I don’t want to break confidences when I use personal correspondence for these blogs but these questions and concerns from Gathering participants are the best sources of thought for me. “One objection to the growing number of support and mentoring programs for young ministry entrepreneurs is that too much is made of the person/personality rather than the organization or movement that’s required to produce significant systemic impact.  We’re trying to figure out the proper balance between celebrating and supporting the entrepreneur who creates the organization and ensuring the organization is strong and deep enough to outlast and outperform a charismatic individual.” 

I’m especially interested in this one because it’s a conundrum.  How do we find the balance between investing in the individual and yet not elevating them and too often being a contributor to their fall?  While all movements have celebrities I have always thought evangelicals have put far too much emphasis on personalities.  Everyone knows who the pastor of the large church is. No one wants to know who the deacons are.  The face of the founder has to be on the masthead of the ministry letterhead and few are interested in who is on the board.  We’ve all seen dominant ministry personalities treat others with disdain – even their major donors. 

All charismatic leaders (even “anointed” leaders) are subject to the distortions of power.  How do you grow an organization without the leader getting on steroids?  That’s a much bigger topic than I want to handle here and there are many other resources.  I just want to say one thing that has helped me.  Peter Drucker writes somewhere there is an important difference between a “genius with a staff” and a person who is capable of building an organization that lives beyond them.  For the first the personality and changing interests of the founder become fused with the organization. It changes as the founder does. The organization and the people in it are a platform for his/her personal quest.  In the second the person embodies the values of the organization. 

The founder represents what is best and serves as an illustration of what the organization stands for.  I don’t know if you can predict which way an entrepreneur will go early on but I have found it useful to listen carefully as they describe the work.  Is it there to be a vehicle for their personal passion or do they see themselves as representing a set of values around which to build an organization with a mission?