Chris leads Southlands Church International, in Los Angeles. I met him at the Acts 29 Boot Camp in Seattle in March ’09. Chris is a South African, and founded Glenridge Church International in Durban, now led by Rory Dyer.
Who is your leadership hero? Why?
In terms of a person who affected my life it would be Dudley Daniel because he believed in me when I was a raw, hot off the press church planter. When I was 24 he gave me a break, gave me opportunity. He walked with me, discipled me, slapped me on occasion. He trusted me when others were a little nervous because we were a bit wild. He never tried to curtail the wildness – he just directed it for the kingdom.
How long have you been in leadership?
25 years in church leadership.
What was your first leadership role?
Captain of the school ruby team, then an officer in the army – I have been leading since I was a kid.
How long have you been in your current role?
12.5 years
How long has your church been established? Did you start it?
It started in the late 60s, out of the Jesus People movement in Southern California. It was an independent charismatic church, and we were invited in to give leadership and transition it to a more apostolic model. Also, since 1984 I have been working trans-locally serving churches.
What has been the growth curve of your church?
Up and down. I’m a passionate planter – we’ve planted/released 14 couples to lead churches plus people with them. We’ve seen two or three occasions when people from an independent background found it too costly to buy into an apostolic structure and left to go elsewhere. And then three years ago we felt God speak about moving the church from one city to another (10 miles away) which meant we sold 15 acres of land and moved from a suburban mindset to a more urban area and meeting in a warehouse. Some people were not able to make this move. Currently we number about 400.
What has been your biggest leadership challenge?
In the 12.5 years of leading Southlands it would be being effective in exegeting our culture and context. Southern California is the pinnacle of rampant individualism, insatiable materialism and the pursuit of pleasure – these are the three idols that drive Southern California culture. Our “culture” is America, our “context” is Southern California and the question is always to what extent you allow Christ to confront culture and Christ to reign supreme over culture. And coming in as a foreigner, its often nuanced as “Its ok for you – you’re a South African.” Americans want to be led by Americans – they say “this is your foreign culture” when you are trying to be biblical! Americans are not used to following non-Americans. In the early days I made many assumptions based on misperceptions. The early mistakes I made were all about failing to exegete culture and context.
Replanting is a huge need in America and we need to train people who can do this. There are different challenges to doing this than in planting from scratch. The overwhelming number of churches in the US have peaked and are declining – they need people who can come in and fashion a new culture in the church and reverse the decline.
What has been your greatest leadership success?
Recognising, raising up and releasing leaders – that is my passion. And included in that has been church planters. I don’t really know what we do that is different but from a relatively small church we have been able to produce a fairly chunky number of church planters.
How are you developing new leaders?
It needs to be a culture not a program. You need a leader developing lens in leading a church. If its merely a program in the life of a church I don’t think you’ll multiply rapidly enough. From the earliest inception of someone coming to Christ we believe that every believer is a leader – because Jesus is the greatest leader of all time when he comes into someone’s life the leadership quotient in their life is going to go up. The leadership tide has to rise by the work of the Holy Spirit in them.
Every meeting – Sunday, small group, prayer, leaders – to me is a leadership meeting. They are all leadership training. You need to invest personally in people – look for the leadership seed, and see reasons to qualify rather than disqualify them. And then you’ve got to release them. You’ve got to take risks and look for opportunities for people to lead or it is just empty words and hope deferred makes the heart sick. Many churches are full of disillusioned nearly-leaders – tired of being trained and never released. Most guys know they are disqualified already. We have to find ways to qualify them.
How are you continuing to develop your own leadership gifts?
Listening to the voice of the Spirit because I believe God is writing new job descriptions and I don’t want to be left behind in my old one. With new job descriptions come new opportunities, new partnerships, new skills, new revelation, and all this is loaded with uncertainty – and I want to be part of that.
There is also increased study and exposure to larger men and ministries.
You need to be hungry and not become complacent. I want to tell my grandkids new faith stories, not old faith stories. The 60s were exciting, in the 80s lots happened – but I need to be getting out of the boat currently.
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