Leaders Can’t Do Everything

The marks of good leadership have changed over time as culture has evolved. At some point, people believed they were good leaders if they simply pushed and shoved people around, using intimidation and fear to keep everyone in line. Others held that true leadership is leading by example and supporting followers. This has become a more dominant view. But this model of leadership has a dangerous pitfall. Some leaders who want to demonstrate the value of hardwork and leading by example end up overworking themselves. They work twice as much as anyone else, neglecting self-care and even basic rest, eventually wearing themselves down to the point that their work is less effective. To protect from this, many leaders use a long standing and useful tool: delegating responsibilities. If a leader can train and equip someone else to do the work they have been doing, they can focus on other things. Broadly speaking, this practice can help people keep themselves happy and healthy without burning out.

I personally think delegating responsibilities is a wonderful thing that the church should do more. Some pastors take everything upon themselves, restricting the voices of other people. Many who do this argue that they are trying to protect the theology of the church. If other people who aren’t as theologically trained teach, preach, or write prayers, they might accidentally do or say something heretical and lead people astray. And if we are being honest, that really would be an uncomfortable situation. No pastor wants to come up to the pulpit after a member of the congregation has just finished leading a prayer and call something in the prayer heretical in front of everyone to clear the record. However, I suspect that most members of a congregation wouldn’t accidentally commit a terrible heresy, and if pastors are worried about it, they could simply make sure to regularly practice reflective theological training with anyone who wants to help lead services.

I suspect the real reason why pastors are hesitant to delegate responsibilities is because if they give away too many of their jobs, they will feel irrelevant. If people in the congregation can preach, teach, lead worship, and write prayers, what am I supposed to do? I can certainly understand why this might make someone worry about their role in the church. However, broadly speaking, delegating responsibilities can empower people to see themselves as more active participants in the activity of worship and the ministry of the church. 

All this being said, our Old Testament reading for this Sunday gives us a glimpse into a major problem with delegating responsibilities. In Exodus 24:12-14, Moses prepares to go up the mountain to meet God and receive the law. While he is gone, he is leaving Aaron and Hur in charge. This seems like a reasonable choice. Aaron has been the spokesman for Moses during their time in Egypt. He has been a key figure in the movement and has been close to God throughout. Aaron’s family would eventually become the high priests. He seems to be the right man for the job.

Unfortunately, many of us know how this story goes. While Moses is up on the mountain for a long time, Aaron hears the complaints of the people and decides to make an idol for them: the golden calf (Exodus 32). This resulted in a disaster. God wanted to wipe the Hebrews off the earth and start over with Moses as the new Abraham. Moses successfully interceded on behalf of his people, but he wasn’t happy about it all. He only interceded for Israel after he had sent the Levites through the camp to kill 3,000 people. When Moese put Aaron in charge, the results were idolatry, shame, violence, and the dangerous wrath of God. Maybe delegation wasn’t the right idea in this case.

So, how can a pastor feel confident sharing responsibilities with others? While Moses had to leave others in charge while he went off to get the rules, we have the good fortune of already having the rules. Church constitutions, bylaws, and even service books provide guidance for church administration, theology, and worship. Larger organizations like synods and church clusters provide stability. If something is going very wrong in a church, a pastor has a place to go for help and support. A congregation can find resources for worship through the online tools the ELCA provides and curates. 

It may seem strange that the answer to this terrible problem is simply the mundane things we take for granted. No one reads the golden calf story and thinks that things would have gone much better had they simply sat down with a bishop and lawyer and crafted a church constitution before Moses went up the mountain to get the tablets. However, the reality of God’s gifts to us is that sometimes they appear as incredibly ordinary, even boring. God provides structure and order as a gift to the church to increase its capacity to serve the world. As much as we have a history of protesting against authority and critiquing structures, these structures make it possible for pastors to share work with others and increase engagement throughout the assembly. 

This might not seem particularly important either theologically or practically, but the question of polity has been important throughout church history and continues to be important today. In fact, polity is one key difference between the major Lutheran bodies in the United States today. The ELCA has a more synodical structure with bishops and synods in place to provide support for pastors in congregations and to help connect churches to pastors, while also safeguarding the theological convictions of the church. Meanwhile, other Lutheran churches have a much more congregational organization, with individual parishes freely associating with each other without a fixed organization above them.

Being part of the ELCA myself, I prefer the structure provided by synods and bishops. I like the resources provided. I rely on responsibilities being delegated. I certainly couldn’t do everything. However, other pastors may see it differently, preferring the freedom that appears in absence of structure. They rely on their theological tradition to guide them and their congregations and provide the framework within which they can work productively. Whatever our preferences with regard to polity may be, we should remember two important things. First, some structure is important, even necessary. Without any structure or accountability, in the presence of absolute freedom, Aaron made the golden calf. Churches need some lattice to cling to, lest they grow chaotically into all kinds of poor and contradictory doctrine instead of in the way God intends. Second, whether we embrace structure or freedom, we should see both as a gift from God. Those things we take for granted, those boring documents that lie in a dusty box in a backroom of the church, even those most mundane things, are incredible gifts God has given us to help us participate in God’s mission.