Every Team Needs a Leader in Authority

Every team needs a leader. Even a team of leaders needs a leader. Consider the twelve apostles. They’re a team. Their leader is Jesus. Ultimately, He’s the leader of every team and every church, but the human leader among them is Peter. How do we know? Every time the apostles are listed in the book of Acts and the Gospels, Peter is listed first. You know why? He’s the leader.

Leaders are essential. Yet this is a sick world that hates leadership. Everybody thinks they should be in charge, put it to a vote, or be able to send the President a text message and boss him around. It’s a weird world we live in, from social networking to twittering to consumerism. People don’t want to follow a leader – all they want to do is criticize a leader. They don’t even recognize leadership. Some Christians will even say, “I don’t believe in leadership.” Oh really? Do you believe in God? He’s in charge. Do you believe His Word? Then read it again because it is full of teaching on the subjects of leadership and submission to delegated authorities.

Peter is always listed first because he’s the leader. When the day of Pentecost comes, Peter is the one who steps forward to preach. Do you know why? Because he’s the leader.

We don’t make leaders, but we do recognize those whom the Holy Spirit has chosen for leadership. For instance, when you are following someone, and you are listening to them and you are learning from them – they are the leader. This is easy to recognize.

In this day when strong leadership is despised (often called dictatorship by people who believe they are smarter than they really are) leadership is still needed. Without it anarchy results. If everyone does what is right in their own eyes, it will be just like it was in the days of the Judges in Israel. No church can survive that kind of chaos.

At PCC every team has a leader. Even teams of leaders have a leader. Our senior leadership team (SLT) has a leader. From our small groups, age-level ministries, student ministry, or any other team, there is a leader who is empowered to make the final call. This way we never end up in gridlock. For safety and balance of power, no one person leads all the teams, only their team. Myself, I serve on a variety of teams. On some teams I am down the chain of command and not the senior leader. On other teams, I am the senior leader. We are set up and structured in such a way that everyone who is in authority is ALSO under authority, without exception, including me.

Every team needs a leader, and nobody is above the law and gets to do whatever they want. That’s the way Jesus has set up government in His Church.