This is the fourth installment at this site on the subject in the title. For background, read the previous three posts here.
The next fellow must share a set of values/vision not based on what he might pay to have someone follow. He must attract persons for his staff who are not sycophants or job-seekers only. The old, defunct BGCT rid itself of its more creative entrepreneurs because they were too strong for the "top fellow."
The new fellow must be a risk-taker but he must not be foolhardy. He must be able to see up around the bend that is ahead, not taking all his time to look back at what once existed. Circumstances are about to change, again, but his convention is not ready in any way. When I say that circumstances will change, I mean that people have been without meaningful connection(s) for some time. Can you really say that either Texas group has provided a soft pillow for the ecclesiastical head? People will want to connect again but they will not connect by default, as before, or with odium, as they have for so long. Circumstances are about to change, again, but your new fellow will find his group is not a group of choice for many. He must give churches good reason to connect through his convention. He has about a decade to make the connection.
As a risk-taker, he must be sanely radical. Will the BGCT be sanely radical enough to offer churches a place that is both real and revolutionary, at once both powerful in the present and visionary? If so, a great victory of connectivity will be won.
The next man must be a good thinker but no slave to calculation. If he plays it safe he will win through to a generous retirement, which can begin with the end of the BGCT. If he wishes for something beyond his own retirement (which goal-change would be refreshing) he must make a case for his convention. He will have to show the differences between his convention and its various competitors. In addition, he will have to show himself different and beneficial as set over against his two most immediate predecessors. If he shuffles offices in yet anther "reorganization" he will find no takers in the real world.
In short, he should make meaningful promises and plan to keep them. His word must bond him to his course of action. He cannot announce a plan in the morning staff meeting, working out the details while on his feet, shifting here and there according to whoever might be smiling and nodding in his audience, only to change his direction entirely after lunch. I have seen this happen. It is not inspiring.
He must expose the hypocrisy of his various foes, both foreign and domestic, without giving in to either group. He can do this without many words, by decent living.
Opinions expressed here are mine alone.
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