Fear In Leadership?

Fear In Leadership is what I was thinking about the other day when I read about a few leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention retiring. You know this time of retirement will come to all of us someday, if we live long enough, and all the economic factors stay in place. However what concerns me is when I perceive leaders doing things out of fear.

The Southern Baptist Convention passed at their last meeting in Louisville, the "Great Commission Resurgence" motion. It is to look at how all the entities of the SBC are functioning. Are we doing things well? Can we do things better? Look at the Mission Boards that we have and see what needs to be done there, if anything. How can we better use the Cooperative monies that are collected? The bottom line, can we do better?

The Executive Committee Chair announced that he was not for this motion as it was coming to the floor months before. That is OK. He even spoke against it on the floor at the convention. I don't know how he voted when the motion was called for a vote, but I can only guess. However, the motion did pass.

A few weeks in Southern Baptist life we saw where the President of the North American Mission Board had been let go, along with a few others at the agency. There is a search for a replacement but this will take a lot of time. Then there was the announcement that the President of the International Mission Board was retiring as well.

Three powerful agencies and all three will not have experienced, seasoned or veteran leaders at the top. It appears that there is Fear In Leadership.

Watch State Conventions and see if there are leaders in these entities that are leaving, as they too received monies from the Cooperative Program. Is there Fear In Leadership? Maybe, just maybe most of these retirements and timing of them are coincidental, maybe; but we also saw leaders leaving all the financial agencies as changes were coming their way.

So what am I saying, and does it really matter; probably not but....we stand for something that is bigger than fear. We serve a living God that does not give us a spirit of fear but of power and a sound mind. Leaders need to lead in power and not to have Fear In Leadership!