Video Transcript: Spiritual Authority

Welcome back. What we're doing today as we launch into this video is we're  stepping into the next skill, skill number five. Skill number five, working with staff  and leaders if we're going to be successful as key pastors or leaders in the  church, in part that's going to involve working with pastors, with working with  staff and leaders, and working from a posture of spiritual authority. So that's  going to be the subject of what we talk about today. Now I want to start by  sharing a couple of principles with you, two people principles, if you will. First of  all, people always act like people. So never be surprised by how people act.  People always act like people. Okay, that's a given. Secondly, people are  different, so don't expect everyone to share your perspective. Don't expect  everyone to share each other's perspectives. Each of us is going to have a  slightly different point of view. So keeping these principles in mind, you can  avoid a lot of misunderstanding and lack of clarity. People are people. They  always act like people. Don't be surprised by how they act. And not everyone  sees everything the same way. Not everyone is going to see things the way that  you see them. Now here is a tip for you. Success or failure in working with  people depends on how you treat them. How you treat them is intensely  important, success or failure, how you treat them. So there are some treatment  options here. Do you treat them well? Do you mistreat them? Do you take them  for granted? Here's the thing, if, if you're expecting people to follow you, just  because you're in a position of authority, you're going to find that that is not  going to be satisfactory. There are probably going to be challenges along the  way. Leveraging spirit, leveraging positional authority, is not going to prove  ultimately healthy. Now I want to share with you an evaluation grid as you're  thinking about your relationship with a given person who is part of the staff or  part of the leadership of the church, and we're asking this question, am I treating this person well? Now you're forced, at that point to make a yes or no  determination, am I treating this person well? Yes or no, and then how? So, you  know, explain why it is you think that you're treating this person well, or that  perhaps you're not treating this person well. Same thing for the second question, am I mistreating this person in any way? Yes or no. How? So am I taking this  person for granted? How? So you know, the point here is that everyone,  everyone needs to be treated well, no one wants to be taken for granted, and  something as simple as this will help you in your relationship with staff and  leaders. Now, of course, there's the golden rule comes to us from Matthew 7,  whatever you wish that men would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law  and the prophets, and that makes a lot of sense. You know, no one's going to  argue with that. But let me say this, even though that this mandate came from  the lips of Jesus, I want to remind you that people are different. Staff member or  leader may not respond the way you would respond, not make might not want to be treated the way that you want to be treated. So we have to nuance the  golden rule just a bit. You need to connect empathetically with staff and leaders, 

so you can see through their eyes. You can feel what they feel. You can  anticipate what it is they're wanting, what it is they're expecting. So picture this.  You know, when someone is sitting in your office, sitting across from you, what  do they see? What do they hear? How do they feel? I've mentioned giant  worldwide a couple of times in our video series. This was an organization that I  went through to be trained in leadership development, and one of their concepts read like this, the other side of me. In other words, what do I look like to them?  How do they see me? The idea is to try to see yourself through someone else's  eyes, that someone might be part of your staff, part of the leadership. And so,  you know, how do I come across to these folks? It's a very important thing. Now, the place that we want to land, the place that we want to focus on with this  session, has to do with spiritual authority. You know, a great commission, pastor  or leader has to be disciplined and committed to personal spiritual development  and to leading from a posture of spiritual authority that is truly where your  authority lies. If you are a pastor, if you are a leader in the church, you have  been called to that position by God Himself. It's a spiritual enterprise, and so you need to be leading from a posture of spiritual authority. Now I want to share a  construct with you. This also comes from giant worldwide. It's called the support  challenge matrix. What you have here is a vertical axis and a horizontal axis.  The vertical axis ranging from low support to high support, the horizontal axis  ranging from low challenge to high challenge. And when these two axis, these  two axes, are combined, we find ourselves creating four quadrants of the  support challenge matrix. So I want to walk through these four quadrants and  identify each in terms of its its primary cultures, primary sense, its primary  feeling. So we're going to start with number three that's referred to as the  abdicator, the leader who resides in quadrant three leads as an abdicator, there  is low support coming from the abdicator, and there's low challenge being issued by the abdicator. So this, this creates a culture of apathy, a culture of low  expectation. Now the good news is, I rarely come across a leader in the church  that I would describe as an abdicator, so I don't think that we're dealing too  much with that quadrant in the in the church. But let's move over to quadrant  four. The leader in quadrant four is referred to as a dominator. The culture that  the dominator establishes is a culture of fear, fear of the dominator, fear of doing something wrong, fear of not, of not following through with with the orders that  you have been given. There's a lot of manipulation going on in the church now  this, this tends to appear in churches where there is a a lone individual, most  often a senior pastor, that simply dominates the church, determines the Vision,  determines the strategy, and pretty much just tells everyone what else, what to  do, a very unhealthy environment. And I've seen a fair amount of this, and so  folks are afraid to be wrong. They're afraid to challenge back. They're afraid to  do anything, but just simply follow through. It's a very coercive environment, and people tend to not do very well. Now, moving over to quadrant one, we find a 

leader that is described as a protector. Well, what does this leader do? This  leader is issuing very high support, but also low challenge. So a lot is being  provided for that through that leader, for everyone else, but not much challenge  is being issued. People aren't being asked to step. Up to engage at deeper or  higher levels. And so initially, this creates a culture of entitlement, entitlement  that feels like, well, you know, all of the support is being provided for me, but I  really don't have to do that much, so I must be pretty special. Now, the problem,  in part, with this, this particular model of leadership, is that it can't sustain. You  see, folks are attracted to this model because there they receive lots of things  and don't have to give much. But as the congregation gets larger and larger and  larger. The number of people that are holding that denomination up and are  doing the work becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of what's going on.  So they can't sustain and so one of two things happens, either they're not able  to provide that high level of support, and people start to wonder what happened. We used to have these things now we don't. Or they start trying to recruit those  entitled folks to step in and help out. And those people feel like, wait a minute,  this is a bait and switch. Now you're telling me, I have to do this, that and the  other thing, in order to receive what I've been receiving with no effort. So it's not  a sustainable model. Now, the place that we want to live in is quadrant two. This  is the place of the liberator. Now, the liberating leader is issuing very high  support, providing the things that people really want and need, but is also  issuing a very high challenge to people to step up, to be involved, to to play a  role, to take some responsibility, to to level up their rate of commitment, their  level of participation. So what's the what's the culture that's being created here?  It's a culture of empowerment. People are being empowered to do more, to do  better, to commit higher, and yet the support is there to help them in their pursuit of this higher level of engagement. And so you know what we really want to  push for in the church? We want to see people serving as liberating leaders. So  if you're a pastor, I want to encourage you to be a liberating pastor, a liberating  leader. Now, giant describes the Liberator as someone who fights for the highest possible good in the lives of those they lead. So here's some Liberator  questions. As you're looking at a particular person, you're saying, does that  person need more support or more challenge right now? What is the tendency  or pattern with this person that is most undermining their ability to influence  others? How can I help with that? How can I help them get to the next level?  Now the liberating leader is the leader that is fostering health and vitality and  multiplication in the church. This is the leader that is working well with staff and  with other leaders. So let me share with you another construct from a giant  worldwide. They call this the Power Test. Power times humility equals true  influence, now they're speaking at this from a a business model, a secular  model, power times humility equals true influence. So I want to learn that  through the grid of ministry and power becomes authority. You know, we don't 

want to lord it over people like a dominator. We want to serve people, but we  want to serve them from a posture of positional authority. We want to serve them by properly leading them spiritually. So the formula shifts to authority granted us  by God times humility, having a proper assessment of who we are. That's what  generates true influence. Now, the idea of combining true influence with being a  liberating leader that provides very high support and very high challenge to  people, that's where we want to live as leaders, that is what is going to  accelerate and expand our spiritual authority. So let's talk for a moment about  different types of authority. Positional authority would be just what the name  applies. I have been placed in a position of authority. I have filled that slot. I am  higher up on the org chart, and therefore I am in a position of authority, and  those who are under my authority need to honor the fact that I am the positional  leader. Now there's a place for positional leadership, but if your attitude as a  positional leader is, I'm the boss, you're not, there's going to be problems. What  about expert authority? Expert authority is based in the competence of a  particular leader, the skills that that leader has, the knowledge that that leader  has, the know how that that leader has when, when a leader, a person of  authority, is viewed as an expert in a given field that tends to command A certain amount of respect, a certain amount of receptivity. So expert authority is an  important brand of authority. And hopefully any leader that we have in the  church, Pastor or otherwise, has some kind of expertise, some high level  competencies, competencies that can be respected in that way. Now third there  is relational authority. Relational authority is based on the relationship that we  develop with people. We're getting close to people, we're investing in their lives.  We're getting to know them. They are beginning to respect us. They are  beginning to trust us, and so from that position of trust, based on relational  authority, our authority is received, is accepted by that now that brings us to  another giant construct that's called, oops, I went too far. It's called this,  interested versus interesting, if you want. You know one tip, I guess you might  call this for working with people in terms of building relationship is I need to be  interested in them before I can expect them to think that I'm interesting. You  know, I'm going to be interested before I try to be interesting to you. So it's just a helpful thing to be thinking about now having authority over them, positionally,  will not get you nearly as far as having authority with them. Relationally. Same is true with expert authority. Having authority with them, in terms of expertise is  wonderful. It's valuable, but it's not going to get you as far as being close to  them, relationally, and then finally, their spiritual authority. This is based on the  perception that others have of you in terms of your being a true man or woman  of God, a person of strong conviction, a person well versed in Scripture and  theology, a person that is reflecting the fruit of the Spirit, the bottom line might be this, you are a person of faith who truly lives that Faith and is completely safe  and trustworthy positional authority is the highest level of authority. Well, how is 

that authority established? Well, I'm going to boil this down to four elements that  I think will make perfect sense to you. A leader that exhibits true spiritual  authority. Is a person of the word. A person of the Bible is a person of prayer, a  person that sees prayer as the first thing you do, not the last thing you do, the  first resort, not the last resort. A leader that exhibits true spiritual authority is a  person who provides high support for the people that he or she leads. And  finally, a leader that exhibits true spiritual authority is a person who is willing to  provide high. Challenge to those folks that are being led, challenging those folks to go higher in their commitment, go deeper in their involvement with Christ,  become more qualified, develop greater expertise, take on more responsibility,  in effect, to maximize their relationship with the Lord and maximize their service  of the Lord, a person of prayer, a person of the word, a person of support, a  person of challenge. I believe that these form a very firm foundation for spiritual  authority. Now all of these different types of authority, positional authority, expert  authority, relational authority, position spiritual authority, all of them have a place, and some of each of those should be present in our leadership relationship with  staff and other leaders. But what we want to emphasize is that spiritual authority, people of the word, people of prayer, people of support, people of challenge,  now that brings us to the close of our session, our session on spiritual  development. Next time we're going to continue looking at working with working  excuse me, this is concludes our treatment of spiritual authority. Next session,  we're going to look into spiritual development, and you might reason that  spiritual development is going to contribute greatly to our development of  spiritual authority. So these are going to work hand in glove. Now, in the  meantime, I do pray that God will bless your ongoing studies, your ongoing  witness, your ongoing service to the King of kings and the Lord of lords. God  bless you. Amen.