Choosing Church Leaders: Why Character Matters More Than Charisma

Summary

Immature believers often choose church leaders based on charisma or worldly success rather than biblical qualifications. This results in unhealthy churches that repeat the same problems generation after generation. Scripture emphasizes character, spiritual maturity, faithfulness, and devotion to Christ as essential leadership traits. Healthy churches depend on spiritually healthy leaders who live out God’s Word, care for others, and clearly follow God’s call.

Choosing Church Leaders

Immature believers often choose leaders who don’t meet scriptural qualifications. Unfortunately, unhealthy churches have few, if any, scripturally qualified people to select.

When leaders are spiritually immature, churches remain unhealthy generation after generation. One symptom is that church elections are often like Presidential elections.

Charisma Versus Character

Charisma affects Presidential election results. Political researchers believe John F. Kennedy’s narrow victory over Richard M. Nixon in 1960 was connected to Kennedy’s charisma in debates versus Nixon’s guarded approach. They also think Ronald Reagan’s charisma resulted in his re-election in 1984.1

When immature believers select their leaders, charisma often trumps Christian character. A winsome personality gets more votes than the scriptural qualities necessary for Christian leadership. Culture influences immature believers more than the Scriptures do.

Worldly Success as a False Measure

Immature believers often choose their leaders based on worldly success. They pick business leaders in the community to lead the church. Near the end of his life, one such business leader in a church I served had no assurance of salvation. A leader in that position is ill-equipped to nurture anyone else’s faith.

The Cost of Spiritually Apathetic Leaders

Many other leaders in churches I have served were apathetic about their spiritual growth and bringing others into the faith. That is a problem because as the leaders go, so goes the church.

A fellow pastor, without an abundance of charisma but whose character was solid as the rock of Gibraltar, was pressured to leave several of the churches he served. I suspect those churches were looking for someone with more crowd-drawing appeal.

Biblical Qualifications for Leadership

Neither business success nor charisma is a Scriptural qualification for Christian leadership. What are the qualifications? Tony Morgan lists seven of them.

1.     Leaders must be completely devoted followers of Jesus with a proven, genuine faith (1 Timothy 3:6, 5:22).

2.     Their solid character honors Jesus (1 Timothy 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9).

3.     Their conduct reflects their complete devotion to Jesus. They don’t say one thing and do another. They live what they believe.

4.     They have a deep understanding of God’s Word. They readily recognize false teachings contrary to that Word. They can show and tell others how to grow in their Christian faith (Titus 1:9, Colossians 1:28-29).

5.     They are concerned about both maintaining their spiritual vitality and promoting the well-being of the whole church (Acts 20:28; Hebrews 13:17).

6.     They have compassion for lost people and help them become believers in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:11)

7.     They can verbalize God’s call into Christian leadership. (Galatians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1).2

Healthy Leaders Build Healthy Churches

As in many areas of life, what glitters is often fool’s gold. We can’t have healthy churches without spiritually healthy leaders. A spiritual health check-up can identify spiritual strengths and weaknesses.

1.     New study shows how charisma affects politicians’ ability to influence public behavior | ASU News

2.     7 Qualifications of Biblical Leadership | The Unstuck Group

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