Barna: Seven Reasons the Church Needs Great Leaders

The following thoughts came from the RightNow conference presently going on in Dallas, Texas. George Barna is the director of the Barna Group, the leading research organization focused upon the intersection of faith and culture. This is the first of two posts from his session on leadership. I am not taking time in these posts to critique his presentation. Though there are a few concerns I have with his presentation, the statistics and conclusions do offer some very helpful information on the topic of leadership.

Seven Reason the Church Needs Great Leaders

1. The more selfish our society becomes the more critical it is to have godly leadership. We are getting more selfish as a culture. We need leaders who can motivate us to get our eyes off ourselves and onto other more significant causes.
2. The more choices we have, without a Biblical worldview, the more confused our priorities become. Research shows that less than 1 our of every 5 adults and less than 1 out of every 20 teenagers posses a Biblical worldview. 
3. In a time of rapid cultural changes the rules are different, the competition stiffer, the stakes higher, the opportunities greater. These realities necessitate superior leadership to guide us forward.
4. Recent poor decisions and behavior by high-profile leaders have ushered in an era of criticism, skepticism, and mistrust requiring a new generation of wise godly leaders to restore public trust and confidence. 
5. In a culture that rejects moral and spiritual truth, the result is confusion, stress, distraction, busyness, and chaos. The antidote is focused leaders who can make sense of reality, provide vision, and deliver direction to make that vision a reality.
6. Our culture has adopted a hyper individualism that undermines community and personal relationships raising the need for an emphasis upon team-based leadership. Those who are most successful in leadership operate in team-oriented leadership environments.
7. Churches have given lip service to leadership but suffer from a paucity (meaning insufficient amount or scarcity) of genuine leaders who are guiding people toward true Christ-like transformation. Fewer than 1 out of every 5 senior pastors in protestant churches can be identified as leaders. Less than 2% posses a vision from God for the future of the church they lead.