Diane Langberg urged church leaders to examine themselves regarding how they are using power. Two questions a leader can ask are: “How do I respond when I feel vulnerable?” and “What makes me feel successful?”
“Where are there places where you are doing something that perhaps your father or mother did when you were a child, and you swore you’d never do that?” she asked. Or are church leaders looking to a “success,” such as church growth, for validation, even though attendance has nothing to do with becoming more like Jesus?
Of course, “the absence of those successes doesn’t mean that you’re fine either,” said Langberg, who repeatedly stressed the need to self-examine in community with trusted people. “Our capacity to see ourselves clearly is rather foggy,” she said. “We are really good at self-deception.” It is therefore extremely important for church leaders to seek feedback from people who are godly, trustworthy and who understand the ministry. She also pointed out that it is “not very safe” to have a single leader making all of the decisions in a ministry.
Regarding whether misusing power disqualifies someone from leadership, Langberg said that if any misuse of power disqualified people, “there would be no leaders.” She indicated, however, that scenarios when someone would be disqualified include “when something is a long-term pattern” or “when something has left a lot of damage in the past–and probably if that’s happened we’ve deceived ourselves rather well for a long time.”
Leaders who tend to their own healing will help their congregations to heal. Langberg encouraged pastors to share their own woundedness with the people they are leading, but to do so with humility and wisdom. Again, she stressed, “The model of Jesus is that though you are a shepherd, you are a sheep. And you can’t lose sight of that.”
