The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It

by Jamin Goggin

the great temptation of power is control, and the great consequence of control is lack of relationship. The reason that intimacy is so difficult in ministry is you’re not in control—you’re in relationship. You have to enter a person’s life and they have to enter yours. The minute you start becoming obsessed with control, you lose the relationship. Sadly, pastors can get really good at seeming relational, but they are just being manipulative. They know how to play the emotional angles. I think that probably the leading characteristic of successful pastors today is their control. Is that part of your experience?” Kyle quickly responded to Eugene’s question. “That does speak into my own experience. I see this running rampant in the church today. In my experience, this seems to come up most obviously in our obsession with systems and programs as a way to achieve and quantify.” “That seems right,” said Eugene. “The minute you develop a programmatic mentality, you depersonalize it because you don’t have to know this person, like them, or pray for them; you just do your job and make sure they do their job. The one thing we can do, we can learn people’s names, we can be in their homes, and they can be in our homes. We can assiduously cultivate a sense of relationship. There is no hierarchy in friendship. We can cultivate relationships with the outsider, with the person who doesn’t think I’m important. So I think somehow we have to find ways to cultivate a sense of nobodyness. Paul...