The Multi-Directional Leader: Responding Wisely to Challenges from Every Side
“Faithful shepherds remain alert, ready for battle when wolves invade the field. Taking up God’s Word as a sword, we fend for the sheep and fight off threats.”
Quantifying effective leadership is difficult. Even commercial sectors, whose success is measured in binary spreadsheets, find it difficult to create standards to evaluate effective leadership. This conundrum is increasingly elusive when put into the context of the local Church.
Effective Leadership
How are "effective" and "leadership" defined, measured, and evaluated? Is the standard faithfulness to orthodoxy? The numeric value of conversions or baptisms? Or perhaps the digitalized age of quantifying sermon downloads provides a metric for effectiveness? Even if these are so, where exactly do human responsibility and divine sovereignty intersect to standardize effectiveness in leading God's mission for his Church?
Multi-Directional
Trevin Wax is the Vice President for Research and Resource Development of North American Mission Board, visiting professor at Wheaton College, and the author of eight books, including The Multi-Directional Leader. This book is an exhortation to pastors and church leaders to become multi-directional leaders. Wax's argument appears simple.
“To be multi-directional is to lead with dexterity and discipline—a faithful versatility that challenges erroneous positions no matter where they come from, and promotes a full-orbed vision of ministry that defends the truth and protects the flock. This book is about developing this discipline. Our goal is to learn how to better and more effectively respond with wisdom to challenges from every side.” (p. 12)
Unfortunately, page twelve silently shuffles past the elusive and vexing barrier of definitions. Notice the choice in language, “to better” and “more effectively” in reference to the author’s goal of responding with wisdom to challenges coming from every direction at the Church. By introducing these terms, Wax's reader must insist he define the parameters for "better" and "effective," to include their counterparts, "worse" and "ineffective," in his quantitative standard that judges leadership's effectiveness. Wax does not meet his reader's just demands.
Wax, however, does helpfully delineate multi-directional leaders from one-directional. One-directional leaders use the same medicine for every illness. When a one-directional leader faces a unique problem or cultural challenge, they fall back upon their congregational assumptions and doctrinal allegiances. Additionally, one-directional leaders tend to avoid moments of tension within culture. Wax views this lack of versatility as problematic. The solution for these challenges is for pastors and church leaders to increase their flexibility to adapt to ever-changing threats.
“One-directional leaders leave the flock vulnerable and defenseless against threats from a different side of the field. Multi-directional leaders, though, spot various threats from different angles and adjust their leadership accordingly.” (p. 20)
Wax builds his defense for needing multi-directional pastors and church leaders due to the expanding threats challenging the Church. This is the weakness of his argument, he is thinking only in terms of defense. Throughout this review, you might think I disagree with Wax's non-standardized and unquantifiable argument—I don't. I actually entirely agree with Wax! The Church needs multi-directional leaders. But I disagree with Wax on the reason why we need these leaders.
Coach Gradwohl, used to tell us Edmonds Woodway Warriors, the best defense is a great offense. Some football teams try to open the first snap with a simple gauntlet run to test the defense and maybe get a few yards. Our first play aimed for the goal line—every time.
God’s Mission for his Church
Pastors and church leaders should embrace Wax's advice because God's mission for his Church is multi-directional. Fulfilling the Great Commission requires an offensive engagement of enemy territory. This mission requires following the cardinal directions across the earth, preaching the gospel, shaping culture, engaging philosophy, challenging morality, and standing affixed on the bedrock of God's truth until Jesus Christ returns. Multi-directional leaders are necessary because God's mission for his Church is multi-directional.
And yet, human responsibility to achieve this mission and God's sovereignty in carrying it out still presents a problem for the Church in standardizing a method to evaluate a Christian leader's effectiveness.
