Alpha Males and Church Leadership

Following up from my previous post, I want to nuance what I said about church planting in Sydney. We are quite prone to planting churches of one particular type - that is churches which are led by alpha males. If one of our churches starts falling behind, we parachute in one of these guys and expect their ability as a 'renaissance man' to turn everything around.

These men are typically assertive in their leadership, and can generally command the loyalty of their church by sheer force of personality. (To generalize even further, they are sporty - or at the very least are well built and handsome). You can see this in many of the leaders in our diocese. Rather than being the softly spoken kind of guys, these men are often seen at church holding court - they are the center of conversations, with younger guys hanging of their every word. And so the next generation of church leaders emulates the current crop of alpha males. They often come across as brash and assertive, and the next thing you know they are late to lectures because they're playing touch or cricket.

Remember too that the Apostle Paul was not a great speaker. He wasn't a great surfer, shuffle around in his designer clothes or have a tan to an enunciate his rugged good looks. Instead he was a poor speaker, ship wrecked and beaten a few times. It is in our weaknesses that He is strong.

I'm not saying that all our ministers are like this. There are many men in ministry who definitely aren't alpha males. They're scrawny and softly-spoken, and full power to them. But if we continue to plant churches where all the men are expected to be die hard rugby fanatics, then that is a significant portion of the population that we are marginalizing and excluding from our churches. We should not let one particular type of manhood become the exclusive picture of Christian maleness. Especially when it is already hard enough for men like this to fit into church.