Spiritual leaders will undoubtedly make mistakes in appointing and empowering church leaders. Why do we empower the wrong people? We are far too easily impressed by a person's charisma, abilities, and persuasiveness. We can fall prey to the person who tells us what we want to hear about our organization or about ourselves. We are looking for the quick fix that a person promises.
Yes, we must do our due diligence up front when identifying ministry and mission leaders. Have they demonstrated trustworthiness, integrity, and godly character over time? Do they have EQ as well as IQ? Can they "pass" a psychological assessment? Do their references check out?
But no matter how hard we try in advance to identify character flaws in potential leaders, we will make some mistakes and support some leaders who will prove themselves not to be worthy of our trust.
Not admitting that we made a error in judgment even after doing our due diligence is a huge leadership mistake.
Even the great Apostle Paul did not bat 1.000 when choosing leaders to align himself with. Paul once called Demas his “fellow worker” (Philemon 1:24). Later, however, Demas failed the character test, falling in love with the world and deserting Paul (II Timothy 4:10).
Our identity cannot be wrapped up in always being right. We're human. Our identity must be wrapped up in Christ - the One who loves us even when we make wrong leadership decisions.
The people we are leading don't expect perfection from us, but they ought to see transparency and humility – especially when we’ve made mistakes.
If the great Apostle Paul was, at times, a poor judge of a person’s character, then who are we to think that we won’t sometimes do the same?
The greater mistake is not our choosing a flawed leader, but our unwillingness to publicly admit our leadership failure.
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