is God’s tool for working out His plan and purpose for earth and people. Christian leadership is the ability to transfer a burden that you have in your heart to someone else in your church. Transfer a burden so that the person who assumes that job—whether it be a deacon, elder, Sunday school teacher, choirmaster, or whomever it may be—is operating from a sense of burden. Everybody is a leader, but not everybody is a good leader. Everybody is leading by their influence, by their attitude and their mannerisms. But some people are more effective than others. Jesus developed leaders in His day, but how are we sharing the Christian faith today? About 2,000 years