Conversation #2 – The Future of Church Leadership

I’m reading a book on Church Leadership by Jimmy Long. He says today’s existing leaders (my age and older) clash with upcoming potential leaders due to a change in leadership style. Long believes that the leadership we need now is shared leadership yet we are stuck with the style of the larger-than –life charismatic leader.

You know what this looks like. Whether in business, politics or the church, there are those leaders to whom people flock. They develop a following, they grow the organization. Everything is done ‘their way’’ and life is good, …until they leave. The vacuum left when the executive leader retires never seems to get filled.

 

Long’s thesis is important for the church. The way churches have operated in the past will not take us into the future. Centralized power resting in a few officers and the pastor worked for the 19^th and 20^th centuries. But times have changed and new challenges required new methods. We need collaborative leadership that brings everyone’s gifts to the table.

We need people who are gifted leaders AND people who are gifted with the spirit; those who have a strong spiritual connection to the Divine.

Long says it’s not easy for leaders who have been in control of all aspects of ministry to turn over leadership to people who want to lead in an entirely different manner. It can look like a lack of leadership when one person isn’t in control. What does this mean for the future of Arlington Church of the Brethren? What kind of leadership do we need to carry us into 2012 and 2022 and 2050s? (when our 100^th anniversary will occur)

This is the reason I began this unusual conversation, asking you to comment by email, or journal, or phone. Its purpose is to get us thinking beyond today. (and responding in a different manner) If we can discern what God is up to in this time & place, we can respond with courage. We can learn to be leaders that heal our world and reach out to heal and serve each other.

I began Conversation #1 by quoting Anthony Robinson[i]. He reminds us that we don’t control what life brings to us, but we do have some control over how we respond to what life brings.

To remind you of Conversation #1: Many church-people are mourning the loss of “Christendom” – which is merely the time when Christianity ruled supreme. The leaders of the Christian church were also respected as leaders in the world.

It was a time when everyone understood that you went to church on Sunday. Soccer and little League games weren’t scheduled until Sunday afternoon or maybe not at all – on Sunday. You know the list of what has changed; many of you watched it happen. Maybe you rejoiced when ‘blue laws’ went away and maybe you were sorry to have Sunday fill up with obligations.

But many of today’s church members weren’t alive then. You have to be at least my age to remember the days of dressing up for Sunday School in hats and gloves.

Today, Robinson writes, many of our mainline congregations are [trying to adjust to no longer being at the leaders’ table] Instead, congregations focus on sharing the concept of a loving, welcoming, inclusive God. They recognize that God wants more than just people who look and sound like us. This much is good. Certainly, not all brands of Christianity agree who is in and who is out – hence the debates on conference floors and TV shows. But whether God is loving or judging may not be the question.

 

The question, for most of us, is whether or not God is powerful enough, vital enough, and capable enough of actually changing life, of healing the earth, and delivering us from what can seem like hell – right here and now. In other words, Does God still lead the Christian church?

The answer is Yes, certainly! yet we admit we can’t always see it. God still calls leaders, but instead of singling out the Moses’ and Aaron’s and Mary’s, and Peter’s, God calls us ALL to be leaders. No longer can we wait for Silver Knights, great orators, and Lone Ranger ministers to come in and fix it all. It’s up to US.

It’s why the Church of the Brethren dropped the concept of Church Boards and went to Leadership TEAMS. It doesn’t matter what we do to the constitution, what matters is how we listen to each other, how much we NEED each other. And how we USE each other’s gifts. As Long says, “No one leader has all the gifts required, God chooses to give different leaders – different gifts so no one leader can just depend on him or herself but all have to depend on each other and ultimately depend on God.”[ii]

Once again, many of you are ahead of the curve. Many of our committee’s act like leadership teams and task teams, reaching out to each member and inviting them to share and LEAD. Our challenge is to extend our reach.

How do we invite the gifts of those who aren’t members? (This is an age of non-joining. What does that mean for leadership “REQUIREMENTS”?)

How do we call out people we don’t see in church every week? (The average ‘regular’ attender of church makes it to Sunday worship 1-2x/mo.) What new ways of operating and communicating do we need?

This “conversation’ that I’ve invited you to join, is one way of expanding, both our thinking and our ability to communicate. Can we ‘talk’ to each other during the week, by email, chat, and phone? And as the fall season of nominating new leaders arrives, can we design ways of inviting everyone’s gifts to the table?

These are the questions that we bring to the conversation. We won’t find easy answers, but with God’s spirit whispering and empowering, we WILL FIND LEADERS.