“there is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace it will be a mountain by the time we’re done. You either get on the bus, or get run over by the bus, those are the options, but the bus ain’t going to stop.”

(State of Emergency episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill)

               Get the right people on the bus

The leadership concept of having the right people on the bus in the right seats, was brought into my awareness by the leadership writer Jim Collins.   Jim said there are four things that need to happen to get the right people on the bus in the right seats.

1. Get the right people on the bus.
2. Get the right people in the right seats.
3. Get the wrong people off the bus.
4. Put who before what. 

Jim Collins said do not go anywhere until you have the right people on the bus. The best executives think about who is on their bus before they think about what their next step is. I enjoyed the book and with other important books on leadership I have read, it is absolutely clear that for an organisation to perform at it’s best it must consider the people that make up the organisation, it must work out how to have a culture that works well, together.  This concept has been widely used in corporate world and in churches. 

The analogy bringing danger to the church was highlighted by the podcast “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill”.  In it the leader and founder of Mars Hill church Mark Driscoll is quoted as saying “there is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace it will be a mountain by the time we’re done. You either get on the bus, or get run over by the bus, those are the options, but the bus ain’t going to stop.” (State of Emergency episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill)   The audio of Driscoll speaking this way is shocking, and I fear for those who don’t find it shocking.  It demonstrates a single mindedness, a focus on achieving the goal that has been established.  The goal in Driscoll’s mind was to make the gospel of Jesus Christ known, to make disciples, a goal that I don’t believe has been determined once the right people were on the bus and put in the right seats, but follows the instructions of Jesus Christ to his followers in Matthew 28, however this cannot be the only goal, numbers cannot be more important than people.  Driscoll’s goal of making the gospel known, so the church can grow, seems to come at the expense of the love of Jesus to the neighbour, the desire to care for those in need, or any concept of the depravity of man, as the bodies that  Driscoll was talking about had been run over by the bus, because they questioned his power, and lack of accountability. 

The people who have been hurt in reaching people for Christ can be viewed as collateral damage rather than, beloved children of God who may be wondering out loud about a strategy that has been accepted because of it’s success.  In practice  a strategy that views numbers as more important than people, is behaviour opposite to that of Jesus, who noticed the unclean woman who just touched his cloak, who asked the Tax collector hiding up a tree to host him for dinner, even after Jesus had risen from the dead, when confronted with a weeping woman, he asks her what’s wrong, what have you lost.  Jesus throughout his ministry allows himself to care for individuals, to love those who are around him (his neighbours), there may have been better strategies, but Jesus chose not to take them up.  If our mission ignores people, and fails to love those in need, I wonder is it Jesus who is leading your mission or yourself?  The bodies behind the bus, need to be loved, need to be cared for and need to be heard.  In Jesus’ eyes those who are run over by the mission, were never expendable, and shouldn’t be from the perspective of Christian leaders, if we are more focussed on numbers than people, perhaps we need to question our own position on the bus rather than those we have just run over. 

The call to mission, to making disciples is real, but if we fail to love those whom God has put in front of us, put on our bus, perhaps we as leaders may need to consider whether we are sitting in the right seat?   A professional supervisor or Ministry Consultant would be a great person to spend time chatting with, to talk through how you are going at leading, loving and serving those whom God has placed on the bus with you.