Adaptable Leadership

A Note from Luminex: This morning’s blog post is the second in a 10-week series on leadership. Enjoy!

Wet cement is significantly different than cured concrete even though they are of the same substance.  All of us realize if we are going to build something out of concrete it will make much more sense if we begin with wet cement.  The same could be said in the realm of leadership in the church.  Effective leaders understand that developing effective ministry practices that help churches to be healthy and growing requires adaptability.  Sometimes we need to adapt our terminology to be better understood.  Other times we need to adapt new approaches to reach people we have been unable to reach.  Adaptable leadership requires a willingness to live in a positive creative tension between what we are accustomed to, and what we need to adjust to.

We need to be clear that exercising adaptable leadership in ministry is not about compromising our foundational beliefs. Nor is it changing just for the sake of change. It is, however, about being willing to consider new ways of shaping how we do things for the sake of accomplishing our mission. Too often church leaders miss valuable opportunities for growth because they lack the willingness to adapt their ministry practices.  And too often the creative leaders in a church abandon ship because those in charge will only rely on “cured concrete” (i.e., “We have always done it this way”).

When you consider your ministry practices, think objectively about how effective they are in helping accomplish the mission. Is it time to replace some of that cured concrete with wet cement?

“Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized – whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ – but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!”
1 Cor. 9:19-23 MSG