1876: Leadership and Church Board Rooms with Tom Melzoni
I was looking around the jammed church on a Saturday afternoon when I was barely out of seminary and traveling with a famous speaker. Now it takes skill to hold an audience on a Sunny Saturday afternoon for a church conference, and this crowd was mesmerized. The content was wonderful and compelling. But something was eating at my insides, so I looked around again at the audience. What was bugging me? What was wrong?Little did I know that my perceptions at the time would lead to a major life change. These weren’t “my” people. They weren’t the kind of folks with which one might want to go out and enjoy the proverbial beer. It was too neat and too clean. No matter how much I liked the message, I couldn’t get away from the fact that somehow the people who follow a message says something about the messenger.Isn’t it interesting that when the subject of Church comes up, it doesn’t take long before leaders become the topic of discussion. “This Pastor did this.” “That minister said that.” “My priest one time.”Why is it that leaders in the church and leadership in the church seems to get it wrong so often and make us want to run away? Leaders hurt us.To help us navigate these waters today I have invited a man who has spent more time in Church boardrooms than almost anyone else I know. His name is Dr. Tom Melzoni and he’s preached to thousands at a time, been in churches so small I’ve seen bathrooms that are bigger and he knows where the bodies are buried. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University and President of a Foundation that does a ton of good stuff here he is: Welcome Tom.