1. Joseph G. Smith
EAST JAMAICA CONFERENCE
ST. THOMAS ELDERS’ MEETING
May 16, 2015
EFFECTIVE CHURCH LEADERSHIP FOR THE 21st
Century
Pastor Joseph G. Smith, PhD, JP
1

2. KEY THOUGHT
If Seventh-day Adventist leaders do
not deliberately and consistently
focus on the MISSION of the
Church we will drift away from
being “fishers of men to being
keepers of the aquarium”.
Joseph G. Smith 2

3. Objectives of Presentation
 TWO Purposes/Objectives
 To sensitize Church leaders regarding the
critical role leadership plays in advancing the
mission of the Church.
 To assist Church Leaders in Preparing
themselves to Effectively Lead God’s Church
in these Challenging Times
Joseph G. Smith 3

4. Definition of Terms
“Leadership is the process of influencing
others to understand and agree about what
needs to be done and how to do it, and the
process of facilitating individual and
collective efforts to accomplish shared
objectives”, (Yukl, 2006).
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5. Definition of Terms
“Leadership is at least as much an
art as a science” (Bennis, 1989, p. 145).
Spiritual leadership is moving
people onto God’s agenda –
Blackaby & Blackaby (2011, p. 36).
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6. Imperative of Leadership
 Summoned forth by human wants, the task of
leadership is to accomplish some change in the
world that responds to those wants. Its actions
and achievements are measured by the
supreme public values that themselves are the
profoundest expressions of human wants:
liberty and equality, justice and opportunity,
the pursuit of happiness (Burns, 2002, p. 2).
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7. Imperative of Leadership
Everything rises and
falls on leadership
(Maxwell, 1995, p. 6)
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8. Why does the SDA Church exists?
To make disciples in preparation for
Christ’s second coming (Matthew 28:18-20)
A church without a purpose and a
mission will eventually become a
museum.
Joseph G. Smith 8

9.  The early Adventist pioneers were driven
by a sense of the prophetic mission
(based on Daniel and Revelation) and an
overwhelming sense of urgency to
advance that mission.
 That same vision, based upon the same
prophecies, also provided the
mainspring of early Seventh-day
Adventist mission.
Joseph G. Smith 9

10.  “From their beginning Sabbatarian
Adventists never viewed themselves as
merely another denomination. To the
contrary, they understood their movement
and message to be a fulfilment of prophecy.
They saw themselves as a prophetic
people with God’s last-day message to
take to the entire world before the harvest
of the earth (Revelation 14:6-12)….
Joseph G. Smith 10

11.  It is the loss of that very understanding that
is robbing so much of present-day
Adventism of any real significance and
meaning. The eroding of that vision
slows church growth and will eventually
transform Adventism from a dynamic
movement into a monument of the
movement and perhaps even a museum
of the monument of the movement”
(Knight, Lest We Forget, p. 368).Joseph G. Smith 11

12.  TESTIMONIES Volume 9, pp 19-20
 “In a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have
been set in the world as watchmen and light
bearers. To them has been committed the last
warning for a perishing world. On them is
shinning wonderful light from the Word of God.
They have been given a Work of the most solemn
import – the proclamation of the first, second and
third angels’ messages. There is no other work
of so great importance. They are to allow
nothing else to absorb their attention.”
Joseph G. Smith 12

13. CURRENT CHALLENGES
 Relativistic, individualistic and materialistic society
 Every person who comes into the church has his or
her own agenda
 Every member of the church has both a mission
and a ministry: the tasks of church leadership is to
ensure that each member is occupying and fulfilling
both his or her mission and ministry (Luke 4:17-19;
Matthew 28:18-20; John 17:18)
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14. Role and purpose of church leadership
 Move people onto God’s agenda.
 Vehicle – Two types of leadership best fits
Christianity
1. Transformational leadership (Burns
2003)(Nehemiah)
2. Servant leadership model – Jesus
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15. The Church has the Answers
The church has answers to
the most pressing questions
people are asking
(Blackaby & Blackaby, p. 15).
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16. The Church has the Answers
 Psychologist Steven Pinker states that
“People everywhere strive for the ghostly
substance called authority, cachet, dignity,
dominance, eminence, esteem, face,
position, preeminence, prestige, rank,
regard, repute, respect, standing, stature, or
status” (in Ginsberg, p. 74).
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17. The Church has the Answers
 Every man (MALE) is driven by three things,
says Patrick Morley in Pastoring Men:
1. A cause to live for
2. A companion to live with
3. And a God to live for
 Cause, companion and conviction constitute
the sum total of a man’s existence.
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18. The Church has the Answers
 George Knight writes:
 “One of the greatest strengths of Adventism is
the lifestyle and doctrinal commitments that set
it apart as a unique movement. It stands for
something biblical, something true, something
worth living for. That is part of the attraction of
the Adventist message for people who are
looking for the answer to life’s most perplexing
problems” (Knight, Lest we Forget, p. 366).
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19. Five Essential Ingredients for Effective
Church Leadership for the 21st Century
1. Vision
2. Industry
3. Perseverance
4. Service
5. Discipline
Joseph G. Smith 19

20.  Vision
 Where there is no vision, the people perish
(Proverbs 29:18)
 Vision is an act of seeing …, an imaginative
perception of things, combining insight and
foresight. But more particularly, it is … a deep
dissatisfaction with what is and a clear grasp
of what could be. It begins with indignation
over the status quo, and it grows into the
earnest quest for an alternative.
Joseph G. Smith 20

21.  Vision
 Vision is divine discontent.
 George Bernard Shaw wrote: “You see things
as they are and ask ‘why?’ But I dream [of]
things that never were, and ask ‘why not?’ ”
 Examples:
 Moses 3
 Nehemiah 2
 Paul – gospel to the Gentiles
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22. “Nothing much happens without a
dream. And for something great to
happen, there must be a great
dream. Behind every achievement
is a dreamer of great dreams.”
Joseph G. Smith 22

23. Industry
The world has always been scornful of
dreamers.
“Here comes that dreamer!” Joseph’s
older brothers said to one another.
“Come now, let’s kill him…Then we’ll
see what comes of his dreams”
(Genesis 37:19).Joseph G. Smith 23

24.  Industry
 The dreams of the night tend to evaporate
in the cold light of the morning.
 So dreamers have to become in turn
thinkers, planners, and workers that
demand industry or hard labor.
 Men and women of vision need to become
men and women of action.
Joseph G. Smith 24

25.  Industry
 Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of
electrical devices, defined genius as “1%
inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
 All great leaders find this statement to be
true.
 Behind their apparently effortless
performance there lies the most rigorous
and painstaking self-discipline.Joseph G. Smith 25

26.  Industry
 It was not enough for Moses to dream of the
land flowing with milk and honey; he had
to organize the Israelites into at least the
semblance of a nation and lead them
through the dangers and hardships of the
desert before they could take possession of
the Promised Land.
Joseph G. Smith 26

27.  Industry
 Similarly, Nehemiah was inspired by his
vision of the rebuilt Holy City, but first he
had to gather materials to reconstruct the
wall and weapons to defend it.
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28.  Industry
 The dream and the reality, passion and
practicalities, must go together.
 Without the dream, the campaign loses its
direction and its fire; but without hard work
and practical projects, the dream vanishes
into thin air.
Joseph G. Smith 28

29.  Perseverance
 Thomas Sutcliffe Mort was an early
nineteenth century settler in Sydney,
Australia, after whom the “Mort Docks” are
named. He was determined to solve the
problem of refrigeration, so that meat could
be exported from Australia to Britain, and
he gave himself three years in which to do
it. But it took him 26
Joseph G. Smith 29

30.  Perseverance
 He lived long enough to see the first shipment
of refrigerated meat leave Sydney, but died
before learning whether it had reached its
destination safely. The house he built in
Edgecliffe is now Bishopscourt, the residence
of the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney. Painted
twenty times round the cornice of the study
ceiling are the words “To persevere is to
succeed.” Joseph G. Smith 30

31.  Perseverance
 Perseverance is an indispensable quality of
leadership.
 It is one thing to dream dreams and see visions.
 It is another to convert a dream into a plan of
action.
 It is yet a third to persevere with it when
opposition comes.
 Opposition is bound to arise.
Joseph G. Smith 31

32.  Perseverance
 But a true work of God thrives on
opposition. Its silver is refined and its steel
hardened.
Joseph G. Smith 32

33.  Perseverance
 A lesser man would have given up and
abandoned them to their own pettiness. But
not Moses.
 He never forgot that these were God’s
people by God’s covenant, who by God’s
promise would inherit the land.
Joseph G. Smith 33

34.  Perseverance
 In the New Testament, the man who came to the
end of his life with his ideals intact and his
standards uncompromised, was the apostle Paul.
He, too, faced bitter and violent opposition. He
had to endure severe physical afflictions, for on
several occasions he was beaten, stoned and
imprisoned. He suffered mentally too, for his
footsteps were dogged by false prophets who
contradicted his teaching and slandered his name.
He also experienced great loneliness.
Joseph G. Smith 34

35.  Perseverance
 Towards the end of his life he wrote “everyone in
the province of Asia has deserted me” and “at my
first defense…everyone deserted me” (2 Timothy
1:15, 4:16) Yet he never lost his vision of God’s new,
redeemed society, and he never gave up
proclaiming it. In his underground dungeon, from
which there was to be no escape but death, he
could write: “I have fought the good fight, I have
finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy
4:7). He persevered to the end.
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36.  Service
 “You know that those who are regarded as rulers
of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high
officials exercise authority over them. Not so with
you. Instead, whoever wants to become great
among you must be your servant and whoever
wants to be first among you must be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
many” (Mark 10:42-45).
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37.  Service
 The emphasis of Jesus was not on the
authority of a ruler-leader but on the
humility of a servant leader. The authority
by which the Christian leader leads is not a
power but love, not force but example, not
coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders
have power, but power is safe only in the
hands of those who humble themselves to
serve. Joseph G. Smith 37

38.  Service
 Why did Jesus equate greatness with service?
 The answer relates to the intrinsic worth of
human beings, which was the presupposition
underlying Jesus’ own ministry of self-giving
love, and is an essential element in the
Christian perspective.
 If human beings are Godlike beings, then they
must be served—not exploited, respected —
not manipulated.
Joseph G. Smith 38

39.  Discipline
 Every vision has a tendency to fade. Every
visionary is prone to discouragement. Hard
work begins with zest can easily degenerate
into drudgery. Suffering and loneliness take
their toll. The leader feels unappreciated and
gets tired. The Christian ideal of humble
service sounds fine in theory but seems
impractical.
Joseph G. Smith 39

40.  Discipline
 The final mark of leaders seeking to follow
Christ is discipline, not only self-discipline in
general (in the master of their passions, their
time and their energies), but in particular the
discipline with which they wait on God. They
know their weakness. They know the greatness
of their task and the strength of the
opposition. But they also know the
inexhaustible riches of God’s grace.
Joseph G. Smith 40

41.  Discipline
 Many biblical examples could be given.
 Moses sought God, and “the Lord would speak
to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his
friend.”
 David looked to God as his shepherd, his light
and salvation, his rock, the stronghold of his
life, and in times of deep distress “found
strength in the Lord his God”
Joseph G. Smith 41

42.  Discipline
 The apostle Paul, burdened with a physical or
psychological infirmity which he called his
“thorn in his flesh”, herd Jesus say to him, “My
grace is sufficient for you”, and learned that
only when he was weak was he strong.
 But our supreme exemplar is our Lord Jesus
Himself.
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43.  Discipline
 It is only God who “gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak. For even
youths grow tired and weary, and young men
stumble and fall. But those who wait on the
Lord will renew their strength. They will soar
on wings like eagles; they will run and not
grow weary, they will walk and not be faint”
(Isaiah 40:29-31
Joseph G. Smith 43

44.  Discipline
 It is only those who discipline themselves to
seek God’s face, who keep their vision
bright. It is only those who live before
Christ’s cross, whose inner fires are
constantly rekindled and never go out.
 Only those who know and acknowledge
their weakness can become strong with the
strength of Christ.
Joseph G. Smith 44

45. CONCLUSION
Effective Christian leadership for
the 21st century consist of five main
ingredients - clear vision, hard
work, dogged perseverance,
humble service and iron discipline.
Joseph G. Smith 45

46. Ellen White on Mission
“If we would humble ourselves
before God, and be kind and
courteous and tenderhearted and
pitiful, there would be one hundred
conversions to the truth where now
there is only one” (Testimonies, vol. 9, p.
189).
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47. Joseph G. Smith 47
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS

48. Reference
 Blackaby, H., Blackaby R. (2011). Spiritual Leadership.
Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group.
 Burns, J. MG., (2002). Transforming Leadership. New York, NY:
Grove Press.
 Knight, G. R., (2008). Lest we Forget. Hagerstown, MD: Review
and Herald Publishing Association.
 Ginsberg, B (2011). The Fall of the Faculty. New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
 Maxwell, J. C., (1995). Developing the Leaders Around You.
Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.
 Stott, John (1990). Decisive Issues Facing Christians Today.
Grand Rapid, MI: Fleming H. Revell (pp. 367-380).
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