In the church, spiritual maturity and organizational effectiveness are intimately connected. The fruit of the Spirit must increasingly characterize a Christ-like healthy church.
Mark Sayers’s leadership book A Non-Anxious Presence astutely observes an interesting dynamic for leadership networks across the broad spectrum of businesses, non-profits, and volunteer organizations. The relational nature of the body of Christ means that the church is especially susceptible to the following scenario:
As a network is swamped by chronic anxiety, it is marked by reactivity. Those within the system no longer act rationally, but rather, high emotion becomes the dominant form of interaction. The system’s focus is directed toward the most emotionally immature and reactive members. Those who are more mature and healthy begin to adapt their behavior to appease the most irrational and unhealthy. This creates a scenario where the most emotionally unhealthy and immature members in the system become de facto leaders, shaping the emotional landscape with the focus on their negative behavior and what they see as the negative behavior of others. The anxiety present envelops the vision of the organization within the system (Mark Sayers, A Non-Anxious Presence).
Samuel James observes that “the spectacle of businesses, journalistic organizations, and even ministries catering to their ‘most emotionally immature’ members is familiar. Even more important is the dynamic Sayers describes, whereby those hyperactive members become ‘de facto leaders,’ because their actual leaders—and, by extension, their peers—come to see avoiding controversy as job number one. Sometimes the immature members of the network will not realize this is what’s happening. They can’t see beyond their own nose. But sometimes they do recognize it, and they take advantage accordingly. They know what vocabulary to use to get their leaders nervous; they know the specific kinds of accusations and complaints that will put the spotlight on them.”
These observations by Sayers and James are poignant reminders to the church that the emotionally healthy spirituality of its leaders and congregants is directly tied to the church’s organizational effectiveness. Highly volatile, overly reactive, and emotionally immature members of an organization have a tendency to hijack the effectiveness of a group, a ministry, or even an entire organization. This is especially true of the church that places a high priority on maintaining peaceful relationships. Yet, that “peace” often comes at a cost of organizational paralysis or tolerating behavioral values that are distinct from the organization’s stated values. When the leadership habitually caters to the “least healthy person” within a relational system, organizational decay, missional ineffectiveness, and relational burnout from the healthy members of the group is the inevitable result.
How do you discover the “culture” of an organization? One of the ways you identify organizational culture is by what kinds of immature behavior is regularly tolerated by the leadership and members of that organization. Does the organization allow constant blow-ups of anger from its leaders and members? When anger does occur, does that person typically “get what they want” from the leadership system in order to maintain the (faux) peace of the organization? Are the healthy members of the organization habituated to endure wave after wave of immature complaints and gossip from emotionally unhealthy members of the organization? Sadly, when values that transgress a church’s values are tolerated again and again, this is one way you discover the underlying “organizational culture” of your church body.[1]
What happens to an organization that perpetually caters to hyperactive leaders who display patterns of immaturity? The bill eventually comes due.[2] The church tends to suffer from a kind of adolescent paralysis, as healthy leaders spend an inordinate amount of time increasingly (and proverbially) picking up the dirty laundry left on the floor by the adolescent who has “failed to launch” maturely into adulthood. Rather than deepening the training for the potentially healthy leaders within the system, the organization gets locked into a reactive cycle of putting out the fires and chaos created by the immature adolescent. Samuel James perceptively puts his finger on the pulse of such organizations: the dynamic scissors between organizational paralysis (with nothing moving forward) and internal controversy (fire-extinguishing mode) which seems prone, like a volcano, to erupt during any moment of change or during the next bout of immaturity from an unhealthy, volatile leader.[3]
Coming to terms with the reality that organizational effectiveness and spiritual maturity are intimately connected seems oddly counterintuitive given the constant temptation for church leadership teams to mirror the wider culture. What is the fix for such a (common) problem amongst the Church?
First, the church must relentlessly prioritize the spiritual maturity and relational health of its leadership culture over a sustained period of time. The church must invest in its systems of training, insisting that the most important qualities for cultivating emotionally-healthy spiritual leaders is by developing a humble, collaborative, fruit of the Spirit leadership culture which prioritizes relationships as leaders pursue Christ (and his agenda) together. Long-term fruitfulness by pastors, elders, and ministry leaders alike is rooted in a humble, godly character that intentionally prioritizes spiritual vitality.
This requires leadership teams to equip leaders in the “soft edges” of deep discipleship by (i) practicing “bearing with one another in love” (Eph 4:2; Col. 3:13), (ii) learning to handle conflict in healthy ways after the manner of Matthew 18:15-20 and Galatians 6:1[4], (iii) discerning together the differences between “walking in the flesh” and “walking in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16-26), (iv) cultivating in community a rich practice of praying together (the Bonhofferian “Day Together”) as well as a rich practice of solitude and silence (the Bonhoefferian “Day Alone”),[5] (v) learning to exercise restraint, graciousness, self-control, and tenderness in the way we communicate with one another (Prov. 15:1, Eph. 4:29; Prov. 18:13; Matt. 12:34)[6], including the use of digital forms of communication like email, (vi) meekly “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21), and (vii) cultivating the fruit of the Holy Spirit in both our individual lives and in our relational lives as leaders in the body of Christ (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, Gal. 5:22-23). The soft edges of our sanctification are not easily “downloaded” from pulpits but captured around tables and in life-on-life relationships of mutual encouragement and admonishment within the body of Christ. As such, it requires leadership teams to embrace a commitment to thick and honest relationships within the life of the church.
Second, two rocks must be in place for leadership teams to truly embrace the revolutionary idea that “maturity matters”. You know the life hack: put in the big rock in the jar first and then all the small pebbles will fit into the jar afterwards. The problem is that, in the church, most paradigms for addressing immaturity within a leadership culture only place one rock in the jar. This is understandable, albeit mistaken. It’s understandable because in the church, we do truly long to practice real forms of grace. Grace to forgive. Grace to restore. Grace to reconcile. The grace of God has the power and potential to transform self-centered sinners to God-glorifying saints. Nobody wants to minimize or downplay grace in a leadership culture, it makes rough cracks smooth and hard edges soft. It is an absolutely vital ingredient – the first rock – for developing a humble, collaborative, fruit of the Spirit leadership culture. Did Jesus not say forgive “not seven times, but seventy-seven times”, a limitless amount (Matt 18:22)? Who are we, after all, to cast the first stone (John 8:7)? We all have sin issues and blind spots galore in our own lives!
And yet: grace as a singular paradigm for building a healthy leadership culture is unbalanced and may ultimately promote the very power dynamic that Sayers and James poignantly illustrate, namely, that of empowering the most immature and unhealthy people to become the “de facto” leaders within an organization. More than one rock in the jar is needed. Why is that the case? Because receiving the grace of God actually requires – and is tied to – humility and repentance. The apostle Paul says, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6 ESV) or “So then, just as you received Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live your lives in him” (Col. 2:6 NIV). You are to walk (ESV) or live (NIV) in the same way you received Jesus Christ as Lord, namely, with a humble and repentant heart (which is the only way a person truly receives Jesus Christ as Lord!). Paul is effectively admonishing believers: remember the way you first came to Christ! How did that occur? By humbly repenting of your sins and coming to the foot of the cross; don’t forget that experience because your entire life should be marked with that kind of posture so that you daily experience the transforming grace of God. In the same way you came to Christ, continue to live for Christ.
The second rock – or biblical paradigm, to change metaphors – is humility and repentance. Establishing a healthy leadership culture which seeks to intimately connect spiritual maturity and organizational effectiveness needs both rocks and both paradigms.
Yet, there is often a disorientation within church leadership systems because well-meaning and well-intentioned Christians intuitively have only one overarching paradigm of “what to do” when things heat up around immature, unhealthy people in the organization. Grace. They’ve only put a singular rock in the jar. Yet, without humility and repentance, grace becomes “cheap grace” which ends up tolerating (or even empowering) the kind of behaviors that jeopardize the leadership culture as well as the relational health of the body of Christ.
A healthy church culture which seeks to marry spiritual maturity with organizational effectiveness believes in a balanced gospel: overflowing and transforming grace and lives characterized by a true living out of the gospel of grace in humble repentance and penitent humility. One rock will not suffice.
In the church, spiritual maturity and organizational effectiveness are intimately connected. The fruit of the Spirit must increasingly characterize a Christ-like healthy church.
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Other “Leadership Culture Principles” can be found here:
Leadership Culture Principle #1: The No They Policy
Leadership Culture Principle #2: The Ministry of Asking the Person to Go Directly to the Source
Leadership Culture Principle #3: All the Leaders Own the Decision: Public Fans and Private Critics
Leadership Culture Principle #4: Ideas are Born Ugly
Leadership Culture Principle #5: Email Matters: 15 Questions
Leadership Culture Principle #6: Maturity Matters
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[1] As Samuel James warns: “When people see an immature member be granted an extraordinary level of influence and attention-control, they will understandably infer that immaturity is effective. Eventually, whatever principled scruples they may have against such behavior will come up against the reality that their leaders appear to respond most urgently to it. This is a recipe for disaster.” Samuel James, “Does Maturity Still Matter? Christian Mission in the Age of Social Media Rewards”, Digital Liturgies Blog, Feb. 8, 2025.
[2] To loosely paraphrase Samuel James, Ibid.
[3]“If churches coddle immature members on the logic that at least those members are passionate, they are kicking a grenade down the road that can explode at any time.” Ibid.
[4] As Samuel James observes, “And how do [churches and ministry organizations] prevent the spiritually immature from controlling the vision and spirit of the network? Leaders and members are encouraged toward maturity in part by watching immature members be marginalized and discipled, rather than feared and deferred to.” One caveat here: it’s actually the immature behaviors and unhealthy sin patterns that need to be (first) named and identified and (then) discipled or confronted or eventually marginalized for the health and good of the body of Christ. Ibid.
[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.
[6] Proverbs 15:1 (a gentle answer turns away wrath), Ephesians 4:29 (speak only what builds other up), Proverbs 18:13 (answering before listening is folly), Matthew 12:34 (words reflect our heart’s condition).
