Unbalanced Leaders, The Kind You Need

From Tom Bandy:

Christendom believes in "balanced leadership". This is leadership that has a comprehensive knowledge of systematic and historical theology, and always seeks a middle road in practical ministry to keep all sides happy. In generic worship services, for example, "balanced leaders" provide a little bit of something for every generation, faction, and/or perspective. The goal of balanced leadership is to keep everyone reasonably harmonious and content.

Unbalanced leaders appear to Christendom people as odd, extreme, or unduly passionate. They do not aim at harmony, but hope. Therefore, they tend to be so passionate about mission to people beyond the church, that they unsettle people inside the church. In the tour event Bill and I are doing across the country, I list the ways such leaders are "unbalanced" ... clear focus on experiential Christology (not systematic theology), lifestyle witness (not commitment to standardized liturgy), imaginative metaphorical thinking (not linear strategic planners), etc. The "joke" is that the word "unbalanced" also carries the connotation of being unstable, unpredictable, out of control ... and that to the modern mind this implies and "unhealthy person". Yet this is precisely the paradox. These unbalanced leaders DO believe in chaos, rather than stability and predictability, they choose trust over control ... and they are in fact the really healthy leaders in an age of stagnant Christendom leadership