Igniting Passion In Your Church

Are You Assessing the Status Quo of Your Church or Organization?

In the book Elemental Leaders, I identify four critical traits every healthy and effective church must have: Integrity, Passion, Servanthood, and Imagination. In the section on Passion, I offer 6 “firestarters” for re-igniting passion in a church. In this post, I want to single one of them out as the first step in creating movement in a church…or any organization, for that matter. It is:

For corporate passion to occur, the leader must deeply feel, communicate, and then rally a dissatisfaction with the status quo. He or she must keenly explain why the current situation is unsustainable or even unconscionable.

If a definition of leadership is basically moving others toward a goal—moving a group of people from one place to another—then the first part of our job as catalytic leaders is to define reality. Catalytic leaders have to turn the heat up and help people understand why maintaining the present status quo isn’t right or healthy and why inaction is not an option. The proverbial frog in the kettle on the stove doesn’t realize how hot the water is becoming until it’s too late and he’s cooked; he didn’t sense the long-term danger of the current situation.

At the end of forty years of wandering in the wilderness after Israel’s liberation from centuries of bondage under the Egyptian Empire, Moses receives a clear leadership command from God in Deuteronomy 2: “You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north…”

The status quo was no longer acceptable. Israel’s trek was marked by four decades of rebellion, disobedience, grumbling and divided loyalties. It was a spiritual status quo in desperate need of movement; as a matter of fact, the original generation that found change difficult had died off.

Organizations (and leaders) must have a certain amount of change and challenge in order to be fully alive with new questions and decisions that force us to engage with God and his Kingdom more fully and deeply. Growth only comes from change.

If a leader doesn’t provide some heat or direction to the organization, mission drift occurs. And if left for too long a time, corporate deterioration sets in and in some cases is nearly irreversible—all that the future holds is a slow death.

Question of the Day: As you think about the current state of your church or organization, are you satisfied...or dissatisfied?

Dave Workman | Elemental Churches