Leadership as a Vocation – Missiological Implications on Future Missions

Abstract

Leadership is one key factor that determines the success and failure of any enterprise launched by human beings. The biblical narratives, church and mission history often focus on leaders who served in eadership roles, but the underlying theology affirms the vocational calling of leaders to fulfill God’s missional purposes. This paper illustrates the biblical narrative, history of the church and missions to argue this theological position. Finally, it discusses two of the contemporary theological themes that affirm leadership as a vocation and concludes by presenting implications for future missional movements.

Keywords: Leadership, Vocation, Theology, Missiological Implications, Missions

Introduction

Leadership is one key factor that determines the success and failure of any enterprise launched by human beings. It is one of the most popular everyday topics in politics, business, society, and religion. There are thousands of books on leadership and yet there is a lament about the need for more leaders. Over the years, leadership has acquired many definitions and descriptions based on diverse worldview perspectives. Leadership is perceived as gifting, calling, skill, hereditary, an inherited trait, designation, or an elected or appointed position. In this study, the focus is on the theological understanding of leadership as a vocation meaning “a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation” which is originally from the root Latin words Vocatio or Vocare to call.¹ Some scholars have made a distinction between a calling to vocational ministry and a calling to ministry assignment, while others argue that it is not about geography but the task.² This paper will examine some of these issues related to leadership.

The narratives in the Bible, church and mission history often focus on individual leaders who served in functional roles and evaluates their character traits based on their relationship with God along with their achievements or failures. The underlying theology that is implied in these narratives is that leadership is not just a position, but a responsibility to which God calls individuals. It affirms the vocational calling of leaders to fulfill God’s missional purposes and holds them accountable to God. It takes one individual’s foresight, vision and action to mobilize others to follow but it is initiated by hearing the call from God. Leadership is practiced within a family unit, in the neighborhood, affinity groups, community, business, workplaces and the nation. There is a difference when leaders sense a divine calling in their roles. It is the theological understandings and worldview perspectives of leadership practices that make some leaders worthy of emulation.

When the people of God were formed into éthnos – nation, and ekklēsía – assembly they needed leadership. God established functional roles like the Priests, Judges, Prophets, Kings, Apostles, Bishops, Deacons and Pastors for the people of God. The scriptures and church history lead evidence to the theological understanding that it is God himself as the leader, who in his sovereignty, establishes these leadership roles and functions and then calls individuals into these roles.

Thus, the central thesis developed in this paper is that leadership is often viewed only as an office or position within the church and mission structures, whereas theologically it needs to be understood as a vocational calling to fulfill God’s missional purposes.

To support the above thesis, the methodologies used are historical, theological and missiological approaches. First, this paper describes the historical roles of Samuel and Paul as illustrations from the biblical narrative to explore the thesis proposed. Secondly, it examines the history of the church and missions to describe how the role of the clergy emerged as the new priesthood and later how the reformed understanding of the priesthood of all believers evolved into diverse vocations. Finally, it discusses two contemporary theological themes that strengthen the proposed thesis and concludes by presenting two implications of the theological understanding of leadership as a vocation for future mission movements.

Leadership as a Vocation in the Biblical Narratives

Let us now focus on how leadership as a vocation is understood in the biblical narratives. There are many accounts of the life of the leaders, metaphors and instructions about leadership in the biblical narratives. Within the limited scope of this research, the focus of this research is on the theological understanding of leadership as a vocational calling from the life of Samuel in the Old Testament and Paul from the New Testament.

Samuel – Prophet-Judge-Priest of Israel

Many leaders in the Old Testament stand out for leadership lessons – popular among them are Moses, David, Solomon, Daniel, Nehemiah, etc. The dominant metaphor for leadership in these narratives is that of ‘shepherding.’ There are four different types of leadership roles mentioned in the Old Testament: Kings, Priests, Prophets, and Sages.³ Mostly men and some women who were specifically called by God to function in these roles are useful for understanding the theological framework of leadership as a vocation. I have chosen to focus on the life of Samuel whose leadership combined the roles of a Judge, Prophet and Priest during a transitional time in the history of the people of Israel just before the institution of kingship was established.⁴

Samuel, while serving the priest in the temple received a call from God to lead the nation at a time when the priestly leadership was corrupt and the nation was leaderless. Goldingay refers to this incident as a summon rather than a calling.⁵ He argues that Samuel was not called to fulfill his potential but was summoned by God to a task designed for him. It was through a process of discernment that Samuel came to realize his life’s mission as a prophet, priest, military commander, seer and judge of all Israel.⁶

Samuel was chosen and summoned by God to institute kingship into the nation based on a covenant model structure. Samuel partnered with God, in the selection and appointment of the first king of Israel and later to establish the Davidic royal line where God highlights that it is not the external attributes but the heart that matters in leadership roles. The institution of the monarchy brought a change into the existing theocratic leadership model.⁷ God turned the human desire for kingship to fulfill his larger missional purposes.⁸ From then on we see that the functions of king, priest and prophet emerged as separate individual structures to balance the power dynamics of a growing nation.

Samuel in his farewell speech establishes the fact that leadership is stewardship and that all leaders are accountable for their actions to God and to the people whom they serve.⁹ Samuel’s life reinforces the truth of God’s sovereignty in calling people into leadership roles as a vocation.

Paul – Apostle to the Gentiles

In the New Testament apart from Jesus, it is the leadership of Paul who stands out as a model among the early followers. Jesus did not institutionalize any leadership role but focused on discipleship with a strong sense of a vocational calling for his followers who were fishermen, tax collectors and Pharisees to transform them as fishers of men.

It was Paul’s itinerant mission to various cities in the Roman Empire to preach the Good news that eventually leads to formal leadership appointments in the emerging Gentile churches. The dominant metaphor of leadership within the New Testament context is that of ‘servant-leadership’ and upside-down hierarchy. The New Testament narratives refer to several offices that emerge but the most common seems to be epískopos, presbýteros and diákonos to provide a leadership structure for the emerging church.¹⁰

Once the apostolic leadership took charge of the movement, we witnessed the institution of the role of diákonos with the appointment of seven men for the task of serving at the tables. The roles of epískopos and presbýteros emerged for the task of overseeing the new churches that were planted.

Paul’s conversion and calling to be an apostle was a very important milestone in the early church. Paul’s apostleship was controversial both within the early church as well as among the Jewish community. He defended his apostleship vehemently in his writings always referring to his ‘Damascus experience’ as his vocational calling and identity as the apostle to the Gentiles.¹¹ Paul was not among the disciples of Jesus who were recognized as ‘apostles’ because they were a witness to Jesus’ resurrection. Paul in his letter to the Galatian refers to this and argues that he was chosen and appointed by Jesus directly through a revelation and does not claim any human authority.¹² At the same time he remained accountable to apostles in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch who initially sent him on his itinerant mission.¹³

Paul mentors a team of leaders among the churches he planted, affirming, instructing and motivating them, while he maintains a collegial environment wherein accountability becomes the hallmark of the exercise of leadership.¹⁴

In a discussion on the nature of the apóstolos, scholars describe the various contexts in which it was used in the New Testament. Firstly, it was used to refer to Christ himself, then the original twelve disciples of Jesus.¹⁵ Secondly, it was referred to Matthias, Barnabas, Paul and several others which signifies that its usage was flexible in the early church. The term affirmed the missionary nature of the calling and included all who were devoted to this vocation.¹⁶ Recently, the term has been generally replaced by the word ‘missionary’ and scholars like Tennent propose that in the present context it is better to use ‘apostolic missionaries.’¹⁷

Paul’s understanding of his leadership role and the leaders he mentored was evidence of God’s sovereign call for His missional purposes. Paul’s writing to the Ephesians teaches that all the offices are gifts from God for the church’s edification and they all have a special calling or vocation in comparison to others in the church.¹⁸ The biblical tradition of “setting apart” and “laying on of hands” affirms the calling by the triune God in “sending” individuals for His greater missional purposes.¹⁹

In summary, the biblical narratives affirm that the various leadership roles and offices are established by God and individuals are called into these roles to fulfill greater missional purposes. It is God who calls and equips individuals which makes leadership a vocation. We will now examine how this theological understanding evolved in the church and missions.

Leadership as a Vocation in Church and Missions

There are varied traditions that evolved within the early church and later in the mission movements as the church grew from a small number of Christ’s followers to multi-national institutions that span the globe. Leadership played an important role in this context as God raised leaders within the church for His purposes. Two themes emerge within the theological understanding of leadership as a vocation in history. They can be summed up as the evolution of the clergy as the new priesthood and the laity as the ‘priesthood of all believers.’

Clergy as the New Priesthood

The priesthood is central to the flourishing of all religions. The purpose of God to institute the priesthood in Israel, was the “calling of a visible community (Israel) to be God’s own people” and a royal priesthood to all the nations.²⁰ In the early church, Luke records that the apostles were regarded as the primary teachers for the new believers and led them in the breaking of the bread. This arrangement did not continue for long as severe persecution scattered the believers across the empire and later the destruction of Jerusalem ensured that there was very little established leadership other than the apostles and appointed deacons.

We noted earlier that it was Paul who initiated the leadership structure for the new Gentile churches in cross-cultural contexts. Bosch points out that the offices of epískopos, presbýteros, and diákonos were all secular terms that were adopted as church offices and those who assumed these roles were part of the community of new believers.²¹ There was no hierarchy as people from all walks of life and ethnicity were appointed to these roles because of their charisma or gifting, although the ethos of accountability in leadership was inherent.

As the movement grew in the next two centuries, it was the apostolic tradition that gave legitimacy to the church leadership. Bosch tracing the history of the emergence of the clergy comments that it was only later that the ecclesiastical role of the clergy was institutionalized with an extensively developed theological undergirding. The Constantine era further strengthened this movement as the ‘sacrament of ordination’ that became exclusive to symbolize apostolic authority against the prevailing heretical movements.

The clergy soon became the new priesthood as the hegemony of the catholic church grew with the clergy as well as the laity categories dichotomizing the ministry of the church. The clergy were entrusted with sacred duties and the lay people were involved in secular duties. It was not until the protestant reformation that the role of the clergy was questioned primarily by Luther and others following him. However, to strengthen the protestant movement Luther stuck with the ordained ministry as the core of the church with considerable authority. The movement of the anabaptists and the Pentecostals challenged the ordained ministry and sought to breakdown the clergy paradigm. The formal theological higher education for those called to be the clergy set them apart as an elite scholarly class in the pre-medieval society. It was an era when education was not accessible for the common people resulting in mass illiteracy. Later in the modern era, Newbigin defends the role of clergy by commenting that the priestly people need a ministering priesthood to sustain and nourish them.²² He points out that ideally that the clergy plays the role of leadership in the church to mobilize the whole church for ministry.

In summarizing this discussion, it is appropriate to comment that the role of the clergy emerged into an exclusive new priesthood deviating from the original purpose of God’s vocational calling the whole people of God to be His royal priesthood for all nations.

The Priesthood of all Believers

Luther is credited with the re-discovery of the theology of ‘priesthood of all believers during the reformation movement as a protest against the corrupt clergy who were manipulating the common people.²³ There was a glimmer of hope almost a thousand centuries ago when the Benedictine order came into being which institutionalized the ‘scribes who copied manuscripts’ into a monastic community that integrated sacred and secular parts of life influencing the larger society beyond the four walls of a church building.²⁴ The monks were not considered as ordained clergy but they were ‘set apart’ for missions. The abbot of a Benedictine monastery was considered a leader with a wider sphere of influence. Many other orders were formed in the Catholic Church to provide a structure for the lay people to be involved in ministry in the world. From within this context, Luther develops his reformed theology of the priesthood of all believers. Bosch comments that Luther did not seem to go further than using his renewed theological understanding and limited the same by challenging the authority of the pope, clergy and the ecclesiastical order concerning the understanding of the sacraments.²⁵ All other reformers followed a similar understanding with some variations in their context and ended up continuing the clergy and laity dichotomy.

It was during the Wesleyan movement, that the next major change in the understanding of the ‘priesthood of all believers’ came into being. Wesley’s initiative in appointing lay preachers from among men and women and forming bands for mutual accountability that strengthened the lay movement greatly.²⁶ These initiatives had its foundations in the earlier Moravian movement which influenced Wesley. The Moravian mission movement was holistic in theology by which they sent men and women into distant lands to practice their vocation as well as evangelize.²⁷

The next time we saw the ‘priesthood of all believers’ movement spreading was during the colonial era when missions became a worldwide endeavor and a common people’s movement. William Carey was the pioneer in founding of the missionary society which was followed by many others in England.²⁸ Next, Hudson Taylor’s initiative of a faith mission presented a clarion call for volunteers to go to China. This opened a flood gate of young people of all professions taking the plunge. Walls calls this a revolution in breaking the church structures that bound the laypeople.²⁹ The voluntary societies provided the laity a ministry structure for both men and women to be actively involved either as supporters in the home country or as volunteers on the field in leadership which accelerated the process of ‘declericalization’.

In the late nineteenth century, the student mission movement, especially in North America enabled hundreds of young people under the charismatic leadership of John Mott to be mobilized as missionaries to India, China and Africa.³⁰ The voluntary societies found the youthful optimism of winning the world in this generation to be a handy tool to recruit those who were responding to the calling to serve in mission. In this context, women also found their unique ministry roles as singles and married fulfilling their calling.³¹ The ‘priesthood of all believers’ took on a new meaning as laypeople volunteered to go to distant mission fields to fulfill their vocational calling.

The movement of the ‘priesthood of all believers’ took a new turn in the twentieth century when it became a people’s movement stimulating changes across the continent in Latin America. Hastings, referring to the context suggests that the severe shortage of the local priests in the Catholic Church in the twentieth century was one of the key issues apart from the socio-economic and political realities.³² In this context, the second Vatican Council’s decisions gave an impetus to the changes that had to be addressed by the church. Cleary in his article writes that the internal reform of the Catholic church started a movement among the laypeople who became active in the church as well as in the social justice mission.³³ González points out that the Catholic Bishops Council in Latin America during their Medellin conference initiated the need to develop small basic communities – a grassroots movement to meet the need of the lack of priests with lay leaders.³⁴ Cleary points out that the Catholic Church at the grassroots began to view the church as that which belonged to the people.³⁵ González describes that the people were reading Scripture with unexpected freshness with enthusiasm and through this process began to understand the world around them.³⁶ Hastings further adds that these communities shifted the religious center of inspiration away from a focus on the clergy celebrating mass and towards the reading of the Bible, group prayer and social action in meeting their quest for indigenous identity and engaging in ministry in the secular world.³⁷

A similar movement has been seen in the emergence of the African Independent churches where lay leaders emerged with a vocational calling to give leadership outside traditional church structures. The house church movements, especially in countries where Christian gatherings are prohibited or regulated is the driving engine for the growth of the Pentecostal charismatic wing of the church. The Pentecostal believe that God has given the Holy Spirit’s gifts for all without any discrimination and therefore leadership is viewed as a vocational calling.³⁸ As the Pentecostal influence spread to other historical denominations, the laity seems to have come of age and are missional in their involvement in the world. In the twentyfirst century, we find a renewed understanding of the tentmaking ministry, business as mission and marketplace ministries giving further impetus for the movement of ‘priesthood of all believers’ where traditional offices and positions are no longer relevant.

Bosch comments that the church has only recently realized that Christ Jesus had turned upside down the existing religious structures of the Jewish leaders and created a new order.³⁹ The purpose of the priesthood – an ordained ministry should be to enable the priesthood of the whole church.

In summarizing this discussion, it is appropriate to use Newbigin’s assertion that if the priesthood of all believers has to become a reality, then the purpose of the ordained ministry ideally is to equip the laypeople for active ministry in the world.⁴⁰ God in his sovereignty called the lay people to fulfill His missional purposes amid the continuing dichotomy of clergy and laity. We now turn our attention to examine two of the contemporary theological themes that affirm leadership as a vocation.

Contemporary Theological Themes of Leadership as a Vocation

Theological discourses with a focus on leadership are a recent development compared to the discussions on doctrinal issues that have a thousand years of history. Any discussion in the past that has relevance for our focus on leadership may only be found on the nature of the church and the pattern of ministry.⁴¹

The major leadership theological categories align with our biblical worldview of creation, fall and redemption wrote Ledbetter.⁴² He describes that God is the author and sustainer who initiates the calling of leaders for specific tasks. He goes on to say that we also believe, that since human beings have a fallen nature, it distorts our understanding of leadership purposes and we witness the perpetration of evil by leaders.⁴³ However, the Good News is that God can restore relationships, purposes and transform individual characters. These theological perspectives undergird our reading of the biblical narratives and biographies of leaders.

The contemporary literature on leadership can be traced to its pioneering effort of David Miller who attempted to answer the question as to how Christians can integrate their faith with their vocational calling in the marketplace.⁴⁴ He acknowledges that there is a tension between equipping the laypeople to use their abilities and gifting to serve within the church and at the same time giving meaning and purpose to the work for their livelihood. In the review of contemporary theological reflections, we focus only on two significant themes to understanding leadership as a vocation: Trinitarian and servant leadership.

In our earlier discussion on the biblical narratives, we looked at Samuel and Paul as an illustration for understanding leadership as a vocational calling. They both were called for a specific leadership task to make the most significant contributions to the missional purposes. They left behind a great legacy only because their leadership displayed both the trinitarian and servant leadership. We will briefly examine these themes before moving on to drawing out the implications for future missions.

Trinitarian Leadership

The use of the lens of the trinity to understand leadership as a vocational call gives us a solid foundation.⁴⁵ In the contemporary discussions, it is the renewed discovery on the nature of Godhead as being triune and his mission being described as missio Dei that sets the background to understanding God as the leader of missions.⁴⁶ God in His sovereignty calls individuals into a leadership office or position for particular tasks.

Vinay Samuel suggests that while we keep the focus on the incarnate Jesus who shared our lives, it is the total trinitarian framework that is critical to our theological understanding of leadership.⁴⁷ Godhead in the trinity is a community or in other words the leadership team, as they act in the community but not always in one direction as there is always a circular flow of relationships among them inwardly and outwardly with us. The Father is the caregiver and provider, the son incarnated is one among us who saves us and intercedes for us and the Spirit is our enabler and companion who empowers us with diverse gifts. He concludes by challenging that the role of the Christian leader must be able to create a community and an environment so that everyone will be able to use the Spirit-given gifts for the benefit of all.

Ledbetter summarizes various authors, who discuss in detail the Trinitarian model like Christian Schumacher, who has applied the triune Godhead as a model for integrating faith and work, Dorothy Sayers develops an analogy between the Trinity and the act of creation, Gordon Preece argues that human work is an expression of the Father, Son and the Spirit, while Benjamin Williams and Michael McKibben describe leadership in action linking it to the vision of the kingdom of God.⁴⁸

The collegial approach to leadership that offers dialogue, freedom, diversity, and community based on the trinitarian understanding is the privilege of those who realize their vocational calling into the role. Any other means of assuming leadership roles will not reflect the trinitarian Godhead. The more we examine leadership as a vocation through the lens of the triune God, we can draw out the various nuances for practical application and one such aspect is the incarnated Jesus Christ who exemplifies servant-leadership for us to follow.

Servant-Leadership

More than any other theological motifs of Christian leadership, ‘servant leadership’ has become the most popular theory in the corporate world.⁴⁹ Although the motif has its basis in the teachings of Jesus, corporate leaders from different religious backgrounds have adapted it to their context. Robert Greenleaf in his seminal work, although developed with a focus on the corporate business world draws inspiration from several teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.⁵⁰ He expresses his disappointment that the church as a religious institution often failed to model servant leadership and on the other hand have created structures that have emboldened power-seeking, autocratic leadership that runs counter to the teaching of Jesus. Greenleaf did insist that a leader is a servant first and only in the context of service he becomes a leader. There were others like Larry Spears and Walter Wright who have developed this understanding for practical application.

In a recent article, Mary Ho writes that servant leadership is like a paradox and an ‘oxymoron.’⁵¹ She uses the book titled “Servant-Leadership Across Cultures” by Trompenaars and Voerman who have identified seven polarized binaries of servant-leadership and draws out illustrations from the example of Jesus. They are as follows: leading versus serving, rules versus exceptions, control versus passion, specific versus diffuse, short-term versus long-term and push versus pull. She finally concludes by illustrating the final action of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet as an act that transcended all cultures and sets an example for us to follow.

Servant-leadership is often rooted in spirituality, service, and self-sacrifice but has its critics who argue that the concept is abused in practice and that this style of leadership is viewed as weakness.⁵² Therefore, Susan Nelson Dunfee and Edward Zaragoza advocate a friendship model to be a better approach. Ledbetter suggests the term “leading servants” as an alternative for today’s context. Servant leadership should not be considered as a model or a leadership style argues Kevin Mannoia in his article in the edited book on Leadership the Wesleyan Way and proposes a rethink of the concept.⁵³ He proposes that servant-leadership is primarily about the identity of the leader that comes from being and not in the doing. It is about serving others and not-self and it is being the servant of God drawing the essence from the distinct concepts of service, ministry and servanthood. He asserts that when our inner identity is focused on God’s calling and we are consistent in our action then we fulfill God’s vocation and calling. The basis of the vocational call transcends the implementation of leadership activities leading to achieving results. He concludes that without hearing that inner calling no leader can serve effectively following Jesus’ example.

Summarizing the above discussions, we can conclude that the theological themes of trinitarian leadership and servant-leadership affirm the importance of understanding leadership as a vocation. These will help us to examine the implications for future missions’ movement in understanding leadership as a vocation.

Implications for Future Missions

Several implications can be drawn out of the theological reflections on leadership as a vocation. The emergence of the clergy as the new priesthood and the renewed understanding of the priesthood of all believers is important in this discussion. This paper focuses on two missiological implications, one for the missional congregation and the other for missional networks.

The first implication for understanding leadership as a vocation is the missional congregation. Lois Barrett had described the missional congregation as one that allows God’s mission to permeate corporate worship leading to witnessing and discipling, while integrating outreach and congregational life to embody God’s mission as the life of the church.⁵⁵ ‘Leadership is about followership’ has now become a popular phrase. In a missional congregation, it is not about how many follow the leader, but it is about whether the leader is following His master. In a church, irrespective of the leader’s designation as an elder, presbyter, pastor, bishop, or deacon and it is of no purpose unless the leader and the congregation affirm each other’s vocational calling. Lovett Weems writes that effective leadership begins with God’s call, God’s people and God’s vision rather than promoting a personal agenda of career growth and hierarchical status within a church context.⁵⁶

If the leaders of the church understand that the positions they are placed in are because of God’s specific call for them, then they will be able to influence their congregation to become missional. There has been a lot of discussions on how we understand the missional church. It is not about whether a church needs to be multi-cultural or cross-cultural to become missional.⁵⁷ A missional church or congregation is one who engages holistically with the neighborhood and at the same time with the rest of the world. It is also about the kingdom of God and not just about the local contexts or goals of replicating oneself in a geographically distant context.

Newbigin writes that “the church is not so much the agent of the mission as the locus of the mission.”⁵⁸ He further argues that the church has to unlearn old practices and learn new things to fulfill her missional task. A missional congregation has to be a hermeneutical congregation and this can become a reality only if the congregation strives to be true to its calling.⁵⁹ Newbigin suggests six characteristics as follows: a community of praise and thanksgiving, the community of truth, community concerned for its neighborhood, a community where its members are prepared and sustained for exercising its priesthood in the world, a community of mutual responsibility and finally a community of hope. I want to focus on Newbigin’s suggested implications that the hermeneutical congregation prepares its members to address issues of integrating faith in the marketplace and a recognition that God freely gives diverse gifts to different members for different kinds of service.

This vision can be a reality only when we heed Bosch calls for “a more organic, less sacral ecclesiology of the whole people of God.”⁶⁰ This calls for breaking down of the traditional hierarchical leadership styles of clergy and equip them to lead the congregation members from the frontline. Newbigin adds that the clergy should display courage in spiritual warfare and that it should come from their discipleship journey focused on prayer life and daily consecration.⁶¹ The ordained ministry of the clergy is a vocational calling for greater missional purposes and not just an office in the ecclesiastical structure.⁶²

Missional Networks

The second implication for understanding leadership as a vocation is the missional networks. The history of the voluntary societies and faith missions in the form of the twin structures of sodality and modality affirms the nature of God’s vocational calling for cross-cultural and specialized ministries.⁶³ In the present context, where there exists a multiplicity of agencies, it has become essential for missional networks to be able to effectively work together in global collaboration for the larger purposes of God’s kingdom.⁶⁴

The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh (1910) was the first step towards the worldwide networking of churches and missionary societies among the protestant community to work together for the goal of evangelization.⁶⁵ This was followed by many other worldwide networking bodies that include the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization, World Evangelical Alliance and others.⁶⁶ The shift of the center of gravity from the North to the South has dramatically changed the global context, requiring more efforts to network together.

Pachuau traces the networking influence of India Missions Association (IMA) in Asia, Nigeria Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA) and the Spanish Cooperación Misionero Iberoamericano (COMIBAM) in Latin America as illustrations from the newer missionary sending continents.⁶⁷ This growing trend of missional churches and societies networking nationally, regionally and globally reflects the acceptance of the diverse vocational calling of the wider body of Christ.⁶⁸

There are at least three important implications that Tennent lays out for the future of mission practice arising out of the theological reflection.⁶⁹ One is the integration of word and deed by which the dichotomy between evangelism and social action must cease. Secondly, he calls for the resistance of individualism that does not provide space for diverse gifts within the body and finally the need for authentic ministry within the context of missio dei where the worldwide Christian movement can discover their shared place in God’s mission.

During the IGUASSU missiological consultation in the year 1999 the worldwide evangelical mission leaders came together and affirmed that as citizens of the kingdom of God and members of Christ’s body, they will commit to renewed efforts for cooperation to work in harmony.⁷⁰ The statement also confesses that they have failed in their attempts to work as equals because of inadequate theology related to the understanding of church and its resources. This is a very powerful affirmation and confession that acted as a catalyst in the changing context of globalization where people move from “everywhere to everyone” and underscores the need for missional networking in the new world order.⁷¹

Kirk Franklin proposes a new paradigm of global missional leadership mindset that must be transformational both at the personal and organizational levels, recognizing the diverse vocational calling of leadership.⁷² He adds that in a complex global environment, leaders must rely on interconnected relational teams of people across cultural boundaries emphasizing missional networking.

In the global context of missions today, the missional network of individual leaders, missional congregations and mission societies and agencies must realize that their leadership is a vocational calling and it can only be expressed in collaboration for the greater purposes of God.

Conclusion

Having surveyed the biblical narratives, church and mission history we have seen how the underlying theology affirms the vocational calling of leaders to fulfill God’s missional purposes. The evolution of the clergy as the new priesthood and the re-discovery of the priesthood of all believers also affirms that unless the leaders recognize their vocational calling, their leadership does not fulfill God’s purposes. The discussions on the contemporary theological themes of trinitarian leadership and servant-leadership once again affirm that leadership is a vocation. Finally by presenting implications for future mission movements, I have shown how the leaders of the missional congregation and missional networks with the right theology can fulfill their vocational calling.

The thesis earlier proposed that leadership is often viewed only as an office or position within the church and mission structures whereas theologically it needs to be understood as a vocational calling to fulfill God’s missional purposes and has been sufficiently supported through historical inquiry, theological reflections and missiological implications. Tennent rightly comments that mission is made possible only at God’s gracious invitation to the church to participate in His mission to the world.⁷³ I dream that people will hear God’s vocational calling for leadership to serve in His church and missions.

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