Leadership in postmodern society

networked relationships

From a talk by Jonny Baker. Image from smallritual.org. The underlying assumption is that top down hierarchical structures are on their way out, so leadership needs to reflect that change in society. This is about church leadership, but there’s no reasons why the principles may not work elsewhere.

1. Environmentalist. Leaders are there to create the culture/DNA of the organisation through which things happen -set the core values. (e.g. a culture of participation, use of gifts etc)
2. Catalyst. The leader is a peer, someone who is trusted, and inspiration. He/She is the person who lets go and gets other people moving – a catlyst to events. There is trust in the community
3. Guardian of the Ethos. The one who looks after the DNA, values, and vision of the community, continually reminds the community of these in order to keep in on the right track.
4. Faithful Improviser. (From NT Wright New Testament and the People of God) Our calling is to improvise faithfully in the gap between Christ’s first and second comings. He left very few rules, but some teaching and an ethos within which to experiment.

Is this what church should be like?

Is this what church should be like?

If not, why not?

Pastors burn out.

There’s an excellent post over on Jesus Creed on pastors needing to ensure they have spiritual and physical support in their work – otherwise they’ll burn out.

Quote from it from Father Rob:

If we are going to minister to others, we better have people ministering to us as well. Personally, I’ve found I need a Spiritual Director (to help keep me growing in my walk with Christ), a Mentor or Coach (to help keep me growing in my vocation), a counselor or therapist (to help keep me healthy in my mental life, as I’ve already mentioned), and at least one friend with whom I can be completely open about everything—and I do mean everything (to help keep me honest.)

Young people’s challenge to the church

In her new book, Visualising Hope, Dr Sarah Dunlop explored the values and spirituality of students in Central and Eastern European countries. She wants to know what makes them tick, what their hopes are, and if the church is meeting them. In a very creative way, by getting students to respond to and take photographs of things that are significant to them over a period of time, Dr Dunlop gets underneath the pat answers and stereotypes to discover their real motivations.

The top values and concerns, she discovers, are to do with self-expression and creativity, freedom – from institutional rules and to be able to think for themselves, quality relationships, and fun.

Given that, she writes:

“The students perceive the church as a place where they would be expected to conform to a set of rules and unthinkingly forced to subscribe to outdated beliefs. Therefore, it is no surprise that the students reject the church on the basis of their values: self-expression, freedom, fun and relationships. We believe that if church leaders take time to engage with young people’s values, they may find that young people become a part of their community, and their contribution to the worship of the church will be vibrant and full of life.”

It’s a good point. There is nothing wrong with values of freedom, self-expression, relationships, and fun. In fact, Christianity is supposed to make us more free. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand ourselves and apply our gifts in a way that is tailored to us – we are made uniquely – isn’t that the ultimate statement of self-expression. Relationship and community is at the heart of the faith – the early church was a congregation that welcomed, loved and supported each other. These values are not the sum total of the faith, but they are definitely there.

When did these positive values get lost from congregational worship? When did it become dry, unwelcoming, and irrelevant? It is true that there are many in the fresh expressions network and emergent church that are beginning to counter this stereotype.

This book is a wake-up call to the church, leaders and congregations, to find out which essential Christian values they are not meeting, and to life them out in ways that are accessible and welcoming.

It is available on Amazon.com in the USA and in the UK.

John Ortberg on being a pastor

The experienced pastor and author John Ortberg responds to a question on Scott McKnight’s blog. The question is “knowing what you know now, what would you focus on from the beginning of your ministry”. His response is:

If I could begin ministry all over again, I would spend time seeking to become a healthier person, emotionally and spiritually. I spent a chunk of time serving in an area where I simply did not fit well, where some of my deepest convictions were not congruent, because I was not self-aware enough to have a clear sense of what I valued and believed. I was stuck in a tradition and setting that was familiar and comfortable, but where I did not feel like I could truly be myself; where I could not really talk about the ideas and beliefs that resonated most deeply in me. And I needed people’s approval too much to be able to serve them well. And my neediness made me too defensive to be able to learn from the criticisms that are inevitably a part of ministry.

If I could start all over again, I would spend more time in solitude getting ready for ministry. I would have spent more time getting feedback from people who knew me best. I would try to walk through the pain of letting go what I thought I needed to do and who it was I thought I needed to be so that I could have served with more freedom and effectiveness. I would try to put less pressure on my wife to be committed to my success, rather than to embrace her own gifts and calling.

I would have read Dallas Willard sooner.

Reading into my own situation what does this mean? Yes – solitude and seeking God for what and where to minister, and doing this more. Perhaps is means doing less stuff, or at least prioritising better so that the urgent but unimportant doesn’t crowd out the non-urgent but important. Perhaps it means finding out the gifts that God has given me and ministering from them, delegating where appropriate.

And perhaps it means reading Dallas Willard…

Church welcoming, closing the back door.

I’m reading just a section from Bob Jackson’s book, The Road to Growth. Here’s a couple of stories that he tells on the subject of church welcoming:

“The Bishop and his wife had been on holiday and were driving home from the airport on a Sunday morning in holiday clothes. As 10:30 approaches and they entered his diocese they decided on impulse to pull into a local church and join the service. They were given a hymnbook and sat on the next to the back pew. As they were saying their prayers at 10:29, heads bowed, the warden came up to them and said, ‘I’m sorry you can’t sit there, that’s Mrs Jones’ pew’. The bishop looked up startled and the warden said, ‘Oh my God! It’s the bishop!’. After the service, the bishop had a little chat with the warden, who ended up repeating, ‘We’ve got to change haven’t we, we’ve got to change!’

And a personal one from Bob:

“My wife and I left parish ministry for an itinerant on. We started going to a nearby church where a friend was the vicar. After five months said to my friend, ‘Okay, I’ve had a rest now, I’ll take a service for you if you like’. Soon I was leading a communion service. At the door at the end of the service many in the congregation thanked me ‘for visiting us today’. We had sat in a pew and worshiped with the congregation of a hundred people for five months and ha not been noticed. I only became visible when I preached… It was easy to attend a service at that church, but almost impossible to join the community. Little wonder that most o the people who tired attending did not stick. They were offered no relational glue.”

Bob talks about churches needing to be friendly and offer friendship. Many people stop going to church by accident, because they ave not been integrated into a community or offered real friendship, or simply they got out of the habit and no-one noticed. Jackson talks about opening the front door of the church in a welcoming friendship and in closing the back door ensureing people don’t simply drift away gradually.

Other points from this same chapter. (pp65ff).

• welcoming is important – but try to introduce yourself, saying something nonthreatening like “I don’t know you, I’m Bob’, rather than saying accusingly “Are you new?”
• Churches need relationship glue – people need friendship as well as friendliness. They need to be able to integrate into the community.
• Larger churches need smaller subgroups to pastorally care for each other and therefore notice when people are ill or not there.
• Congregations should notice newcomers and offer a friendly conversation, as well as point/help the newcomer to integrate into the community. Many people ‘belong’ to Christian community and see it in action before they believe.
• ‘Welcome cards’ only work if followed up quickly.

I’d be interested to hear people’s stories of the welcome they received at church, good or bad.

The Vision Thing

Last summer I spent a month at Christ Church, Mount Pleasant, working as an intern on a placement for my course. The thing that struck me the most was the clear sense of vision that the Rector, Ted, and the staff team, had for the church. He wasn’t just running a church, doing what needed to be done, but he was planning, casting vision, putting step by step strategy and short and long term goals. And he managed to communicate it to just about every member of his congregation. They were behind him. The church had found a focus: to be a community of communities through which Christ transforms the lives of those in the church and those outside. This vision wasn’t just plucked out of the air; it was the result of much prayerful planning, taking into account the recent and long term changes in the church. It was inspiring. His recent annual address shows that – it is clear on where the church has come and where it is going – inspiring: Read it here.

Now, here’s the problem. Ted cast inspiring vision, he showed great leadership. He was able to delegate well in order to plan the nitty-gritty everyday stuff. He paced the change appropriately, and explained it at each point. However, he has raised my expectations of what a leader should be. Last year, I was looking around at churches in which to do my curacy – I’d be part of the leadership team, but I would not be the leader. Don’t get me wrong, I looked at some great churches full of wonderfully committed Christian people, striving to live and work for God. I met committed leaders who attend to the needs of the congregation, teach well, and are wonderfully pastoral. But I did not seen much vision – very little in the way of bold statements of “this is what we’re gonna be,” “this is what we’re aiming for,” or “this is how we’re doing to do it.” I think this vision is important.

Surely the Church (big ‘C’) needs such vision, a vision that can only come from God, and so will be slightly different for each individual church depending on the community they are set in. Every church should have such a vision. I am not saying church leaders should all rely on management techniques, or global programs such as “40 days”, although there is a place for these to guide thinking. But as a church leader, I need to plug into what God wants to be doing in any particular community, listen to what his Spirit is saying and what He is already doing, allow him to guide the direction, then cast that vision, put it into action, prioritise, strategies etc.