Help! All I See Are The Cracks
A Creative Reframing of Leadership and Pastoring for Today.
Do you ever feel like your creative leadership is all about building someones platform? Yours, your pastors, or the church you’re a part of.
Recently, I’ve been mulling over 2 Corinthians as part of studying my masters in theology. It has stirred me to share with you some reflections that the Apostle Paul has been shouting about for centuries.
Get this…
When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he’s not just defending his ministry, he’s redefining what leadership is… then, and now!
In a world shaped by public performance, and the pursuit of prestige, Paul turns everything upside down. He offers a vision of leadership that doesn’t flex muscle, or build a platorm, but instead it bears scars. Ouch!!
Leadership that doesn’t perform for applause, but serves humbly in the shadows. One that doesn’t posture, but pours itself out.
This is deeply relevant for creatives today, especially those leading in churches, ministries, or cultural spaces. Places that often unwittingly absorb a secular imagination of leadership.
I know that I have been guilty of this at times, often unknowingly… but I also know that this is not how we’re mean’t to think about leadership in the church.
The Backdrop: Corinth and the Creative Temptation
David Starling, the lecturer who took my class, wrote a book called UnCorinthian Leadership which captures Paul’s intent. He writes :
“Paul is not merely offering a spiritualized version of Greco-Roman leadership, but proposing a cruciform alternative.”
Imagine that… if the creative leadership we saw and lived today was “cruciform”… in other words shaped by the cross of Christ, what would that look like?
The Corinthians admired orators, patrons, and traveling philosophers, people they called “the super apostles” (no this isn’t another marvel series).
But Paul refused to play that game.
Paul comes not triumphant but trembling, and speaks from a prison not a stage. In a world that loved power and prestige his way was offensive, weak and suspect.
As we were talking about in class, it’s easy to see the parallels in today’s gifted communicators, Facebook likes, and Instagram influencers… and yes even having the right “connections”.
George Guthrie says that Paul’s tone shifts in this letter. It becomes raw, emotional, deeply personal. Paul pulls back the curtain. He shows his sufferings, his “thorn,” his grief over betrayal, his deep love for the church. It’s all vulnerability in a city that is known for its sport, theatre and victory laps.
Could it be that this “cruciform” vision Paul talked about, is actually what our creative spaces need today?
When the Cracks Appeared
A few years ago, I found myself in the swirl of a fast-paced season; churches being planted all around the world platforms growing, events multiplying, expectations thickening.
On paper, it looked like success. Inside, I was exhausted, our team was exhausted, and it felt like if we kept growing something was going to snap.