I have been in a couple official positions of leadership in the past few years.  One as a deacon in a local Plymouth Brethren assembly.  Another as a guild leader/officer in several online games.  Recently, I have also stepped down from those positions in leadership.  I will tell, in brief the stories of both of those leadership positions.

Local Church

Three years ago, through the 'deacon selection process' at Believer's Bible Chapel, I was honored to be selected as a deacon.  While it is a position of leadership, it is also quite obviously a position of service.  My responsibility was to oversee the maintenance of the building itself... including work days, special projects, yard work, and minor improvements.  Deacons also meet with the Board of Directors, which is the ultimate authority at BBC.

Typically chapels like BBC are dispensational in theology, and I have in the past several years come to see dispensationalism as incorrect.  BBC has in it's official doctrine, explicit hardcore dispensationalism.  This began to cause a problem for me, since when I would preach, I would, of necessity, do so from a non-dispensational perspective.  Several months ago, I came to the conclusion that I would need to refrain from preaching, so that opposing theological systems are not being taught from the same pulpit, when the official doctrine is quite clear.

In the process, it became very clear that the leadership structure of BBC is not what I would consider Biblical.  The bylaws explicitly state that the Board of Directors (a man made board whose members are not required to meet the qualifications for eldership) rules the church.  That structure is more significant when one member of the Board does not meet the qualifications of eldership, and yet seeks to rule the church.

My 'renewal' for deacon is this next weekend.  I have officially withdrawn my candidacy for renewal.

Online Games

This is a little longer story...

I started playing Asheron's Call 2 in 2003.  Because I was fairly level-headed, and reliable/helpful/friendly, I was promoted to the position of officer in a guild of 100+ active players.  Officers monitor chat to keep it clean, moderate disputes, lead group endeavors, and may occasionally need to recruit or remove people from the guild.

I served as an officer for a while, and then our current leader stepped down to manage other things in his life.  I was chosen to replace him, and quite honored to have been chosen.  After a couple years, AC2 was closed and some of us moved to Everquest 2 where I continued as the guild leader.  In 2007, Lord of the Rings Online came out, and we moved to it, where I was still leader.. but instead of a guild of 100+, we were a guild of around 15.

For the good of the players in the guild, we merged with another guild and I was no longer a leader, but was given the position of officer.

We (Laurel and I) began to notice some problems with some of the attitudes in leadership.  We raised the issue a few times, and were eventually called whiners (the issue was not about ourselves, but about others).  At that point, we left the guild and began looking for a new guild, which we found, and where I have no leadership position.

Those are the two stories lately of leadership positions.... gain and loss.

I will write more in the future with some thoughts on leadership and some things I've learned.