Ragamuffin Soul - Latest Comments in Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Jerry — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:48:32 -0000

A lot of the comments revolve around larger churches where multiple staff and shared leadership is possible. But in many small churches the alpha leader almost becomes a necessity until and if additional leadership from inside our out can be added. In the small church a pastor really needs to focus on raising up and discipling leadership of qualified people so that he isn't the only go-to guy. Having said that I also have to say that part of the problem is human nature. irrespective of how hard we may try certain people will gravitate to a particular pastor. The real test for the pastor is how he lets that affect his image of himself and his ministry. And lastly, there may be some situations in which the alpha leader/prophet may be necessary. I was just reading about Nehemiah's difficulty in getting leaders to be leaders. Sometimes being a responsible leader is about as easy as nailing jello to the wall.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

erabrwkpun — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:17:23 -0000

Wow, cool man, big thanks! http://pejhiqpoqkkywo.com

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Gene Strother — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:29:48 -0000

I think this is evidence of the fact that God is not limited to a single blueprint when accomplishing His purposes in the world. One model does not have to be wrong or obselete in order for another to be valid.

Good stuff.

Gene Strother
http://firstnetchurch.com

PS - I am linking to your blog in hopes that our members and site visitors will find you as engaging and interesting as I.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

BTrip — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:28:33 -0000

I have to say that i was in that room... and it was one of the most refreshing conversations i have had about the future of the church.

He followed is point with the idea that "we are not called to change the world... but to create culture." If we are creating a culture where the body of christ as a whole is taking ownership in the its movement... then i think we will nee a nautual culture shift away from the CEO driven Alpha male leadership modle.

Because then... people wont just go to church... they will be the church!
http://bobbytriplett.com

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

gbrad@mag — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:07:18 -0000

From what I read in the New covenant. . . preach Christ, those who become believers meet every day and love on each other, teach each The Way, go out and preach Christ, bring in more. Acts 2:42 . . . GOD makes it simple, we make it complicated

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

metromom.org — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:16:32 -0000

Lots of thoughts and lots of opinions...good...bad...true...false. No matter how you see it...no matter how you DO it:

Let's make it about the "GOD of MAN" and not the "MAN of GOD."

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

ryan — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:19:15 -0000

nice thoughts, caroline.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Zack — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:37:12 -0000

Mark Driscoll drives this point home all the time. After years of doing the Acts29 thing, he says that they have found that when it comes to a church's health, the budget, staff, location, resources, etc don't matter 1/10 as much as the man leading the whole thing. If he's anointed, surrendered and on a mission, it's probably going to work. If he isn't, then it probably won't.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

carolyn — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:28:44 -0000

man.... why did i start reading this before bed?
i've read about half the comments and i'm tired. so please forgive me if my thoughts overlap with someone else's. i have to get this out of my head so i can sleep.

1. i think the rough concept of the alpha male is biblical. god typically chose an individual rather than a team of individuals to set the vision. honestly, i can't think of any team or co-leaders in the bible. there were leaders with great leaders underneath them... but in the end there was one with the final word. someone please correct me if you can think of something.

2. i think a really good leader's first instinct is to raise up and empower other leaders around him. it has been written in more than one leadership book that a true indicator of the strength of a leader is the strength of the leaders he draws along side of him. the goal of leadership is to reproduce. otherwise what's the point except to take a huge ego trip? which is obviously not the goal for the church.

3. i don't think any leader should be concerned with replacing apples with apples. the goal of leadership is not to produce clones of one's self but to empower, guide and inspire other leaders to find their own voice.

4. good leaders are good vision casters. to be a good vision caster you can only have leaders on board who are in step with the vision. gifts, abilities, perspective, voice, personality can all enjoy a great deal of latitude as long as the leader is the leader and has set the vision.

5. even in the best case scenario with a leader raising up other leaders with clear vision.... change is never easy. 1 leader, 5 or 20. change is uncomfortable. and there is nothing quite as uncomfortable as changing leadership - no matter if it was for a good reason or not. but then again, sometimes god likes us to be uncomfortable.

there. it's out of my head. i hope i can go to sleep now. this is a great discussion.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

$15278936 — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:55:21 -0000

I've got a close friend who attends The Great Communicator's(yeah, I'm talking about AS) church only on Sunday. Only on Sunday because he likes the way HE presents the message. He lives to far away from the church to become more involved in this church so his church only happens on Sunday morning only while He is speaking. All other churches are off limits since no other preacher can compare to this communicator.

Is this Communicator not telling his people that being involved in a body is so much more than Sunday morn? Challenging them to become involved each week? Or is my friend just not listening, liking the fact that he lives to far from the church to become involved and liking the fact that the communicator is so great that no-one else could ever compares. What is liked more by my friend - the Great Communicator or the ability to never have to commit to a church?

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Chris — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 21:26:37 -0000

Ryan- man you're right. My apologies. I guess that's the result of trying to multi-task. That's a great point you make.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Clint — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:19:07 -0000

What Raj said. I think it's time we really take a step back and evaluate the effectiveness of using the top down model (single leader or team of leaders) to make disciples.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

ryan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:32:28 -0000

chris, i believe you misread my comment. i was replying to the issue of pastors preaching via video because they're not making disciples, ie: not reproducing mini versions of themselves.

my reply was that we are called to make disciples of jesus, not disciples of our pastor. to say that we are missing a calling to make disciples because we're not creating clone pastors is a misuse of Jesus' meaning of disciples. a pastor on a video screen can very well be fulfilling his calling to reproduce jesus in his congregation.

when jesus told his 11 guys to go and make disciples, he meant disciples of Him, not of those 11 guys. that's what i meant. it was a response to the misuse of "disciples", as jesus meant it.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Chris — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:11:36 -0000

@ ryan - true Jesus makes disciples...pastors are just a tool to help that happen. Still I would agree that the mark of a healthy church is whether or not they are producing disciples. I guess another way to look at it is if they aren't producing disciples is Jesus really present in what they do?

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Travis — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:11:17 -0000

WOW!

I thought I'd be the first to jump in with the whole starfish/spider thing, but Ryan be me to it.

This is an issue I'm struggling to understand/grasp.

I agree - I didn't think Shaun was saying ALL video churches are bad/wrong.

I can't wait to see the rest of this discussion.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Terrace Crawford — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:29:25 -0000

This is such a thought provoking post. Thanks Los. I really like a church that calls pastors with different gifts. I think that is such a cool set-up.

Personally, churches where the pastor is promoted above the church itself scares me. I think its sets things up for failure if the pastor were to ever leave. I think this could be right in line with your discussion on the alpha male.

VERY good discussion.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

ryan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:20:35 -0000

by the way, to punch a hole in the argument about multi-campus pastors "not making disciples," aren't we supposed to be making disciples of jesus, not pastors?

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Raj — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:59:02 -0000

Maybe the fact that we're asking how many staff members should lead a/the church shows that we've already gotten off-track.

Having actively served in ministry for almost 10 years now, and been some sort of staff for the last five, I must say that I think that both systems have flaws. I have certainly seen the downside to having alpha males in leadership who have gotten so used to doing things their way that they have lost the ability to decipher the difference between their way and the best way.

Multi-staff leadership teams, however, are a huge draw on resources. If you start a church with five pastoral staff members, assuming they earn the average of all the congregants' salaries, you have to have 50 people before you break even in the budget. That's assuming that all 50 are tithing a full 10% too, which may be a lofty assumption considering churches should be planted to reach those who are currently outside of the church culture and therefore haven't adopted all of the traditional disciplines yet.

This is all assuming that you ONLY have to pay for five staff members too. There's no accounting for administrative staff, facility purchase/rental, technical equipment, etc. It doesn't take very long at all before you need over 100 people tithing just to break even.

Obviously, money isn't what it is all about, but let's assume that our hearts our where our treasure is. At what point do our collective church resources stop going to serve US and start defending the fatherless, feeding the hungry, comforting the harassed and helpless, etc.?

It's easy to say that we need to change the model and pay more staff to lead us when we've been handed an affluent church by our predecessors, but Jesus started the church among people who had very little money to give.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely thankful for my multi-staff position in ministry. But I think it's time to admit that maybe we've got the model upside down.

Jesus (one guy) invested everything that he had in the disciples (12 guys + the others who aren't named, the 70, etc.) so that they could go out and do his work, living his gospel. They (except Judas) invested in more people, who in turn invested in even more people.

Today, we ask a lot of people (dozens, hundreds, thousands) to invest only part of their resources in a few guys at "the top" (and whatever support staff/facilities/tools they need) to essentially do the majority of the work of spreading the gospel.

This is all not to mention that we've trended toward investing those few precious resources in the guys that can give us the "most bang for our buck" - polished communicators, near-rockstars, and wannabe CEOs. God used stutterers, adulterers, tax collecters, and rejects that no other rabbi wanted.

If we're ever going to see and real change, maybe it's time we flipped this thing on its head.

Thanks Los. Look forward to reading your thoughts after you've had some time to digest the talk.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

ryan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:53:31 -0000

i actually read shaun's comment several times, and i took this away from it:

"These are the three big reasons folks have given me for launching video church locations. It’s alpha male thinking at it’s worst."

"THE three big reasons." i read this comment to mean that shaun beleives these are the only, or at least the main reasons for video churches. i simply wanted to dispel that thinking. i also found it hard to swallow that someone who mostly visits many churches a year feels they have enough information to geveralize based on those visits. i agree that ths thread is not a knock on venue churches. shaun's post, i believe, however, was, and is continued as one at shaun's blog.

i truly believe that this method has helped our church to grow together and to feel like one church, even as we are in different cities, and i think it has proven valuable to us to be able to feel like we all belong to the same body of believers.

i still leave with the thought, be careful what you knock until you have truly seen it at work, and not from a critic's perspective, but with an open mind. honestly, is it really worth it to slam the methods of churches if people are being saved? don't we have bigger things to worry about?

i think sometimes we get so caught up in wanting to bash anything that becomes "popular" or big, that we forget why we do what we do in the first place... let's not forget the big picture (and i don't mean the video screen).

(also, this post was not intended as an attack on shaun...i like your songs, man... but simply the attitude and thoughts behind the post.)

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Chris — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:47:01 -0000

@ ryan - I think shaun's reference to "video venue churches" was that there are a LOT of them that use one MAIN preacher like 98% of the time are rarely share the pulpit. I don't think he was saying that ALL are like this but lets be honest...some are. I think it's great that your pastor shares the teaching load and if the other guys are great communicators then you guys are truly blessed. I would recommend to re-read shaun's comment again and see if you read the same thing the second time around.

@ yeidy - I think you might be missing the point of the "alpha male" argument though. I see it this way. You can tell when someone is an alpha male when they start to micro-manage everything. Start showing up at everything and trying to run everything. They have an aura about them that screams, "I think I am better than you." Now granted there are some really great communicators who are the most humble men and don't necessarily fit the alpha male role but my question for them is, "What are you doing to train up other teachers who can effectively proclaim the word of God?"

Again I don't think this thread is a knock on the video venue church. I think it is more about a type of personality and not about a certain method for getting God's word out. It's strictly personality NOT methodology.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Jeff — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:29:58 -0000

1. I agree with kacie (comment 2).
2. The very fact that Alphas exist (and sometimes they are female, not male) means that God has a purpose for them. I think part of the church's current problem is that we have hinged so much of our forward movement and our structure on the Alpha that we are unbalanced and don't know what to do without one. To me it's a matter of balance rather than yes Alpha/no Alpha. I can't tell you exactly where I think Alphas fit, because I think so much is in transition right now that we may have to wait and see. However, I fully understand why so many of us are re-thinking this issue.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Jesse — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:40:09 -0000

Los,
Concerning the Alpha male, he fits in the picture because God has not only called him personally, but given him a vision. If a body of believers is on board with that vision and want to be discipled by him, then you have a church with an Alpha male/Senior pastor/whatever you want to call him.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

yeidy — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:38:27 -0000

I personally drive over 104 miles per trip to go to church to watch my so called "alpha male pastor person". if they did a "video church" next to me I'd support it too because while our Pastor tell us constantly that he doesnt want the church to be about him and he shares the teching responsibility with several other pastors I CHOOSE to be taught by him because there is "something" about his teaching that resonates with me (oh and about 90,000 people in our roster)... All that to say that sometimes is not the pastor but "us" the people who make the choice of wanting more of that style of teaching.
I love the video church mentality to give people a chance to get involved in their own communities in the church family theyre so passionate about. Right now my church is over 100 miles away and many of my friends dont understand my fire but if we had a video campus it would grant me the opportunity to do that. Thanks Carlos and everyone for the awesome discussion opportunity.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

ryan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:16:35 -0000

i would be curious to know if shaungroves has ever been a part of a video church, or if he has simply visited them. i happen to be a worship leader at a video campus of our church, and here's the thing... yes, all of our campuses do see the same message via video each weekend, HOWEVER, this message is not always coming from our senior pastor (who is a fantastic leader, by the way). We have a team of pastors who are all gifted communicators who share the teaching responsibilities. The point of video campusing, at least in our case, is so our church is learning and growing TOGETHER, no matter what city we happen to be in, not so that one pastor gets to boost his ego by only allowing himself to teach. by video campusing, we've been able to reach over 10,000 people with the gospel each weekend, as opposed to the 3,000 or so we would be able to reach in one location. and isn't reaching as many people for Jesus as possible really the reason we do what we do? be careful that you have adequate knowledge and experience in it before you knock it, man.

Re: Ragamuffin Soul » Jon Tyson - The Death of the Alpha Male Pastor

Carole Turner — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:59:05 -0000

beatnik Says:
Where is Vernon Reid when you need him?

“It’s the cult of personality”

Vince Says:
We always called them the ‘Cult of Personality’ leader..

I could care less about this psyco-babble topic to take up Cenference time and money but I sure do dig the Living Colour is getting props in the comments.

Bottom line, everyone just needs to get over themselves and start living like Jesus said, serve each other, not be caught up in Alpha male crap, just love God and then love your neighbor as yourself and stop over analizing everything.