June 16, 1999

EDITORIAL:
Three qualities for our next leader
___Many characteristics will describe the next executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. We need a well-trained, properly prepared, Christ-honoring, Bible-believing, Baptist-practicing, church-loving, lost-winning, missions-minded, family-faithful leader. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of Texans fill that bill.
___But three unique and vital characteristics must be part of the composition of our next executive director. Our next leader must possess:
___ Compatibility with change. Change is our greatest challenge. Our state is rapidly changing--politically, demographically, economically, socially, technologically, educationally, spiritually. Our next leader must be comfortable confronting such change.
___Change impacts individual Texans enormously. Soon, we'll be a non-majority culture; eventually, we may be a Hispanic-majority culture.We're also becoming an urban culture. Our populations in key cities and parts of our border are swelling, while our farmlands and small towns are shrinking. Technology and the media are changing how Texans look at the world, each other and even ourselves. Consequently, marriages and jobs and social relationships are changing. Most Texans live in a swirling vortex of change.
___Small wonder, then, our churches are changing. Worship, particularly worship music, is a battleground of change. Our churches are dealing with change in how we educate, equip, motivate and implement. We're dealing with generational changes, social changes and increasing expectations placed upon staff. We're trying to assimilate new members, many of them new Christians, who don't share our common Baptist-buckle-on-the-Bible-belt culture. Church change is hard.
___Our agencies and institutions are changing as well. Agency leaders join me in spending much of our brain-time praying for, thinking about and planning for change. Every agency struggles to keep pace with rapidly escalating change.
___All this indicates the BGCT Executive Board must deal with change. It probably means flattening the corporate structure. It means analyzing and reallocating every type of resource to meet a handful of key priority needs. It means enhancing a corporate mindset that is flexible, responsive and intuitive.
___For the executive director, compatibility with change involves several abilities. The new executive must be comfortable with and not threatened by change. This person must be courageous in the face of change, willing and able to help others embrace change even as they grapple with its meaning. This person must be able to articulate change and respond to change. Every change initiated in Texas for more than a decade has been chalked up to political motives. Even if we didn't have "the controversy," Texas Baptists would be facing monumental change. The new leader needs to be able to explain this, to show what change means, to describe what will happen if change is not handled or handled poorly and to paint a picture of what can be possible.
___ Vanguard vision. As a change-leader, the new executive must be able to see opportunities where others only glimpse obstacles. This person must be able to define mission out of mist. This requires a unique and inspired blend of creativity and intuition, commitment to the hard work of studying and analyzing the state and the convention, and spiritual presence.
___The new executive must march forward on the leading edge of the convention. The leader must envision possibilities before they actually come to being. This person must view the state and the convention as a multi-dimensional matrix, recognizing how change here affects implementation there. He must demonstrate humble trust in this vision, recognizing its source is God, its shape is formed in community but its propulsion is personal.
___If the new executive does not have vanguard vision, our convention will be in danger of corporate and cultural myopia. If the leader cannot or will not see the convention's full potential, it will not become reality.
___ A sense of security. Ego is the Achilles' heel of any leader. Unchecked ego, more than any other weakness, has caused religious leaders to stumble. They linked their understanding of personal success with denominational success. They merged their personal identities with the corporate identities of their conventions. Their insecurity and ego crippled their compatibility with change and clouded their vision.
___So, the next leader must have self-security and ego held in perspective. We cannot afford a self-serving, ego-driven leader, no matter how eloquently he may be able to hide those flaws. He must act out of love for the Lord, care for the churches, concern for the convention and encouragement for all Texas Baptists.
___The other side of this perspective is valid as well. The executive must be sufficiently secure to stand up against enormous pressure and even bullying by some who wish the convention to conform to their agendas. The new leader must not be egotistical, but he cannot be a finger-in-the breeze guy, either.
___If this leader does not embody these qualities, the administration will be hamstrung, and the convention will stumble.
___ --Marv Knox

E-mail the editor at marvknox@flash.net

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