One of the most effective leaders in the denomination had completed an NCD Survey. The results were in. As expected by many (and as evidenced by the fruit of the church) the health indicators were pretty high. Even so, as with every church, they still had a minimum factor holding them back. Although, in this particular instance, there was an additional issue in a different quality characteristic identified by the survey that would prove to be very instructive.

"Your church has an excellent level of health. It's really coming together as a beautiful partnership with God! Though, can I ask you about Empowering Leadership?"

"Sure."

"It would seem that the major elements of Empowering Leadership are being carried out very well by yourself and the rest of the leadership. However, despite lots of delegation, the item about pastor workload is scoring much lower than the other areas, suggesting people feel you still have too much work to do.”

“Yeah, I know I’m busy. But don't worry, I can handle it.”

“Hmmm, actually, it’s not about you…”

The adjective is Empowering

This brief interaction brought to light an aspect of Empowering Leadership that is often overlooked.

It is important to note that the item in the NCD Survey that questions the pastor's workload is not found within a quality characteristic called "Empowered Leadership" but "Empowering Leadership". The primary question is not whether the pastor or other leaders themselves feel empowered or whether they "can handle" the challenges of ministry. While of course it is extremely important that leaders within a church are empowered, the survey is primarily concerned that the church has an empowering culture, since this will ensure that leaders and others in ministry are empowering of each other, and as a natural side effect, end up personally empowered in what they are uniquely called to do.

If the pastor workload question (Q28) is coming in with a low score, it will likely be related to other lower scoring items on the Empowering Leadership page of the Status Guide.

To mention just a few examples from that page, the high pastor workload may be related to:

• people not being held accountable to their commitments (low Q17) with the pastor having to pick up the slack
• the pastor doing ministry rather than removing barriers for others to do ministry (low Q20)
• trying to "make worship happen" rather than harnessing the worship contributions of the whole church (low Q38)
• the pastor not delegating tasks for which they are less gifted (low Q73)

But what if all of the items are a bit low?

If all of these items are scoring somewhat lower, it is best not to try to tackle them all at once, but just aim at one or two and take the simplest possible action steps to start improving them. Since they are all related, the ripple effects of that action is likely to spread across all the items to some extent.

You just can't hide it

Back to our original story...

This pastor and the wider leadership team was doing a good job of living out most of the elements of Empowering Leadership. But there was still a significant question over the pastor's workload. This high focus on the functions of Empowering Leadership brings into contrast the essential dimension of the atmosphere of Empowering Leadership—the "aroma" sent off by your approach to leadership. Is it beautiful and fruity, or just sweaty?

The attitude of "I can handle it", completely disregards that others, who you may hope to see step up into ministry or even leadership, may not be able to handle it as a benchmark of what would be required of them. No matter how much you endeavour to support them in their ministry, what they see in your own seemingly burdened life will make at least as much of an impression upon their willingness to commit ("Could I cope with that kind of weight of responsibility?" "Should I be working that hard?" "Who will actually pay the price if I commit to that level?" "If it's a partnership with God, why does the pastor always look a bit manic or worn out?" ).

It is therefore not unusual to hear pastors who score low on the workload question say, "it's hard to get people to commit to things" and "if only we had more leaders".

The leader's double life as a model

Due to its correlation with Empowering Leadership, the pastor workload question has a lot to do with modelling the life of a sustainable, radically balanced leader. This itself may sound like another burden to carry. Except that, if you have a low result on pastor workload, that "burden" may be about having more recreation time. Again, this is not just for your sake, but for the sake of those who, at some level, will feel inclined to mimic you as their leader.

Some pastors say that they are already very disciplined about time off. The problem there is often that nobody knows about it. If all that others see and hear about is your ministry work, that forms their picture of what it is to be like you (which, if you are representing Jesus to them, also shapes their picture of him). It's essential to speak in proportion about the exhaling in your life and the inhaling (and of course to make sure that the inhaling is actually happening). Believe it or not, pastors have even been known to start wearing more casual clothes to convey the image of being relaxed. It's not a terrible idea. The only problem is that in most of those cases it was only a surface change—literally.

Of course, modelling a balanced lifestyle, alone, will not ensure commitment. There are other more demanding necessities like accountability. However, these are assessed in other parts of the survey and may or may not also be relevant at the same time as addressing pastor workload.

The easy yoke?

Those who experience the burden of ministry could be forgiven for viewing Jesus' words about "an easy yoke" as a little idealistic or even cute. "He ought to try raising the dead in our church." But at some point, everyone in ministry has to grapple with what on Earth Jesus meant by "an easy yoke" and a "light burden". Seemingly, this lightened state of life is a growing outcome of bringing your ministry into harmony with the universal principles of his Kingdom. One of which is, Empowering Leadership.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased these instructions of Jesus beautifully: "Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."

The "unforced", "natural" approach to leadership will not only lighten your own load, but also the load of those who are trying to follow your lead.

Questions

Would the people around you be more empowered or more disempowered by what they see you doing and the way in which they see you doing it? How so?

How much do the people around you see or hear you speak about your work as compared to your recreation time? What do they see and hear about these two areas?

Do others ever start a conversation with you by saying something like, "I'm sorry, I know you're busy, but..."? Why do they feel the need to apologise? What might they be feeling at that moment? What could you say or do to put them at ease (i.e. so they feel more empowered in that moment)?

What might others perceive as the signs of you having a heavy workload (e.g. lack of delegation, picking up the slack of others, your countenance, what they hear or don't hear about your recreation, etc.)? What's the first simple step you could take to change those for their sake?

Do you need to expand your ministry wardrobe to include a selection of light and breezy Hawaiian shirts?