Transparent Leadership?

In the 21st century, leadership styles have changed.  Not long ago, the leader was the captain of the ship, and the captain stood stoically on the bridge, a rock of courage, with unflinching determination and decisiveness.  But times have changed.

Today we live in a much more transparent world.  The captains, the leaders, are considerably more open, revealing their thoughts, concerns, fears...but how much transparency is too much?

A WWII movie of not long ago, U 571, had a scene that always rattles around in my thoughts when I ponder what is the wisdom of transparency for the church leader of the 21st century.  In the movie, a young executive officer takes charge through a series of peculiar events; he is now the captain of the ship.  Yet in the midst of a terrible crisis, the entire ship looks to the new captain for a command decision.  However, the rookie captain doesn’t know what to do;  clearly he is unsure, maybe even afraid to make a call, and even appeals to the other sailors at the helm?

 "What do you think we should do?"  

In that moment a grizzly ol' swabbie petty officer interrupts, "Captain, could we meet in your quarters?  We need to talk."  

Moments later the veteran old salt asks the unsure captain, "Sir, permission to speak freely."  

Then he speaks freely.  "Captain, if you don't know what to do, or are not sure, there's one thing a captain must never do.  You can be unsure, but you can never let the crew know that.  You must look like you know what you're doing even when you don't know what you're doing!"

Admittedly, church leadership is not the same as commanding a ship of war.  But in our day of team leadership and transparency, how much is too much?  How much self-revelation leads to disheartening the team, and the church at large?

So, how much?  In truth, I don't know, and I'd answer with the famous, "It depends."  

Maybe the answer comes from the example of Jesus.  Those closest to Jesus got a deeper peek into his thoughts than those more toward the periphery.  For example, the 5000 didn't get much explanation or exposition, but The Twelve often got deeper insights.   Peter, James and John, more than anyone else, received even deeper insights.

By analogy, in these days of transparency, a leader is often wary of too much transparency to the congregation at large and large subgroups.  Yet as a minister's circle of leadership narrows to the closest few, I am convinced that the stoic lone commander on the bridge and no one knows what's going on inside her/him—this model of pastoral leadership is not necessary, and more than likely is not wise.

Even the "supreme leader" needs a closest few, to live out "bearing one another's burdens," not only to fulfill the mind of Christ, but to exercise faithful leadership in the Body of Christ.

Joyfully,

Dale Patterson

No Rest for the Weary

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.  He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it…  -  Mark 7:24

Tyre was a town on the coast of Phoenicia.  It was north-west of Jesus’ normal stomping grounds.  From the context of Mark’s gospel this little excursion up north to the coast of the Mediterranean was a break, a get away, a vacation.  Humans were designed for rest from the very beginning.  God rested from his works of creation not as a result of weariness, but for the purpose of delight in what he had made.  Rest, in the biblical sense is not laziness, it is worship. 

Honestly, my day off (Friday for the most part) is filled with non-stop activity.  Weeds and my golf swing both need attending too.  I’m exhausted when Friday evening rolls around.  Part of learning to rest in the Biblical sense means stopping.  It means being still enough to quietly delight in God’s world, in God’s word, in God’s grace, and in God’s presence.  But we live in a manic culture.  Everything has an immediacy of its own.  Rest, true rest, worshipful rest, goes against our every inclination.  Even when we do take rest, it is often void of stillness.  And stillness is where we experience God.  God is the still point in our manic world.  To know Christ, is to walk away from our nets filled with their hundreds of flopping, writhing, attention grabbing  fish to become consumed with the King who calls us to follow him.

Spending a week at the beach in Florida with my wife’s family was a great reminder to me of how poorly it is that I practice true rest.  I went away, had a good time with family and came back tan, but not rested.  I was not still while I was away. 

You see, intimacy with God will always be a struggle.  Adam and Eve took the fruit, they immediately recognized their sin, covered themselves out of shame and hid.  God expelled them from the garden.  Naturally being in God’s presence in the stillness of that perfect garden would never happen again.  We are out of the garden.  We are in the sweatshop of a fallen world.  It will never be easy to steal away and be still.  God had to command “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”  It is our inclination to forget Sabbath, to neglect rest, and to hustle away the stillness. 

Knowing Christ means following him to Tyre.  It means refusing to let our own inclinations for maniacal living to keep us from that abiding stillness with our savior who is our only access back to the garden.  The passage in Mark 7 ends this way: “… yet he could not keep his presence a secret.  In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet.”  That rings true doesn’t it!  Sounds about like my vacation.  True worshipful rest will never be easy.  But it will always be good. 

In Christ - Scott Castleman                  

A Missional Metamorphosis

I’ve always liked the word metamorphosis!  It means much the same as the “in” word transformation, but it provides such a visual picture.  I find it hard to hear “metamorphosis” without thinking about butterflies – and their life-changing moments in their cocoons.  My father used to catch and mount butterflies when he was a teenager.  I remember seeing boxes with glass viewing tops containing hundreds of butterflies.  Only one of those boxes remains today.  Yet it is precious to me with its mounted butterfly beauties that are now over seventy-five years old.  It reminds me at the same time of my Dad’s love of the outdoors and of the wonderful work of our Creator God.

Metamorphosis is a useful concept when considering how to move a congregation from an inner to an outer or missional priority.  Whereas the word “missions” tends to be identified with missions programs we give money to or to perhaps to a few short-term mission teams, the word “missional” is identified with a way of thinking about ministry as fulfilling the Missio Dei, the mission of God.  

Missional is more than a missions program.  It is how every person and program and ministry in the congregation is to engage their community and world on behalf of their Lord.

To instill an effective missional mindset throughout the culture of the entire congregation can be a complex undertaking.  We might get an activity here or there to make a missional shift in focus but for the whole church to get serious about engaging its community – that will mean metamorphosis – because most church activities today are inward in their focus.

Essential to a genuine missional metamorphosis is a growing clarity concerning what it means to be “missional” and its implications for leaders and participants.

Some questions to consider:

          

1.   What does a missional Christian look like in terms of faith and action?

2.   What does a missional congregation look like?  An increasing number of publications address the idea of missional identity and activity in the congregation.  As missional thinking takes root, individual congregations need to consider how such thinking inspires a missional lifestyle among the people and how it affects their actual programming such as ministry to children, youth, men, women, singles, families, and so on.  How are programs structured to implement missional ends different from the programs already in existence?

                          

3.   What does a missional denominational regional area “look like” in terms of its vision, organization, and implementation and how does that contrast from a present or “non-missional” vision and operation?  What is the regional area’s role in leading its congregations into missional endeavor?

        

With Joy - E. Stanley Ott

Momentum and Agility

Wikipedia.com defines agility for the athlete this way, “the ability to change the body's direction efficiently, and this requires a combination of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, and strength.”

I can’t say I am especially agile, although recently when a car pulled suddenly in front of me I was surprised how quickly I maneuvered my steering wheel to avoid a collision. Agility is a useful concept in leadership and organizations. It speaks to our ability to respond to changing conditions, opportunities, and obstacles.

One of the greatest challenges facing congregational ministries is their capacity to react to the changes in our culture and the needs of people in a way that is fruitful. It is typical for church programs of even the most vital ministry to essentially run last year’s programs over again. As long as those programs and ministries actually facilitate the growth of disciple-followers of Jesus and address human needs, the concept of momentum is a good one. The momentum of the ministry sustains its engagement with people. However, as the culture changes, people respond differently, have different preferences and or lifestyles then our momentum can work against our agility. It's hard to make a sudden right turn when you are going seventy-five miles an hour.

I spoke this week with a wonderful lady in her seventies who was bemoaning the loss of young women in her congregation’s women’s programs. She said, “They just don’t have the time.” The result was a slow decline of programming for women of any age. The momentum of that ministry was clearly centered on doing what they had always done. Now with women working as well has juggling family and other activities, a ministry for them needs agility.  It needs an agility that will allow them to show honor to the way they ministered to women in the past, while seeking new approaches, programs, and formats for today.

This leads to an interesting paradox in fruitful leadership – the ability to develop the momentum that sustains fruitful ministry while simultaneously having the agility to respond to changing needs and opportunities for ministry. When Jesus set out with his disciples on retreat, as described in Mark 6:30 and following, clearly there was a momentum, a energy about getting away. Yet when the people showed up, and Jesus saw they were sheep without a shepherd; he showed himself to be an agile leader and shifted from his original plan to address the present needs before him.

Some questions to consider:

How agile are you personally? How responsive are you to change how you do things in order to adjust to changing circumstances?

How does your church or ministry balance momentum and agility – the ability to keep it going versus the ability to adjust and change direction? How can you develop both?

With Joy - E. Stanley Ott

Romans 16

At first glance, chapter 16 of Paul’s letter to the Romans seems like a chapter to quickly skim over.  It’s just a bunch of names!  But it’s worth our attention.  Paul comes to the end of his letter—a heavy, theological one at that—and concludes by sending personal greetings to many of the believers in Rome.  He mentions some 30 of them by name.  These aren’t names you’d recognize, in fact, most of them only appear in this chapter.  They’re not found anywhere else in the New Testament.

Paul greets people like Phoebe, Andronicus, Junia, Stachys, Phelgon, and Olympas.  None of which make any “most famous people in the Bible” lists!  Yet it’s clear from Paul’s kind greetings, these anonymous folks have made a difference in his life, and in God’s kingdom.

In a culture that makes a lot of fuss over “famous people,” here is a reminder that God’s kingdom includes a lot of rather anonymous folks just like us.  The names have changed over the years, but ordinary folks are making a difference for Christ every day.  People with names like Susan, Frank, Nicole, Bob, JoAnne and Jerry are faithfully serving Jesus in their homes, places of work, and communities.  God isn’t enamored with fame.  He’s about faithfulness. 

As a leader in the church, what are you doing to help the anonymous folks around you live faithfully in God’s kingdom?

Grace to you - Steve Ebling

Incarnational Ministry

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”

Incarnation - God, the infinite creator of the universe with neither beginning nor end, the invisible and holy One, became finite, visible, and common.  Think about that!  To make a quick point of this, the preacher of Hebrews said, “But we see Jesus…”

This theology of incarnation - of a visible God - is an important one.  This concept of incarnational ministry is needed in the church.  However, it is too often ignored.  Incarnational ministry is ministry that is both ancient and modern; grounded yet relevant. 

Here is what I mean.  Jesus didn’t come to earth in general.  He came specifically.  He was born into a real family.  He grew up in a real culture.  He spoke real language in a real dialect.  And yet, he was God.  The divine attributes of the Almighty never changed.  God was not diminished in his becoming common.  The truth of God in Genesis Chapter One did not change in Matthew Chapter One.  It just became plain to see.

Therein is the challenge and beauty of incarnational ministry.  As the church, we hold on to the never changing truths God gave to us in his timeless word - and it is those truths alone we share with the world.   However, as the church, we learn to speak the language of the culture that God has placed us in. 

Too often the modern church attempts to change what it professes in order to fit the culture.  They become a reflection of the culture rather than a redeemer of it.  This can be true in its theology as well as its praxis.  On the other hand, there are churches who don’t take the culture seriously enough.  They have remained so ancient that they are not speaking the language of the people.  They have lost touch with what it means to be common. 

In his incarnation, Jesus did not abandon the reality of his deity or reject the confines of the culture in which he was sent.  Paul was a man who got “incarnational ministry.”  We would do well to embrace his model…

^“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews… To those not having the law I became like one not having the law… so as to win those not having the law.  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings.”  1Corinthians 9:19-23        

The Vital Churches Institute promotes ministry that is not afraid to live in the tension of holding tight to an unchanging God while speaking the common language of our changing culture.  Churches walk a razor’s edge when they strive for this kind of incarnational ministry.  The only way to not fall off on one side or the other is to make sure that we fix our eyes on Jesus, because in Him alone did God become flesh and make his dwelling among us.

Grace and Truth,

Rev. Scott Castleman

First Presbyterian Church, Ocean Springs, MS

Gut Values Connections and the Missional Church

I find an interesting analysis of American culture, with all sorts of implications for ministry, to be Applebee’s America by Sosnik, Dowd, and Fournier.

The authors reflect on the second presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that won against the odds, the success of the Applebee’s restaurant chain, and the fruitful work of Pastor Rick Warren. They draw from these very different figures some intriguing insights about what it takes to connect with American’s today.

The authors identify what they call “Gut Values Connections.”  They argue that people want authenticity and community (not surprisingly two core values of the emerging/emergent church movement) as well as empathy, optimism, belonging, and purpose among other values. When a politician or a business or a church connects with people at an emotional “gut values” level, the authors contend that people will respond in positive ways.

For those of us who imagine that people should respond first to our convictions and our understanding of truth and its consequences, Sosnik, et al are merely showing that their research at the present time suggests we have to reach America’s gut at the same time we speak to its mind and heart.

Applebee's America offers countless implications for the vibrant church in its transformational and missional initiatives.  Obviously values such as community, belonging, purpose, and many of the values Sosnik et al identify are very much a part of our understanding of what a healthy, vital transformational and missional congregation is all about.

Some questions to consider:

What “gut values” do our present congregational ministries connect with?

How can we shape our emphases in order to make effective “gut values connections” not only with our communities but with our own participants?

With Joy - E. Stanley Ott