Empowered. The word is heard more and more in the corporate offices of America. When chief executive officers speak to their vice presidents, they encourage them by often using the word "empowered." When vice presidents speak to their middle managers, they motivate them by assuring them they are empowered. And when supervisors and middle management talk to the people that staff their departments, they use a language richly endowed with the concept of empowerment.
Empowerment is a key idea of today's thought leaders in business and management: Tom Peters of In Search of Excellence fame;1 Max DePree, the CEO of Fortune 500 company; Herman Miller; 2 quality experts Townsend and Gebhardt; 3 participative leadership consultants Plunkett and Founder; 4 corporate researcher Peter Block; 5 and Stephen Covey, author of the New York Times best-seller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. 6
Empowerment is the paradigm of now, the motivational force that will continue to drive the progressive elements of corporate America for the foreseeable future. And what is the essence of this powerful new force in industry? Perhaps it is more readily seen when presented in contrast with a traditional management concept.
One only has to read the two approaches to realize that the church has tended to follow the hierarchical or patriarchal model a monolithic approach in which local people have little input or influence and the church waits for pro grams or direction from administrators above. But corporate America reminds us that people give their best and grow into their potential only when they are empowered to act.
Empowerment happens when an individual is entrusted with a specific task and given the responsibility to accomplish it. This in itself is not new, of course, for that is precisely what hap pens in the old paradigm. What is new is that with the responsibility is also given authority to act, the provision of all the necessary resources, and full freedom to be creative in choosing a suitable approach even if it involves some calculated risks. Empowerment is trusting people.
Now, empowerment paradigm is a New Testament concept just waiting to be rediscovered by the church. It is the Bible's construct for successfully pursuing the dream, the mission of taking the gospel to the world. The church must relearn the biblical lesson.
The biblical model
The name the Bible gives to this success model is ministry through spiritual gifts, and it is developed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6. The apostle opens the chapter by proclaiming that the church cannot afford anyone to be ignorant of this immensely important lesson because the accomplishment of the mission of the church depends on it. Then he outlines three steps of implementation.
First, the Holy Spirit equips the members of the congregation with a great variety of spiritual gifts, all given to match perfectly the personalities of individuals so all will feel comfortable in their ministries.8 "There are different kinds of gifts" (verse 4, NIV). Second, the process continues as God opens up a great variety of avenues of ministry that match the gifts of all the members of the local congregation. "There are different kinds of service" (verse 5, NIV). Third, the process is fully implemented as God empowers the members (the Greek word is energemata, from which we get our word "energy") to be successful in their ministries. "God works all of them in all men" (verse 6, NIV). Thus, the Holy Spirit gives to the members the abilities to minister, the opportunities to minister, and the empowerment to move ahead in successful ministry.
On the three occasions Paul elaborates the theme of spiritual gifts, he uses the body as a metaphor for the church. Based on that illustration, we would assume that each part of the body has a specific function, that all the parts work in harmony, and that this disciplined body performs optimally.
Equipping for a specific ministry
What is a spiritual gift? It is the ability to perform a specific ministry. Each individual in the body of Christ has a function, a purpose, a ministry, just as every part and organ of the body has a function, a purpose, a ministry. There fore, just as we say that talented secular people are gifted, so the church can rightly say all its members are gifted with the ability to be successful in a specific ministry.
The moment you speak of spiritual gifts or ministries, it is common for many members to say, "I'm not sure I have a gift." But three times in one chapter (1 Cor. 12:7, 11, 18), Paul emphasizes that every member has a gift to be useful in some important way, and it is a primary duty of the shepherd of each congregation to facilitate the discovery process for all the members. As DePree observes, "When we think about leaders and the variety of gifts people bring to corporations and institutions, we see that the art of leadership lies in polishing and liberating and enabling those gifts." 9
What are these gifts? Again, they are specific abilities to minister to others, and they come in two main categories: outreach--winning people to Jesus; and nurture--keeping people in Jesus. In this sense, the Spirit's gifts are all directly related to evangelism. We usually think of evangelism in a far too restricted sense. The church exists for only one all-embracing purpose, evangelism, and this is implemented in three steps: first, reaching out to influence individuals for Jesus, second, nurturing them in the church body, and third, commissioning the newborn to participate in the corporate mission.
First Corinthians 12,13; Romans 12; and Ephesians 4 (and a few other isolated passages) list in first-century nomenclature various aspects of how the early church conducted its ministry. It had leaders, helpers, pioneers, counselors, healers, speakers, teachers, nurturers, etc. And it still needs them all today.
In the contemporary setting, the church also needs computer programmers, lawyers, nurses, journalists, publishers, demographic specialists, musicians, financiers, bookkeepers, forecasters of economic trends, pilots, and bus drivers, etc., not one of which is named in the New Testament. But here is the key to understanding: whatever minis tries are needed for the local congregation to fulfill its mission, God will give those abilities, those gifts, to the members.
The critical question each congregation has to ask is this: Do we trust the Holy Spirit to provide all the gifts to perform every ministry He plans for our area? We all surely must agree the answer is an unequivocal Yes. This being the case, we can affirm that the sacred work committed to the church will be brought to a decisive victory, in the train of the ultimate victory won at the cross, as all members find and use their spiritual gifts.
God's gifting--your destiny
Now, it is important to note that when the Holy Spirit gifts us (it is an integral part of the process of being born again), we can begin our personal ministries immediately. If you are gifted, you are able. Time will polish the gift to be sure, but you have the ability at the time you are spiritually born. And your spiritual life will endure endless frustration until you make the discovery of the ministry God has chosen by His gifting--your destiny.
The experience of composer/pianist Schumann illustrates the point. His mother had decided Robert should be a lawyer and had sent him to law school in Leipzig, where the young man was endlessly restless and unsatisfied in the atmosphere of what he described as "frigid jurisprudence." Then he made the discovery of his real life, his gifted life, his music, and soon after exclaimed in a letter to his mother, "I feel I must always have been destined for music."
Those gifted with hospitality make welcome the unsaved and integrate the saved into the church's fellowship. Helpers touch the lives of people in the most practical ways, meeting felt needs in homes, schools, churches, and communities. Teachers instruct in the knowledge of God's will. Leaders motivate and organize. Counselors help resolve uncertainties and conflicts. Shepherds rescue, nurture, protect, but most important of all, empower. And there are a limitless number of other gifts as well, each one perfectly matched to a need in the local church and community. It takes every ministry, every gift, coordinated and operative, to accomplish God's work as we approach the imminent end.
What is holding us back?
Which brings us to the heart of this article. God has already equipped His church, each local congregation, all individual members, with all the necessary abilities to fulfill His will in their communities. But so very few have any notion of their gifts/abilities/ministries and many continue as awkward spectators hoping and praying that one day they will be included, that someone will discover them, that they will experience that rush of joy and energy that public figures experience in their work, and that they will finally know that God really has planned for them to be included in the greatest work a human being can do--minister to others in the name of Jesus. The members of our congregations are already empowered by the Spirit but are waiting for affirmation from their leaders.
With a divinely designed model to accomplish our mission, one cannot help questioning why we don't examine it, affirm it, and implement it. During the last four decades, 25 years in public evangelism and the last 14 years teaching, I have experienced a metamorphosis in this regard and have concluded that we must deal with a major problem before the New Testament's grand solution discussed above can ever become operative through the members of the church's countless congregations.
The church has grown dependent on professional evangelists to fulfill the Great Commission. These peripatetic, gifted proclaimers of the gospel respond enthusiastically to their call, conducting crusades around the world. But it appears to me that through this work the New Testament model of empowerment and evangelism is unwittingly obscured and neglected. In my own faith community, church leaders employ itinerant evangelists as a means of achieving church growth, and press local congregations to utilize these outside evangelistic services in short crusades. And while this may appear to have beneficial results, there are two major reasons to doubt their long-term effectiveness. 10
Reconnecting evangelism and nurture
First, the need for nurture. Each year graduate students in my evangelism and pastoral nurture classes express frustration at the high percentage of apostasies after itinerant evangelists move on. When confronted with attrition, we evangelists are predictably defensive and quick to respond that the newborn were healthy and enthusiastic when the crusade ended, attributing blame to the pastors who fail to follow through with adequate nurture and pastoral care.
If itinerant evangelists, by modern definition, cannot take the time to nurture new converts, it just may be that we need to redefine their ministry. Even the first-century apostles stayed in receptive areas long enough to nurture the newborn. A very close relationship develops between the one who witnesses and the one who responds. No one is in a better position to solidify new converts than those who lead them to Christ.
There is a vital need to reconnect evangelism and nurture. This seems to be consistent with New Testament practice; for example, Paul tells nurturer Timothy to do the work of evangelism (2 Tim. 4:5), one person with twin, inter facing functions. It also seems to me to be of significance that Paul lists together the gifts of evangelizing, pastoring, and teaching (Eph. 4:11)11 I believe that it is only when these gifts are exercised together that a church experiences unity and maturity in Jesus Christ.
Then, too, the multifaceted ministry of the pastor supports this concept. On only one occasion in the New Testament did the King James translators use the word "pastor" for the Greek poimen. It means, literally, "shepherd," as every other use attests. What does a spiritual shepherd do? First, among other things, the shepherd rescues and feeds, which is evangelism and nurture. There is no question that the spiritual growth of individual believers and the body as a whole would be enhanced if we were to keep these ministries united either in the same person or in the same congregational setting.
But as important as the preceding argument may be, it is the second that has the greatest significance for the future. 12
Recognizing God's empowerment of all
Second, the responsibility of the en tire body of believers for evangelism. Often local pastors and members are made to feel impotent by the eloquence of charismatic evangelists. Usually the net result is that pastors and members alike are convinced they could never equal this level of ministry and decide not to attempt to participate in evangelism. Thus the problem is self-perpetuating and the entire Spirit-inspired plan for church evangelism is neglected. In a recent class of some 75 ministers, I discovered only a handful who had any comfort with or intention of being involved in traditional public evangelism.
This is not a criticism of the professional evangelist. Based on my own experience of how difficult the work can be with its long days and endless weeks of preaching and visitation, I speak only to a practice that promotes a less-than-ideal utilization of this gift. The solution would be for these gifted evangelists to have pulpits where they can evangelize, teach, and nurture continuously from one center and in this way substantially build the body of Christ and at the same time inspire members to be participants according to their giftedness rather than spectators of the process. 13
As long as eloquent, itinerant public evangelists dominate evangelism, the New Testament model is not likely to be seriously considered, let alone implemented. And this despite the fact that in the many churches where I have re searched, we always find some 10 per cent of the members gifted for evangelism. Which brings us back to ourselves and our future.
The stakes are getting higher, the worldwide task more and more impossible from a human perspective, the difficulties increasing in complexity. Why don't we facilitate the New Testament's empowerment model, in which we recognize that every member is already equipped, gifted, ready for personal ministry? It is only when the church's mil lions of members become involved that earth's billions of unreached will be reached. We all recognize this fact, so why don't we act on it? It is God's stated plan to accomplish His work not through a few but through many.
In the first century, the spiritual gifts of all the members enabled the incredible success of taking the gospel to the then-known world in one generation. Under the latter rain of God's Spirit we could see a repetition of Pentecost in which our world, despite its exploding population, would be reached in one generation. We have the plan, we have the people, we have the power of God's Spirit. Do we have the will to recognize the Spirit's empowerment of the people?
Chase the checkered flag
Recently while flipping past a television channel I noticed what was obviously a telecast from nearby Indianapolis. As it turned out, it was an hour to the start of the 1992 Indy 500.
I was intrigued to study the drivers' serious faces, to hear their prerecorded comments, to watch the intense activity of the pit crews, and to listen to the headphone-equipped pundits predict the outcome. But it was the sleek power machines, meticulously tuned race cars crammed with sponsors' logos, that seemed to be the object of the most intense speculation. The culmination of a year of dreaming, planning, and equip ping had come to its zenith. As the clock ticked down, the cars moved into their assigned positions ready to maneuver into the endless laps and seek the coveted trophy.
Then I heard those famous words: "Gentlemen, start your engines." The race was quickly under way.
I didn't watch the race, didn't see the accidents, didn't see the fireballs, didn't gaze at the exhausted winner or the crestfallen losers until the evening news. But I thought about that race all day and its parallel with the church.
There are numberless "meticulously tuned race cars," each one emblazoned with the insignia of the cross, standing on the side of the Christian track, their engines silent. Too many spectators, too few drivers. So much to do, so little time.
The checkered flag is in sight, the finishing line is just ahead. Is this not the hour for every member to feel the affirmation of leadership to respond to the Spirit's empowerment and to enter the race? The destiny of the world's lost rocks in the balance as the Holy Spirit speaks again and again to every member of Christ's body: "Start your engines."
OLD AND NEW PARADIGMS OF LEADERSHIP7
Traditional/Hierarchical Innovative/Participative
Leaders control workers Leaders share vision with workers
Information restricted Information shared
"Do what you're told" "Do what needs to be done"
"Don't make mistakes" "Be creative, take risks"
Achieving power is motivation Achieving potential is motivation
Workers serve leaders Leaders serve workers
Workers are powerless Workers are empowered
Reference Notes
1 See Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos: Hand
book for a Management Revolution (New York:
Harper and Row, 1987).
2 See Max DePree, Leadership Jazz (New
York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1992).
3 See Patrick L. Townsend and Joan E.
Gebhardt, Quality in Action (New York: John
Wiley and Sons, 1992).
4 See Lome Plunkett and Robert Fournier,
Participative Management (New York: John Wiley
and Sons, 1991).
5 See Peter Block, The Empowered Manager
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).
6 See Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1989); Principle-centered Leadership
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990).
7 Adapted from Plunkett and Fournier.
8 Recent empirical statistical studies at
Andrews University (Naden, Thayer, Swanson,
1992) have established the specific personality
profiles associated with each of the five spiritual
gift clusters identified in the New Spiritual Gifts
Inventory.
9 Max DePree, Leadership Is an Art (New
York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1989), p. 10.
10 To raise this issue makes necessary a differ
entiation between an apostolic and an evangelistic
ministry. The apostles received a specific spiritual
gift to raise up churches in areas where the gospel
was not known, to ordain new leadership, and to
plan for future growth. Paul, with his apostolic
gift, traveled constantly from city to city. The
length of his stay depended on the receptivity of
the area. In some cases he and his companions
quickly "shook off the dust of their feet" (Acts
13:51) and left, while in other places such as
Corinth, a year and six months of evangelism led
to the establishment of a viable church family
(Acts 18:11). Today, even more than in the first
century, there is a desperate need for those with
the gift of apostleship to enter areas untouched by
the gospel.
11 The same is true in the work of apostleship
noted in the text. And the congregational gift of
prophecy parallels in some important respects the
work of pastors and teachers. Paul defines this
congregational prophecy gift as "edification, and
exhortation, and comfort" (1 Cor. 14:3).
12 A related issue is that the itinerant evangelist
evaluates self and is evaluated by peers, leader
ship, and members through the number of deci
sions made, the number of converts won. In this
milieu, there is a constant temptation to pressure
for decisions that enhance numbers. Converts
who enter the church through ecclesiastical pres
sures frequently succumb to secular pressures to
exit the church. It is true that not every evangelist
responds to such pressure, but the subtle and
sometimes not-so-subtle pressure to "prove your
calling with numbers" needs to be recognized.
Any church that emphasizes growth statistics is
likely to create such a pressure climate.
13 One effective way to encourage faithful
attention to nurture would be to adjust reporting
systems so that converts are not reported until the
end of the following calendar year as long as
they are still part of the local church fellowship.
