LOOK | WHAT DOES IT SAY?
Read 1 Chronicles 24-29
THINK | WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Everything needs organization. These days, we often expect that most important problems should be fairly simple, straightforward, and uncomplicated to solve: requiring initiative and hard work, perhaps, but not much complicated thought. In some ways that can be right--as people we have a tendency to complicate the simple and obfuscate the obvious. But the more "parts" that a problem has (the number of people involved, the number of interest groups affected, the number of dollars required, the number of levels of governance that need to be consulted for approval, the number of options that require sorting), the more systems are required to address the issue. We see those factors at work in this chapter. It really doesn't take much to worship God, other than a man (or woman) walking up to the nearest clearing at sunrise to sing or pray or read, and spend time in God's presence. But when hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people come to worship God together, then David has to get systems together to mind the building, watch the gates, take shifts to offer sacrifices in the prescribed way, write songs and lead worship teams, manage the treasury, manage teaching and make decisions in cases of personal waywardness, work with smaller groups, provide counseling, do security work, and greet people at the gates. As we see in this chapter, it takes a lot of people working together to make that happen, and clear systems to organize them.
There needs to be a leader. First, we see that all of this complicated work requires someone to be the main "on the ground" leader. David likely consulted heavily with his advisors, and I doubt that he made any significant decisions on this front without first consulting "Zadok of the sons of Eleazar and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar" (1 Chronicles 24:3) or "the chiefs of the service" (1 Chronicles 25:1). But David was the initiator, the one who provided the central vision. I once worked for a senior pastor who told me about the danger of having multiple top decision makers--he said that "the problem with having two visions is that the result is a die-vision [a pun on 'division,' which I found out later actually literally means 'two visions,']." What happens when a central decision maker isn't in place? Tie ten people together with a rope around their waists and tell them to all head in different directions, and you'll get a visual representation of the result: nothing bad happens, but they don't really get anywhere either (or at least not far), and most of them appear to be pretty worn out by the end, and eventually they give up--because you can either get nowhere and be tired out trying to pull in the direction you want to head towards, or you can accept that nothing is going to change and at least try to enjoy the spot you're tied up together in for what it is.
There needs to be accountability. It doesn't really look like David had much accountability, but that's not (entirely) true. I am glad that leaders have more accountability today than back then. But David did also have some accountability: if a king truly proved to be terrible, mismanaging the country and abusing his power, and violating the worship of God, it was not unknown for the people to rebel and even kill the leader. It already almost happened to David a couple of times, while he was with the Philistines (when his men's camp was raided), during the rebellion of Absalom, and during the civil war of Israel at Sheba's instigation in 2 kings 20. When there were multiple legitimate heirs to the throne, a group could even rally around one heir or the other if they wanted a king out of the way but still wanted to appear loyal to the throne. These days we thankfully don't kill our leaders--but if there is significant mismanagement or ethical breaches, we can vote to terminate them, we can censure them for an action, we can enact forced paid leave with a prescribed process for reinstatement, we can refuse to give raises, we can withhold giving, or we can announce personal withdrawal from their leadership. All of these are significant actions, but they show that no leader, even one with a lot of decision-making power, is ever truly without accountability--and a good leader should welcome this.
There needs to be meaningful delegation with decision-making lattitude. Leaders don't get anywhere by trying to manage every decision in a growing organization. David models this by assigning multiple sub-leaders who have charge over different areas throughout these chapters. Leaders over large circles need to give those who lead smaller circles the ability to manage things within their personal area of responsibility: They need to draw out the box of expectations within which lower level leaders need to operate, but then they need to let those leaders draw inside the lines with the technique and colors that fit them best. If you try to give someone responsibility without the required authority, you are setting up someone to fail, so that they end up owning the result of others' decisions without being able to do anything to change it. On the other hand, if you give authority without responsibility, you end up creating demanding, abusive, and irresponsible leadership--setting others up to fail and washing their hands when the result is not ideal, because they are not the ones responsible for the result.
Here's an illustration on what authority without responsibility looks like: As a volunteer on a preaching team for a church that had no pastor, I once walked into a service with no one leading worship. There was also no one working the media booth. No one was assigned to do announcements. I actually hadn't been scheduled to preach either, except that I had called a few days earlier to ask if anyone was scheduled for the next few weeks, and when they found out there wasn't anyone for the upcoming Sunday, they asked me to come last minute. Thinking quickly as the scheduled time for the service was about to come up, I pulled in some people as they came through the door, and asked one girl if she could play some songs she knew on the keyboard and sing, and she agreed. I asked another guy who knew how to work the soundboard, and he agreed. I asked another person to read announcements, and they did. And I preached--and it worked. We started the service 15 minutes late and there were a couple of rough spots, but we pulled it off and had a great morning. Then I pulled the Elders into a room after the service and confronted them on allowing this to happen--without a pastor, that team were the pastors of the church. They were responsible to make sure things were going to happen. But they stood around, blamed the deacon of worship who was on vacation, blamed volunteers for not checking their schedules, blamed Millennials for not being dedicated to their responsibilities, all while admitting that they hadn't done any work that week to make sure things were on track. I explained to them that as Elders, they were the pastors of the church, and that if they hired a pastor and he let that happen, he would be fired. They continued to make excuses, and the church ended up having another Sunday like that four weeks later where I wasn't there to pull it together. When I came back two weeks after that, there were only 11 people in the service--down from a high of 150. The church was finally able to hire an interim pastor, and that church has thankfully seen an increase up to about 50-60 over the last three years. But that church nearly died because the people who had responsibility didn't have authority, and the people who had authority had no responsibility.
DO | HOW DO WE RESPOND?
How can we respond in our worship, attitude, and actions? IN OUR ATTITUDES AND ACTIONS we should be pro-organization people who delegate decision-making authority, but also respect the need for a common vision and a common direction. David illustrates that need over these readings. As we learn from these chapters, we should be willing to learn about systems, take best practices from others, equip leaders, set big goals and aim towards them. What would it look like for our neighbourhood, city, province, and country to hear the Gospel and be brought into meaningful community with God's people? What would it take to reach them with a missionary mindset? How would that goal be accomplished? Who would we partner with? What resources would we need? What systems would need to be in place? All of that requires organization.
PRAY | HOW DOES THIS BRING US TO GOD?Whether in response to anything pointed out here, or to something else in your Bible reading time, take a few moments before you close up your Bible to pray in response to God. If you need a format for prayer, both the ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication), CALL (Confess, Ask, Love, Listen), and PRAY (Praise, Repent, Ask, Yield) methods are helpful ways to stay consistent.
-Sean
