Comments on: Healthy and Unhealthy Leadership

By: Libby

Libby — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 15:59:33 +0000

Yeah and that made it so difficult to find your own way of life, as God gifted you, as long as in UBF, and it was like a bird cage. I mean, if God calls a believer campus Student to reach out abroad in a rural area where you find no University, would UBF accept that? :(

By: forestsfailyou

forestsfailyou — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 15:53:53 +0000

When I bring this point up I am told that some are “gifted” but all have the “calling”. It a similar thing when talking about celibacy. Some have the gift, but all have the calling to be married by faith- by virtue of being in UBF.

By: Libby

Libby — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 09:08:42 +0000

The snare is also – as in UBF case – to appoint as many as possible to be future bible teachers. But the bible says not many of us should be teachers … in the letter to Timothy? i guess Paul wrote it

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 22:32:44 +0000

This is sad and painful to read. But from the Stalin link, here are the six (the number of evil!) principles to avoid: 1) Be afraid, be very afraid that everyone is betraying you. 2) Manage by fear. Make people afraid of you, so they won't rebel. 3) Kill the talent. Don't allow subordinates to realize and use their talents and gifts. They might overshadow the leader! 4) Rotate your favorites quickly. I had a teacher who would favor a student and then after the student began to flourish, she would tear that student down. By making what it takes to stay on her good side hard to discern, she kept students thinking about ways to curry her favor. Stalin made sure that everyone near him knew that they could be gone tomorrow or more powerful than they dared dream. It all depended on his will. 5) Create a cult of personality. Stalin turned Russia into Stalin’s Russia. 6) Rewrite the history of your project constantly to maximize your role. Everything revolved around the leader's whims and directives.

By: Joe Schafer

Joe Schafer — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 18:27:41 +0000

Brian, I read that article and was surprised at how accurately described the leadership style of Samuel Lee. I can give specific examples of how he did all six of those things.

By: BrianK

BrianK — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 15:08:06 +0000

Just tagging this excellent article by Ben that didn't get much discussion. I hope the idea of leadership will be brought out into the open much more in the future. I cam across a related article. Are we raising Stalin-like leaders at ubf? Becoming Stalin

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:54:54 +0000

Thanks, MJ, Vitaly, for sharing. For sure, we need to re-think leadership based on Jesus, which is always easy to say, but requires dying to put into practice! Here’s a quote from Neil Cole about leadership:

“Leadership is not about a position, an office, or a title, it is influence. Leadership is not functioning as a delegated decision-maker for an absentee King. We are servants that distribute empowerment rather than delegate it. Leadership is all about connecting people to the King and allowing them to listen and follow His word. We do not need more servant leaders; we need more servants…period. Many leaders don’t mind being called a servant; they just don’t like being treated like one.”

By: mj

mj — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:20:21 +0000

“Responsibility is the first step in responsibility.”
-W.E.B. Du Bois (civil rights leader)

The interesting thing about the “Top-down” leadership is how ultimately ineffective it is. This type of leadership paralyzes a ministry. It results in a congregation where none of the individual members can make their own decisions and lack innovation/initiative. It is a stagnant ministry. Jesus was never a “one-man show.”

I like this quote from Du Bois because of how true it is. No one will learn responsibility until they are given the chance to have responsibility. If someone is waiting for his Bible Teacher to tell him what to do (who to marry, what message to give, where to serve, how to serve, etc.), he is going to have to wait his whole life.

There is a difference between addition and multiplication. It is the difference between a good leader and a midiocre leader. A midiocre leader can attract a certain number of followers but they (the followers) only follow him (addition). A good leader, however, can attract followers who are able to raise followers who are able to attract followers and raise them, etc. (multiplication). Basically, Jesus is the ultimate leader.

The test of a good C.E.O is if, after he leaves, the company continues to work just as it had before. If the company blossoms after the C.E.O. is gone it means he was an obstacle to growth in the company. If the company deteriorates after he is gone it means that he was doing everything himself. Thankfully, Jesus, our true C.E.O. has never left us and never will.

By: Brian Karcher

Brian Karcher — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:47:16 +0000

Vitaly, you experience is common. I am encouraged by your reflection on Scripture, and glad that you’ve come to understand the gospel correctly. Jesus was a liberator primarily. What a challenge and example Jesus gave in the Jewish center when he declared his mission statement!

To “obey Jesus’ world mission command” or to be a “good leader/shepherd”, we ought to understand Jesus’ mission statement, which is perhaps the most clear explanation of the gospel of Jesus:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:16-21)

By: Brian Karcher

Brian Karcher — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:02:38 +0000

The "bully pulpit" is not a helpful way of exercising leadership. That was one of the key problems that led to my leaving UBF in protest.

By: Vitaly

Vitaly — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:00:23 +0000

From the very time I became a sheep in UBF I asked my “leader”: “Why do you command me to write and to publicly read sogams every week and you yourself never write nor read any sogams?”. The answer was: “Why do you depend on me? You must write and read sogams without dependence on whether I do it or not. Just do it”. I have never had an shepherd example to follow in anything in my christian life. I was told to share sogams, to go fishing, to write a message for 4-5 times, to receive this and that kind of training, and I was very often rebuked for not being successful enough. At the same time I have never seen the director’s self-training, self-discipline and at least some success (in fishing). He had a position but he wasn’t a leader and he isn’t a leader for anybody in the chapter. While I was in UBF I kept silent obeying Jesus’ words “So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach” (Mt 23:3). One day I left UBF (after 16 years) for I became even phisically sick because of shouts and every day rebukes. After I left I could see Jesus’ leadership in the Bible. I already wrote about Jesus relationship with Judas that touched me: Judas could freely kiss Jesus, and Jesus called him “friend”. Oh, Jesus’ love is so sincere and touching to the heart and amazing! I also wanted to mention about my new discovery in the Bible. I was often told about Paul’s words “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst” (1Tim 1:15). I was told, “You see – Paul wrote sogams and testified in detail that he was the worst of sinners. So you also write about your sins in detail and testify”. But what I discovered is that Paul wrote about himself as the worst of sinners to no one else but to Timothy! Oh, what an example for leaders! What a challenge for UBF leaders who say that they learn from Paul as their shepherd!

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:18:07 +0000

Below is a comment from a friend who emailed me privately and I received permission from him to post it:

Referencing your comment, “A few days ago, I heard about a chapter leader who implied in his sermon that a particular member of his church is a Judas…” I’d like to hear sometime more about the tool of “implied application” or “indirect allusion” toward particular congregants in the context of a sermon.

This discourse strategy seems to protect the speaker from accusation–because the words/phrases/clauses are equivocal, vague, implied–and the strategy passive-aggressively hammers a particular congregant for his/her (real or perceived) offense toward the speaker.

From a sociolinguistic perspective, this strategy could be said to be functioning as a preserver/ re-assertion of the speaker’s status. According to Jesus in Matthew 18:15, however, there is a different way of handling the perceived/real offenses of congregants. I would love to do a paper on this!