“Good to Great to Godly” by Mike Bonem

As church leaders, whether staff or elders, one of the issues we return to constantly is the tension between following God’s Spirit and planning or organizing things with excellence. Ideally, we wouldn’t feel this tension at all, but could creatively weave both elements together. However, if you’ve served long in a church, you know what that tension looks like as some folks on your team gravitate toward thought-out strategic plans and others gravitate toward simply moving with the Spirit.

Mike Bonem, executive pastor at University Baptist Church in Houston, TX, and co-author of Leading from the Second Chair, tackles this tension in the most recent issue of Leadership. In his article, “Good to Great to Godly,” Bonem speaks from his experience of moving from a driven marketplace job to church leadership. Wrestling with the tension between Jim Collins’ Good to Great philosophy and Jim Cymbala’s Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire approach, Bonem boils his thoughts down into one key question: “What does it mean to be an effective biblical leader in a local congregation?”

Some church leadership models focus on what Bonem calls ‘legislative’ or ‘executive’ leadership. This is where ministry leaders focus in on business plans, strategy, and constituency thinking. In other settings, the ministry leadership centers on purely ‘spiritual’ leadership. In this type of setting, the leaders emphasize waiting on God, who is all-wise and all-powerful, without much thought given to the practicalities of how one will get to the desired end.

Bonem states that there must be another way that ‘transcends’ these other ways as both “spiritual and situational.” He writes:

Even as we create structured processes for making important decisions, we must allow time and space for God to speak into the hearts of leaders…the ‘best practices’ from business have much to offer regarding decision making, but they omit the greatest asset available to congregational leaders – the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

As the article continues, Bonem does a good job of addressing two faulty tendencies in ministry leadership: 1) that seeking consensus is not always the same as listening to the Holy Spirit speak (seeking healthy advisors and taking time to pray are helpful remedies here), and 2) that strategic planning does not necessitate leaving God out of the picture (Bonem offers collaboration between prayerful seeking and diligent planning).

In summary, Bonem puts forward the mysterious tension of being led by the Spirit and smart in planning as the answer for truly spiritual leadership. Here is a good summary of where he lands:

Business thinking is not the answer, but it is part of the answer. For me, the most important lesson in this chapter of my leadership journey has been discovering the other part of the answer….I’ve gradually become more comfortable saying, ‘I don’t know the answer’ and slowing down so that I can wait and listen.

What does spiritual leadership look like for you? How does following the Spirit of God connect with strategic planning in your ministry context?