Misuse of Power

Why are so many scandals rocking Pentecostal churches in New Zealand and Australia? This question, debated in the Alphacrucis Bible college staffroom, led four Pentecostal academics and pastors to investigate, asking what's going on, why is it going on, what should be going on and what can be done about it?

In this episode of For Pastors, Vic Francis interviews the Rev Dr Adam Dodds and Pastor Joshua Newington, two of the report's authors, about their research and their far-reaching insights and conclusions.

You can get in touch with Adam or Joshua via the Alphacrucis website, or use this link if you're interested in the symposium on power in November that they mention.

For more information on Vic and Solace, check out our website or search for us on Facebook or Instagram. And if you would like to support this podcast, please become a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/forpastors

Enjoy the podcast!

Transcript

Vic Francis 0:00

Kia ora, I'm Vic Francis, and welcome to this episode of the For Pastors podcast. I'm combining my background as a journalist with decades of pastoring, national church leadership and practising as a supervisor and spiritual director to champion pastors and their holy calling in an uncertain world. Today's podcast is on the abuse of power, in which I speak to two Australian Pentecostal pastors and academics who have looked deep into why so many scandals have rocked their section of the church, and what can be done about it. Welcome today to For Pastors: Misuse of Power. I'm joined today by Adam Dodds and Joshua Newington, two Australian pastors and academics who have produced an article called "The Theology of Power in Contemporary Pentecostal Church Leadership in Australia and New Zealand." In the article, they note scandals that have rocked Pentecostalism in Australia and New Zealand, and which have highlighted a potential problem within church culture around power. And they ask, why does this occur, and how can we avoid it happening in the future? And so Adam and Josh, welcome today to the For Pastors podcast.

Adam Dodds 1:31

Good to be with you.

Joshua Newington 1:33

Yeah.

Vic Francis 1:34

It is great to have you here. We will look at your article in some depth, but before we do that, perhaps I could ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself. And I, I would just make the note that you are the first international guests of the For Pastors podcast. We're very much by Kiwis and for Kiwis, but it is great to have you guys on. So Adam, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Adam Dodds 1:57

Yeah. Thank you, Vic. I've only been in Australia for just over four years where I'm a lecturer here at Alphacrucis in theology and also a part-time pastor in discipleship and teaching in Brisbane. But before that I'm part Kiwi.

Vic Francis 2:11

Part Kiwi.

Adam Dodds 2:11

I'm an Englishman from London, but I went to Otago. My wife and I moved to New Zealand, although she's a real Kiwi from the North Island. But we went to Otago for me to do my PhD in theology, which I completed some time ago. And then I pastored the Elim Church in Dunedin for just over 10 years. And loved, yeah, loved my time in New Zealand, so my kids were born in New Zealand. So I'm a almost Kiwi. My, the rest of my family are real Kiwis.

Vic Francis 2:36

Lovely. Great to have you on, Adam. How about you, Josh?

Joshua Newington 2:40

I have a New Zealand connection. I married a half Kiwi, and so love visiting over there. But yeah, pretty much Australian. I was born in a missionary kinda context in Southern Africa, but moved to Australia with enough time to say that I've lived my whole life here really.

Vic Francis 2:56

Wonderful. It's great to have you here. So we're gonna be talking in this episode about your article. And perhaps before we get into the content of the article, we should just hear who wrote it. Obviously, you two are involved, but there were four people, I think. So Josh, maybe could you take us just through who contributed to this article?

Joshua Newington 3:15

So four colleagues from Alphacrucis where we work. Duane Van Vuuren was another author with Adam and myself, and he's got a kinda leadership angle and expertise there. And then a woman named Faith Girardi, who was actually the dux of Alphacrucis the year that she graduated, and so she worked as a TA for some time, but she's continued to research in the space that we were looking at in the article. So yeah, four people with pastoral experience in kind of Pentecostal circles in Australia but also working in academic spaces.

Vic Francis 3:48

Yeah, that sounds terrific. Perhaps we should just say what Alphacrucis is for New Zealanders in particular who may not have heard of it.

Joshua Newington 3:55

In Australia, the ACC, Australian Christian Churches, formerly the AOG, has had a training college for nearly 100 years now which is called Alphacrucis. And that's where Adam and I work in the School of Ministry and Theology.

Vic Francis 4:10

And it does have a footprint clearly in New Zealand. You and I both know some Kiwis who are actually studying with you guys at the moment so it won't be completely unfamiliar to New Zealand listeners. So Josh, what prompted the article?

Joshua Newington 4:23

I think it really emerged out of some sort of collegial conversations that happen on a Friday afternoon pretty regularly amongst us. And we noticed that we were thinking about overlapping issues. And so we began to have a conversation around power, obviously. We began to have a conversation about how we might be able to draw together the questions that we were asking. I work in practical theology, so Adam's a theologian, but I work more in the applied and practical theology space. And was familiar with the methodology that I thought could handle the four of us bringing our thoughts and questions together.

Vic Francis 5:02

And it came off the back, didn't it, of some scandals that have happened in Pentecostal churches and concern those Friday afternoon conversations raised.

Joshua Newington 5:12

Yeah. We certainly look at the part of the church that we're involved in with a great deal of hope and find source for encouragement. But we've got our issues as well. And there's reasons why we, we've, we're talking and thinking about power because it seems to be one of the main challenges that we're facing, just the use and misuse of power in pastoral work and ministry.

Vic Francis 5:36

Yeah, and we'll get deep into that in our conversation today. Of course, one of the prompts was our own Arise Church situation, and you do refer to that in the paper. Gonna go over to you, Adam. How did you write it? What was your research method?

Adam Dodds 5:49

Yeah. I might just explain the motive a bit further first. I think I just saw a real concern with hearing stories of people being mistreated or allegedly mistreated in different churches, and the story underlying it seemed to be a misuse of power. And then maybe the straw that broke the camel's back for me was seeing good friends of mine, a number of good friends of mine, go through some very difficult experiences, and I would say that as best I can tell, underlying that was a misuse of power. And it feels a bit like in parts of the majority world, there's a big man culture and it feels like a church version of that. Because it's in the church, it's then justified theologically and biblically, and as a theologian, I find some of those justifications to be not just weak but exceedingly poor and flawed. And so I thought, oh, I think we could do something about this. But so that was part of the kind of flow of conversation between Josh and I, and then when it came to how do we best go about it, it was actually Josh who proposed the methodology, so I might let him speak to that.

Vic Francis 6:48

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Josh.

Joshua Newington 6:50

Yeah. The article is framed around a methodology proposed by a guy called Richard Osmer, who is well-known in practical theology. And it really functions around four questions. It, it was suited to bringing four different authors together with slightly different disciplinary focuses. It's a useful methodology because those four questions are kinda common sense in some ways. It asks the question "what's going on?" And in this case, the question around the misuse of power. Why are we seeing this in in the Pentecostal church? The second question is why is it going on? And then we move to looking at what should be going on, which is the obvious kinda place to lean into theology and biblical theology. And of course Duane rounds the article out by making some suggestions as what could happen differently, responding to the question: What could we do about it? So what's going on? Why is it going on? What should be going on? And what can we do about it? I think even if you're not into kind of reading academic work, those questions make a lot of sense.

Vic Francis 7:59

They do, and if anybody would like to see the article in full, if they can email me at vic@solace.org.nz, and I can send them a copy of it. So let's jump into section one, if that's the case. What is going on? And your conclusion is that there is a problem with power, a misuse of power, as you say. You write about, and I quote, "Considerable power imbalance between pastors and congregations." So Adam, what do you mean by that considerable power imbalance between pastors and congregations?

Adam Dodds 8:30

I'm actually gonna deflect to Josh again because he was the principal author of this section. I think that was a phrase that Josh came up with, so I don't wanna speak for him.

Vic Francis 8:38

Come on then, Josh.

Joshua Newington 8:39

Yeah. It suited me to, to address this section 'cause I'm in applied theology. We're interested in research about what's happening in the real world, Adam gets a bit more abstract, and I love that stuff too. But there were just some instances in our part of the church, in our part of the world, that served as interesting, unfortunate maybe is a better word, test cases, and you mentioned Arise was one of them. I don't have personal experience of Arise, but it was particularly well documented just the way things unfolded. You'll know, Vic, and many of your listeners, that there is an independent journalist in New Zealand who really hounded the case and then Pathfinders produced a report. We saw there an example, some evidence, of an instance where people were hurting on the back of experiences in the church and the use of power that, that maybe hadn't gone as we would hope it would. Running churches is a challenging pursuit, right? And in Pentecostalism, for reasons good and bad, I think we're quite sort of outcomes focused. But the kind of outcomes that we can measure aren't always the most spiritual ones. And I think it can lead us to pulling some levers that, that aren't necessarily the healthiest. We do have power if we're in ministry leadership. But it's about, the good use of it, and I think we've experienced as individuals times where, you know, that hasn't been done well.

Vic Francis 10:13

I think one of the things that'll be notable of Pentecostal churches as I've observed is a strong sense of leadership and call to leadership and a freedom for leaders to really lead. I'm wondering, maybe we go back to you, Adam, when does strong pastoral leadership run the risk of becoming abusive pastoral leadership?

Adam Dodds 10:32

Yeah, I think there's a number of warning signs in relation to that. Is there a mechanism or culture for constructive feedback or not? And if there isn't, then it seems to suggest that those with power are above constructive criticism, which I find tragic in so many ways. I think back to my own formation in Elim, and my predecessor, senior pastor before me, and the associate pastor who served with him, had this beautiful culture of continually asking, "How can we do things better?" And it was just so darn healthy. And so that really formed and shaped me. And so then when I see the opposite of that, where that question is never asked, 'cause there's almost a fear that there may be some kind of concern that perhaps there might be a better way, but we don't wanna know about it, it doesn't sound good, and to be blunt, it's unwise. I think also, no sharing of power when decision-making is concentrated in the hands of very few, without meaningful discussion and consultation. And I think that's problematic, not just practically, but theologically as well. There's obvious things like bullying and coercive behaviour, which is just clearly un-Christlike and wrong. But that which kind of sneaks under the Christian radar perhaps is sometimes there can be an exceptionalism for senior leaders and their families, and that exceptionalism is often justified by a culture of honour. And, and the culture of honour is not always a biblical one. honouring leaders is essential, important, and biblical, and by gosh, we need pastors because what pastors do is so incredibly important. So I'm all for that. But the scriptures talk about honouring one another above yourselves or outdo one another in showing honour in Romans 12:10. And then you think of the body of Christ teaching, where we're meant to give special honour to those parts that don't ordinarily receive that honour. And at least my experience in Pentecostalism is the honour is very one-sided. And so honouring leaders, important, good, healthy, no problem, but it's not counterbalanced by things that I think are pretty clear in scripture, and that leads to a rather odd imbalance. Then that's further justified theologically with language of anointing that I also think is theologically extremely problematic.

Vic Francis 12:40

What are the early warning signs that maybe a church is drifting towards something that's abusive in its power structure?

Joshua Newington 12:46

I might address that, Vic. The issue of exceptionalism. I think there is something exceptional very often a bout being in Christian leadership. And it's really understandable that Christian leaders can get to a place where they feel like they're paying an exceptional price. And the combination of that with what I've experienced very often to be a naivety around power dynamics is dangerous. So if we're operating under pressure because we feel that we need to produce certain outcomes as Christian leaders, and there's a chance that maybe a little bit of self-pity or self-justification, the need to be a little bit instrumental about some leadership techniques and so forth, is combined with, just forgetting maybe or being unaware that many of the people that we deal with are experiencing us not just as brothers and sisters, but another kind of category of person maybe to some degree an intermediary for the divine, for God. It gets really complicated. So all of that to say, I think that a pressurised environment where we're looking to produce outcomes and struggling to do so with a lack of awareness around how our behaviour might affect others or how they see us, that's where I think there's a real tinderbox for the flame of something quite abusive and unhealthy getting underway.

Vic Francis 14:17

I guess one of the responses we could have for that is just head for the hills and go to a safer church, but I suspect that's not what you're saying. As we look at some of those signs it's to be able to raise our hand and to be able to say something about it?

Joshua Newington 14:32

Yeah. I can't help but feel like the tragic sort of one after the other situations that we are seeing of pastoral leaders having moral failings is maybe God helping us to sort some of this stuff out. I don't mean to sound callous in that. I do think, for better and worse, again, in Pentecostalism, we do have a culture, at least here in Australia, of people voting with their feet. That's not unusual that people do move between churches depending on what's going on. And I don't know if it's the worst thing necessarily to find a safer church if we've been wounded. But definitely when God calls us to be a part of his people, generally it's an act of generosity as well as one of receiving, right? So I think being prepared to take responsibility for the cultures that we're a part of is something that God does call us to, and maybe that's speaking up, maybe it's modelling other ways of being. And that's definitely where the article goes, talking about alternative uses, models of leadership.

Vic Francis 15:38

One of the things that I'm enjoying about talking to you guys are you you're still part of the whole thing, so you're not firing pot shots from outside, but you're looking to grow with the whole thing so that it can become a safer place. So well done on that. Adam, also there's a highlighting in there of a gender imbalance factor and the way that they affect the power dynamics in church context. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Adam Dodds 16:04

Most of that came from my colleague Faith and also Josh. But certainly, the history of men and women and relationships is one of just continual inequality for the majority of history, including in the church. But everywhere else too, as far as I can tell. So the inequality is longstanding and I think as a man, I'm not fully aware of that most of the time because it's not a reality I've ever had to deal with. And so I think having women in leadership is essential biblically, theologically and practically for a whole host of reasons.

Joshua Newington 16:37

The way that it, it occurs to me to answer this, Vic, is I have the privilege of working in an environment where there's women on the leadership team. The chair of the church board that I'm on is a woman, and our lead pastor at the moment is a woman as well. And certainly having women in these spaces helps me to be aware of power and power between men and women in those spaces. Having women around in positions of power and positions of leadership, I think just creates a healthier culture where we're aware of how our actions might be received or some assumptions that we might be carrying around. Just about different ways of even treating people, different ways of leading and ministering. Here in Australia, we have a theology in the ACC that does not prohibit women from any level of leadership. And yet the fact is that they are a minority in positions of leadership. There's a work to do there, which again, I think will prompt us to think through some of these issues.

Vic Francis 17:50

Thank you both for your initial thoughts, and we have had a look at that part one of the problem of power, what is going on. I think it's a good point for us to take a break. When we return, we'll ask why is this going on and what should be happening. So we will be right back. Adam Dodds, Josh Newington, welcome back to the For Pastors podcast. We've talked about what is going on, and we've named that as the problem or misuse of power, and we move on from there in your paper to why is this going on? And your conclusion is, and I quote, "A lack of theological reflection in leadership." And you identify issues like "unquestioned spiritual authority" and "low theological standards" as contributing factors. And so maybe we could ask you first, Josh, what do you mean by unquestioned spiritual authority?

Joshua Newington 19:40

I can't help but go um, to an experience I had early in a season of senior leadership some years ago. I sort of unexpectedly ended up in a position of senior leadership, an interim position. And something arose within one of the ministries where I just needed to talk to someone who was involved. And I said, "Could we catch up briefly after church?" And this person said, "Sure. Where?" And I said, "Oh, let's meet in my office." And I didn't pick anything unusual up in that interaction, but by the time this person came to the office after the service, they were visibly uncomfortable. And they made some comments about, was it hot in the room. And I wasn't sure what was going on because I was old friends with this person before I'd, happened to be the lead or senior pastor. I can't remember the exact issue, but it was something small and it should've been encouraging to them. We got to the end of the conversation and they said, "Oh, is that all? I thought I was in trouble."

Vic Francis 20:45

I was in trouble.

Joshua Newington 20:46

"I thought I was in trouble." And it just hadn't occurred to me that there would be a dynamic in that relationship because all of a sudden I was wearing the hat of a lead or senior pastor. And I think that really got me to question why. What is that about? And we talk in Pentecostal circles about the kind of phenomenon of touch not God's anointed. I think that's a thing, right? So a culture where there's a dynamic within which to, to say question leadership or to engage critically, sometimes even to offer another way of doing things or another perspective, can be seen as dishonouring. So there is a cultural space in Pentecostalism oftentimes where I think there isn't opportunity or space. It's not allowed for one reason or another to engage with leadership.

Vic Francis 21:46

So in Vineyard circles where I've pastored all these years, John Wimber, our founder, used to talk about when a leader whispers, it comes out as a shout. And it reminds me of that when you say it's like you, you aren't Josh who I'm going to come and see. You are the senior pastor holding that position in that place behind that desk or whatever it is, and just goes through all of my defences or my previous experiences until I get in here and it's like I'm a bit of a mess. Wow. And I think of actually Adam's comment earlier on about the experience that he had down at the Dunedin Elim and the healthy, it sounds like, relationship that he was seeing among the leadership there. I like that a lot.

Adam Dodds 22:23

Vic, Wimber's a big hero of mine and I love that quote. I've never heard it before. I think one of the big concerns, and I noticed similar dynamics to what Josh said when I became a senior pastor, I wasn't taught this stuff. If part of my ministerial training included expounding on what Wimber said, that would've been enormously helpful. It took me probably at least three years to figure out the way that I was being treated was fundamentally different to before I was senior pastor, even though I hadn't changed as to who I was. And so the dynamic of when you whisper, it comes out as a shout, gosh, it would've been helpful. It's possible that is included in some ministerial training, but it wasn't included in mine.

Vic Francis 23:03

Absolutely. Adam, the other aspect that we mentioned there was low theological standards. What do you mean by that?

Adam Dodds 23:10

Yeah. I think we have to realise every denomination in the body of Christ has enormous strengths and some weaknesses. And I remain a Pentecostal pastor 'cause I love the Pentecostal church, and what we do is fantastic in so many ways. But to not realise some of our blind spots isn't helpful. And we all have them, whichever denomination you choose. So within Pentecostalism typically at least historically, let me put it that way, a Pentecostal theologian or Pentecostal academic was seen as a bit of an oxymoron. And that's mean, and I'm not trying to be mean, and praise God that is in the process of changing and has been for some time, and hopefully I'm a part of that and Josh is a part of that and many others too. But there's still a historical association with Pentecostal being anti-intellectual and anti-academic. If you think of "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength", I fully agree heart is the most important there. But most important doesn't mean only important, and so often the mind just gets dropped off entirely. And I think that positions us very poorly for dealing with things because we're not trained to think critically and theologically. And it also means that when theologies have come in, such as the one that Josh mentioned, touch not the Lord's anointed, we're not as equipped as other parts of the body of Christ to critically assess and evaluate the obvious question, is that true? And what does that mean? And what does that not mean? Usually if it's part of a culture which goes with what could be called a kind of hyper honour culture, then that kind of theology combined with the church culture effectively shuts down any form of an informed discussion or questioning. And questioning itself might be seen as rebellion or some other nasty word. Whereas I think actually it's essential.

Vic Francis 24:53

And that theology is really important, isn't it? I'll just pick up another quote from the paper. Certain interpretations of scripture within Pentecostalism, including but not limited to female submission, can contribute to a culture where abuse is tolerated or even justified." So we're actually weaponising, our maybe meagre understanding of theology and scripture at that point to, I don't know, to create power.

Adam Dodds 25:17

That's right. And then if the subject of power isn't part of our ministerial training, or we're not aware of it, which I wasn't for several years as a senior pastor, I fear what did I do? 'Cause I simply wasn't aware. It doesn't have to be a toxic mix, but often it can become a toxic mix. And you think of, Paul so deeply concerned for the purity of the bride of Christ, the church. We should be concerned for the purity and the beauty of the bride. And so things like this then have to be challenged in a spirit of love to give Christ all that he deserves. Josh, you may want to add to that.

Joshua Newington 25:51

Yeah. I get to teach some of this stuff in the space where I work. For instance, I talk about models of ministry that make some space for this, so there's one lecture I do around understanding the role of the minister, and we look at paradigms like Nouwen's wounded healer. There's another person that talks about how being in ministry is a bit like being a clown because of the liminality of the role and the fact that you're you're never really an insider with the people that you're ministering to, even while you're at the centre of things. All these sorts of things. I find actually that students are often a little bit resistant to them because I think as Pentecostals it might tie into the whole triumphalistic dimension of our culture. We want to encourage people into ministry. We want to talk to people who might be considering ministry about ministry in a way that encourages them, that shows them the beauty of a life in service to God's people. It can be a little countercultural to talk about the challenge of it and to talk about the fact that we might need to be aware of something like power dynamics in the way that we deal with people. We might really need to do some homework there. Part of the way that we approach things in Pentecost, which I think is great, is anointing precedes any other kind of qualification for ministry. You don't get to serve God's people as a minister because you've got a Bachelor of Theology. That might come later. You get to serve God's people because the Holy Spirit's doing something through you. That's brilliant, and I think that's one of the reasons why we're growing. But one of the maybe unintended side effects of it is it means that we've got lots of wonderful pastors who are already on the journey because the Holy Spirit's with them, and they're right in the midst of the busyness of ministry life before they start to do some kind of theological training, and you don't necessarily have the time for real reflection.

Vic Francis 27:46

I get the idea with Pentecostal churches maybe they're known for their Spirit-led nature. Do you think that sometimes gets in the way too of a deeper understanding of scripture, because I'm following the call of God, the anointing, as you say, of God, and, I've got a mission from God?

Joshua Newington 28:02

Absolutely. And I think we can set up a kind of false dichotomy around what qualifies as spiritual and what isn't. Actually, I've got a friend who is from another tradition here in Australia, and he says, "If you get up in front of a room of those people and you say I've been preparing a message all week, but overnight the Lord interrupted me and said, 'I don't want you to preach that message. I want you to preach something that you're gonna deliver somewhat extemporaneously'." Those people, the Uniting Church folk, will go, "I wanna hear the message that you've been praying into, that you've been studying for. We want to hear that message." You flip the coin with Pentecostals, they love that. As soon as you say, "I've been preparing a message all week, but I'm throwing it out and I'm going with what the Holy Spirit's gonna do in me right here, right now," that's when people are like, "Oh, something great's gonna happen here." So I think that can be just a not particularly nuanced understanding of how God works and what it means to be spiritual. Sometimes it is by the amazing supernatural, miraculous, in-breaking work of the Holy Spirit. But sometimes it's through good stewardship of time and resources and discipline, study, prayer and so forth.

Vic Francis 29:14

I'm gonna take you both into the third section of your paper, what should be happening. And you make the case for a Trinitarian power relationship for our ecclesiology. So let's look at the Trinity. Adam, I think this is the area that you're particularly involved in the paper. How does our understanding of the Trinity guide the way we lead?

Adam Dodds 29:34

There are a number of scholars who have shown that church traditions, particularly Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, that have slightly more hierarchical understandings of the Trinity, tend to then flow into a hierarchical understanding of the church, i.e. ecclesiology. And I think that does follow in many ways. And in response to that, someone from more of a free church tradition, Miroslav Volf, he proposed a more egalitarian understanding of the Trinity, that rather than there being a hierarchy, he emphasised more mutuality and mutual serving and honouring of one another, and that leads to a non-hierarchical ecclesiology. And so there's an enormous influence upon one's view of the Trinity, be it studied or just a latent view, and how that informs, if you really do believe the Father is somehow more in charge than Son and Spirit, then it logically follows, at least intuitively, that for a priest or senior pastor to have more say and be more in charge, it makes some sense. However I don't think that's good practice for a host of reasons.

Vic Francis 30:43

Yes. So if I can just speak that back to you so that we can understand. So the hierarchical Trinitarian understanding, so probably Father, Son and Holy Spirit in that order, will tend to create an environment whereby we have a hierarchical leadership within our churches. You're talking about a mutual submission of the Trinity, Father to Son to the Holy Spirit and that creates a more mutual submissive leadership structure. Have I understood you right?

Adam Dodds 31:09

Yeah, so in terms of my views of the Trinity, I build particularly on Colin Gunton, the English theologian, but also Volf and an American Lutheran called Jeffrey Dukeman, who all argue for roughly similar things. And the other one is Pannenberg, the German theologian. And Pannenberg in particular shows that the Son serves the Father serves the Son serves the Spirit serves the Son, and there seems to be a mutual serving of one another. And by serving, I mean using power for the good of the other or in service of the other. And so you can trace that out just from the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. So for example, Jesus obeys the Father, so in that sense, he serves the Father. But then the Father serves him by raising him from the dead and giving him the name above every name. And so there's that mutuality there, and then you see the same between Son and Spirit. And so teasing that through, to me, that leads to a non-hierarchical Trinity. And I should have been clearer, the Catholic and the Orthodox, they would use hierarchical perhaps in a very soft word. They wouldn't push that strongly, and I wouldn't want to misrepresent that. But in effect, there's a latent hierarchy, whereas Gunton and others said no, there really isn't. For Gunton, Father, Son and Spirit co-constitute one another, sorry to use more technical language. And it relates to perichoresis and other things. But what that means in practice is that we then share in the anointing of Christ. So rather than there be a, if I can put it this way, hierarchy of anointing that the senior leader is somehow anointed in a way that is ontologically superior to others. No one would use that language, but in practice, it often looks that way. That's just simply not the case. The only one who has the monopoly on anointing is Christ, who, of course, is the anointed one, and then we share anointing in him. And so I think all of that's true theologically. It has to be counterbalanced with what Josh said, which is one of the strengths of our tradition is that the primary qualifying factor for someone leading a church is the anointing of the Spirit. It isn't their theological qualification or whatever, but as Josh also said, that can become a false dichotomy.

Vic Francis 33:19

You used the phrase power under, so I'm wondering what would a power under leadership look like versus, I guess the opposite is a power over.

Adam Dodds 33:27

Yeah. I think power over seems to be that everyone is here to serve my vision, and then I have to control and influence and, in worst cases, manipulate or bully people to do what I want them to do. And you just don't see that in Jesus. You just don't see that in the New Testament. The phrase power under I actually got from Greg Boyd, the theologian and pastor in the US, and I love that idea where the Son serves the Spirit and the Father serves the Spirit and the Son. So it's using your power to exalt and serve others. It's power in the service of love. By power, influence and ability to shape and influence things. So what does that mean in practice? I tried to do this when I was senior pastor. You'd have to ask the people I led whether I did it successfully or not. But, when I think of some of the key meetings I had with some of my direct reports, kids pastor, youth pastor, associate pastor, and so on, yes, they had to work out the vision of the church, but I was also there to make them succeed. And so one of the questions I would ask regularly was, "How can I serve you?" And I got that from my predecessor, who trained me. And I guess power over would be, "How can you serve me?"

Vic Francis 34:40

Yeah, I think there's a simplicity in that that we can probably all grasp. Josh, maybe from a practical point of view, that "power under" thing, I'm, I'm wondering is it achievable? I don't wanna be too negative on it. Or is that strong male leader figure entrenched?

Joshua Newington 34:54

It's a question that, that I really wrestle with, Vic, 'cause I think I'm working in sort of social science space as much as theology. And one of the key ideas of the last century really through people like Michel Foucault and the like is around the dynamic of power that's always at play, that power's diffuse. It's too simplistic to think that power's always coalesced around certain positions. It's at work. And part of my learning with that lens is sometimes we're utilising power and very often in ways we're not aware of. And so baking that into the cake, carrying that as a lens, I think is really useful. I think what Adam's suggested there is brilliant. But it's also understanding that we might be carrying power that affects people negatively. I think looking for ways to be approachable, to be quick to ask for forgiveness, to be very wary of creating environments that are too utilitarian and see resources in terms of, or people particularly, in an instrumental sense. To be prepared actually to fail even, to fail doing the right thing. That goes a long way, I think, when you know that someone who might have power over you and has wounded you will take responsibility, will apologise, will look to make amends. Sounds Christ-like actually, doesn't it, to move through the world in that way.

Vic Francis 36:30

Yeah.

Adam Dodds 36:31

I think one of the challenges practically that we have as Pentecostals is we don't have, at least in my experience, a tradition of including a prayer of confession for sin, confession of sin as part of a Sunday service. And my understanding is most traditions have that. Maybe not all, but the majority. And at least my experience with Pentecostalism is we typically don't. There's the salvation call, which of course is fantastic and important. But I fear that can lead to a false theological anthropology maybe an almost an idea of perfectionism. Perfection is possible if we try hard enough and we're sufficiently anointed. And so that goes against the kind of mea culpa of actually fronting up when we do stuff up because, of course, we all do. And then it also creates this unrealistic expectation of those in leadership. And so when there is a fall from grace of one leader or another, there's a kind of a deep shock ripples around. Whereas I think if you have a biblical theological anthropology, there shouldn't be any shock at all. Deep disappointment, no doubt, and lament and sadness, absolutely. But the Bible, Old and New Testaments, if you took, how is the, how are the people of God portrayed in the Old Testament or the New Testament? You wouldn't say it's one of consistent victory, would you?

Vic Francis 37:49

Yeah. Absolutely.

Adam Dodds 37:51

And then church history continues in that vein. So I think having a more realistic biblical theological anthropology, which of course ties back into theological education again, should lead to confession of sin being a core practice. Not just for those who are not Christians, but for those who are, which would then help reinforce what Josh was saying earlier. So I think, unfortunately, our tradition has a weakness there. And I think one potential corrective would be including that practice. I'm not saying Pentecostals don't do this privately, they do. But Sundays are a time to model that which is most important. And so that's why I would advocate for that.

Vic Francis 38:30

Thank you, Josh and Adam, for your insights. Certainly plenty of food for thought there. When we come back, we're gonna try and figure out what might be a better way. We've started that process, but we'll be right back. Welcome back, Adam and Josh, to our power podcast, I guess we could say. Your article concludes by exploring how we might respond, and at the forefront of that is making a case for a sharing of power, shared leadership. And Adam, I'm wondering how would shared power look like in reality?

Adam Dodds 39:36

Yeah. There's clearly many ways to embody this and different church traditions will do that depending on the values of that tradition. But just to think to my own experience for a moment, I inherited an eldership when I became senior pastor. The eldership had been operating by consensus for about 10 years, and I continued that for my 10 years as senior pastor. And I'm not saying that's always possible, I'm not even saying that must be the way, but it was certainly my experience, and I thought it created a beautiful harmony where I don't think people were just yes people. My elders were fantastic, and I don't think there was only a deference to my leadership. But there was space for objections, questions. Sometimes we would pause before proceeding because we worked by consensus. So that was on an eldership level. Then when I think of how I led the staff team, I had a senior leadership of a few others alongside me, and we would make a lot of decisions together. You can't make decisions as a group of 10 or 15 of you. It's just not practical. One of my elders used to say, "If you have a committee to, to draw an elephant, it will look like a giraffe. And I think there's a lot of truth there. So there was a sharing of leadership between myself and my associate pastors, and there were a few of them. And then depending on the issue being discussed, we would pull in different people who had different expertise. But there was also a culture of why are we doing it this way? And it was always okay to ask that question. And I think I know of a better way to do it. And so in that sense, it was never, "Well, I'm in charge, so you will do as I say." It was always, "Here's why we do what we do, but we're always open to new ideas." Now, at times, admittedly, that was tiring, because it felt like going over the same thing over and over again, and I'd have to clamp down on that. Say, "You know what? We thoroughly talked about that a year ago. Here are the outcomes. We don't need to revisit that one right now." But at the same time, there was a real openness because the best ideas were usually not gonna come from me. My role as senior leader wasn't to come up with the best ideas, but was just to help discern which of the best ideas we were to proceed with. And then maybe one other. I really wanted to champion my team. I loved it when my team got speaking invitations to other churches. And one of my real highlights of my 10 years was when I was on sabbatical and I was away for seven weeks, when I got back, there were all of these testimonies and wonderful reports of the things God had been doing, and I hadn't been a part of any of it. It's because my team were such legends, and they were, and they are. And so to be able to champion them rather than ensure that I'm the one who's front and centre, it was a delight because they were fantastic people and genuinely gifted and anointed.

Vic Francis 42:16

Josh, how about you? What, what could shared power look like in reality, do you think?

Joshua Newington 42:23

I was in a conversation recently where people were talking about shared leadership and I have to admit, as someone who's been in Christian leadership, when I hear those words together, it always makes me a little bit nervous.

Vic Francis 42:35

Yeah

Joshua Newington 42:36

And I don't know, it might just be my experience, but it often seems like the people who are most vocal about the desire for shared leadership are gonna dominate whatever's gonna come next, one way or the other. But your question's about shared power and I think what's critical there actually is a clarity around the definition or the separation of governance and leadership in the church space. A friend of mine who, who does a lot of work in this space, who I worked with for several years, he says that governance makes healthy leadership happen, and leadership makes healthy ministry happen. There is a risk of developing leadership-centric cultures which really diminish the power of governance, the accountability that governance brings, maybe the the kind of checks and balances that might slow things down. But whatever the kind of ecclesiological framework, I think we need to be looking as leaders who have some power to make sure that there are measures in place, bodies in place, whether it's elders or a board, who are asking after our health, how they can empower us to lead healthily. I think that's a kind of separation of powers in a way which, I think is a feature of healthy shared power arrangements.

Vic Francis 44:01

I'm wondering what are the things that those of us who have a leadership role and position, what are the things that are gonna stop this happening? And what are the things that we can do to actually create an environment where they can begin to happen?

Adam Dodds 44:17

Just briefly. In terms of a sharing of power, recognising gifting appropriately. So, give a silly example, on our eldership when we had building decisions, we had a couple of guys in the church who work, that was their profession and, they managed property for the council and various other things. So they were experts in property, so we would bring them in to advise us 'cause they knew what they were doing far more than we did. And so rather than thinking the senior leader has to carry all the gifts and expertise across the board, for those who are more prophetic being in the Pentecostal church, I would let those who are more prophetic and trusted take the lead. And then when it came to theology, that tended to fall to me a bit more. Biblical studies, I had a friend with a PhD in New Testament. I'd often defer to him. And so that kind of mutual def- deferring, you still have accountability structures and so on, but a mutual deferring and respect and honouring based on the gifting that individuals bring I think is a practical way that could be carried out.

Vic Francis 45:11

Josh?

Joshua Newington 45:12

I think the leaders that I've seen do this best are secure. And out of their security they can give their power away. So I always think it's a sign of a healthy culture where you see evidence of that, where leaders are asking for accountability, where they're seeking expertise. I've noticed in organisations where I think there's a problem with how power's used, rather than consulting experts, leaders will leverage loyalty, for example. And surrounding yourself with people who might know more than you in all manner of ways. Yeah, and as I was talking about before, I think when you have healthy governance structures, they're not setting the kind of KPIs for you as a leader that you might find in the corporate world or in other industries. I was talking about this with some people recently and we were talking about Eugene Peterson's paradigm called Working the Angles. So he says there's this public dimension of leadership, the platform and so forth. But in Christian leadership, he says, the real work is done across three angles: prayer, spiritual direction and engagement with scripture. So if there's people to whom we're accountable and who are responsible for us and our health, if we're in Christian leadership, like elders and boards, they need to be helping us achieve those things. Is there space within the busyness of our life for rest and recreation? Is there space for prayer and contemplation? Is there space for not just sermon preparation, but a devotional engagement with scripture? Are we building into our lives not just accountability to our boards and elders, but to professional supervisors, to people who are further down the track than us in ministry, to people who have some expertise in some area of our life that we need to grow in? I've been in the habit over the years of giving people a free pass. You are someone who can speak into my life. I want you to. Where I've seen others who've cultivated that, others who are accountable and wise, I really crave even correction from someone who cares and I know wants the best for me. Adam?

Adam Dodds 47:31

One practice I tried to do, I don't know how consistent we were, but one of my associate pastors and I would try to confess our sins to one another on a regular basis, and it wasn't as regular as the ideal suggests, but it still did happen. And that was in the context of genuine friendship, which of course remains even though we've both moved on and are in different roles and different places now. But yeah, definitely wanna echo what Josh said about a leader has to be secure, and I think that can be one of the biggest challenges. And then a challenge that I faced, and I fear many others do also, is potentially tying in the ego with the health of the church or the, quote-unquote, success of the church. And I fear that I was guilty of this for a number of years but was oblivious to this fact. And so if, numbers were up on Sunday, suddenly I was feeling better about myself and the converse also which is rather silly when you think about it, but nonetheless, that was the world I lived in, and it was very real. And so I think naming those dynamics and trying to get to the bottom of what is going on here and why do I think this way, because I think if you were to ask me theologically do I believe these things, I would've said absolutely not. But in practice I did and I don't think I was alone. And so, easy to say, it's very hard when you're in the thick of it, as I was for many years. But I think, yeah, a good discussion of these things is essential. And then I love what Josh said about making time for these other things so we're not just utilitarian and, just preparing for Sunday and nothing else. Like an Anglican friend of mine, pastor in Dunedin, he had a rhythm of once a month taking a one or two-day retreat just built into his rhythms. And I thought, "Man, that is so intelligent." So I tried to copy him. And he helped me with that practically, which was a great blessing.

Joshua Newington 49:14

One of the things that, such a privilege that I, I get to teach people who are on a ministry pathway. And many of them are young. One of the pieces of advice I give is build those accountability relationships in early. 'Cause I think, some of the really tragic stories that we've seen of things blowing up, how do you confess to someone that, for example, you've got a problem with pornography when you're leading a church of 10,000 people? It's just it's harder. I think it's harder. The higher you go organisationally, the more you come under this expectation that you've got it all sorted out, and it's a hard bridge to build at that stage. So if you can get as young as possible into the habits of just being transparent with someone and being accountable to someone, I think that's a safeguard.

Vic Francis 50:08

In the paper, Duane, your colleague, explores shared leadership, what that might look like, a sharing of leadership, and it's it's well worth a read. From this conversation, one of the main things I'm picking up is that whole security thing and how if in our hearts as those who are pastors that it starts with us becoming, I don't know, if we've used words like accountable and softening and open to input and that will be important, and maybe some of the actual structural things will begin to take care of themselves along the way. I wanna ask you as we come towards a close, Adam, how have Pentecostal churches responded to this piece of work?

Adam Dodds 50:48

Yeah. Most broadly, not a clue. I haven't received many emails at all in relation to the article. However, one or two things have happened that are very encouraging. The first is, because I shared early drafts of it with colleagues at Alphacrucis for constructive and critical feedback, that was somehow passed on to someone, I don't know who, but the outcome was that the national leadership of the ACC, which is the Australian AoG, approached one of our colleagues, who then approached Josh and I to draft a position paper for the whole denomination on the misuse of power. So that's a different paper to the academic article we're describing. It's aimed more at pastors rather than academics. But Josh and I were the principal authors of that document. It was released formally two and a half months ago or so. Unfortunately, it's it's not a paywall, but it's only ACC pastors can access it. But I'm sure if anyone has ACC pastor friends, you can ask them and get it that way. And Vic, I think you might have a copy.

Vic Francis 51:51

I might just have a copy if slipped me a tenner under the, oh no, sorry, that would be a misuse of power too, wouldn't it?

Adam Dodds 51:57

Yeah. But I was yeah, pass around the offering bags now. I was really encouraged that we were asked to do that, Josh and I, and we did. And the person who asked us, Professor Jacqui Grey, she relayed that the executive were really keen on getting this out, and so that gives me great encouragement. And then another follow-up was another colleague Professor Ben Myers, in conversation with him, we've decided to run a one-day academic conference, which we're calling a symposium, on a theology of power, and we're having systematic theologians, practical theologians, biblical scholars and others speak to this. And we've got two of the leading theologians from Otago coming unless something changes. They've said they're coming. One of the leading theologians from Laidlaw coming and then many others from across Australia as well. And the hope is that will lead to a multidisciplinary book on the theology of power. So those two things are very encouraging. I would love to see it incorporated into ministerial training. I know, we already did that at Alphacrucis, and Josh does a great job of that. But I did 10 years of theological study in St Andrew's, Princeton and Otago. I never covered this.

Vic Francis 53:05

Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Dodds 53:06

I'm not saying no one does it, but it may not be as widespread as it needs to be.

Vic Francis 53:10

Adam, where and when is that symposium?

Adam Dodds 53:12

Oh, yes. So November the 6th, I think it is, Friday in Sydney at the Alphacrucis campus in Parramatta. The keynote speaker is Greg Boyd, who in some ways was my inspiration for much of this, and he's a theologian and pastor from Minneapolis in the US. And then he'll be around for a couple of other days because we have or it might be the fifth, 5th or 6th of November. The details are on the Alphacrucis website. So ac.edu.au, scroll down and so on. Or maybe we can put those details in the show notes.

Vic Francis 53:39

I'll put a link to that notes, certainly.

Adam Dodds 53:40

There are two other days specifically aimed at pastors rather than academics that Greg Boyd will also be the principal speaker for. And that will also be around a theology of power amongst other things.

Vic Francis 53:51

As we close in talking through your paper, just a question to each of you. Maybe start with you, Josh. What are the imperatives for every church to consider right now in relation to power?

Joshua Newington 54:06

I think just to begin talking about it. So I've used the language of bringing a lens, a power lens. I don't think we can flick a switch and sort all of this out in an instant. But if we open up conversations in our team meetings, at board level, eldership level in our seminary classrooms where pastors get together around issues of power, if we can engage with literature that might be helpful. Then, change can begin to happen.

Vic Francis 54:37

Thank you. Adam?

Adam Dodds 54:40

Three things, so I'll say them briefly. Firstly embracing supervision for pastors, and for many denominations that's already standard, has been for a long time. For many Pentecostal churches it's been taking up more recently, which is wonderful. But I think that's really important. And then second, really just embracing a biblical theology of what does it mean to be human. And of course, we have this treasure in jars of clay, and the reason the centre of our faith is the cross. It's there for a reason. The cross was needed, and it wasn't for other people's sin, it was for mine too. And so realising our own fallibility leads to making the practice of confession really important. I'm not necessarily saying publicly, but just between us and the Lord. And then also accountability too. So I think for that becoming more mainstream, 'cause once you realise that, then the power dynamics become even more important, 'cause you think, "Gosh, if I am holding too much power and I don't have a realistic view of what it means to be human, I could do great damage." And of course, no one wants that.

Vic Francis 55:42

Thank you very much for those thoughts and food for thought ongoing. In the podcast, For Pastors podcast, our little catchphrase is "championing pastors and their holy calling in an uncertain world". And one of the questions I ask all of my guests is what gives you hope? So Adam what gives you hope?

Adam Dodds 56:01

I did my PhD on Lesslie Newbigin, and so I have to mention him. It's just compulsory. People used to ask him, "Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the gospel and the church in India?" Because he was a missionary there for decades. And he says, his response was, "I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic. Christ rose from the dead." And so I'm hopeful because Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. He is sovereign, he is Lord, he is returning. The Spirit is at work. And so there is much to look forward to and much to be hopeful about.

Vic Francis 56:32

Josh, what gives you hope?

Joshua Newington 56:34

I draw hope from the fact that it's God's church and he's building it, right? He draws us in to ministry and what a privilege. But it's not, it doesn't rise and fall on any one of us, our efforts, our expertise. And, as a Pentecostal, I have hope because for improvement to happen in this space, it has to be a work of the Spirit. We've talked about being secure as leaders. The revelation that we can receive of our identity in Christ is a work of the Spirit. And he can just gift us and grace us with that. Where people are open to the work and the life of the Spirit, God, of course, is gonna come in and do the things that he needs to have happen in order for his church to, to march forward. So yeah, I'm full of hope.

Vic Francis 57:24

Full of hope is great. I'm wondering if you would pray for our pastors, maybe for our Australian, New Zealand pastors. We actually have listeners, increasingly, from other countries, too. But, we champion pastors here, and you guys do too, and, some of our subject matter even today, you could think, "Oh, we're a bit down on pastors," but we talk about it so that we can grow and that we can learn and it's in the context of being absolutely for pastors. And so Josh, maybe first and followed by Adam, would you pray for our pastors?

Joshua Newington 57:54

I'd love to. God, I thank you for every brother and sister who has responded to your call into ministry. I thank you that you have given them meaningful work in doing that. Thank you for the fact that as they lay down to sleep at the end of the day, even this day, there's a good chance that they never struggle with the question, "Does my work matter?" For all the struggles that I'm sure they face, you called them to something of great worth and great meaning. I pray to that end, Lord, you'd meet them in that work. I pray, Lord, that you would provide for their needs, that there would be blessing in their labour, that you would bless their households in every form, that there'd be laughter for them, that there would be enough for them to keep doing the work that you call them to. I pray, Lord, that you would continue to speak into pastors all around Australia and New Zealand and the world who they are in you, Lord, that they could trust you to continue doing the good work, and that they could trust you to lead them in the ways that they are to help you in that.

Adam Dodds 59:19

Thank you, Father, for our brothers and sisters in ministry in Australia and in New Zealand. Thank you that we can be people of hope. Jesus, you said that you would build the church and Karl Barth said that because Jesus is building the church, the church is invincible. So I thank you that despite the opposition that is very real in some places even more than others, in New Zealand and in Australia, Lord, we thank you that there is great reason to hope. Thank you for the work of the church, the unique work, Lord, as it embodies and is a foretaste of the kingdom of God in a way that no other organisation or social grouping could possibly be. Father, I ask that you would encourage the pastors who are listening to this. Lord, that you would enable them to silence the voices of discouragement that would sap their energy, and you would replace that with truth from your throne and also from the body of Christ as well. Father, I ask that you would enable those listening to lean into those practices like Sabbath and others, silence and others, where they can become more and more aware that you are the one who is sovereign. That while they do carry much, and there is much weight on their shoulders, Lord, you're the one who carries the weight as well. And Lord, that when they stop, you carry on, and Lord, that you would realign perspectives to that which is even more true. Holy Spirit, would you continue to equip and enable, Lord, where those have knowledge gaps in theology or biblical studies or practical things like counselling. Lord, would you enable ways for those listening to, to fill those knowledge gaps over time, not out of a sense of shame or anything like that, but just out of a sense of growing in their calling. So we honour and we value those who are listening who are pastors, and we ask your richest blessing on them because of what they do is so incredibly important. But we also thank you, you value them apart from what they do as well as in what they do. So we ask your richest blessing on them and their families in Jesus' name. Amen.

Vic Francis 1:01:31

Amen. It's been a fascinating conversation, and it's a wonderful paper that you've written, and people may well like to have a read of it so that they can get some more depth that we haven't been able to go into today. But for today, I wanna thank you, Adam and Josh, for joining me, first international guests and all of that, for being true to your calls both as pastors and as theologians, for taking on issues that challenge us, that challenge the church, that challenge our theology and our practice, for loving our pastors and for loving the people that we pastor. So for your work in Australia and for your influence in many places, including New Zealand, we champion you, too, and your holy callings in this uncertain world. God bless you both. It's been a great pleasure.

Adam Dodds 1:02:19

Thank you, Vic.

Joshua Newington 1:02:20

Thanks, Vic.

Vic Francis 1:02:43

Thank you for listening to this episode of the For Pastors podcast. You can find more about us in the podcast notes, and while you're at it, how about liking or rating this podcast and passing it on to a pastor you know who may benefit? Meanwhile, I'm back in a fortnight with something different again, looking at conspiracy theories, how to spot them, how to protect yourself from them, and how to handle them when they arise in your church. And, soberingly, we ask the question: Could the next terrorist come out of one of our churches? I hope you'll join me. Bless you.