Challenge Two of Congregational Leadership Today: Introducing leisure-loving people to a 'losing oneself' lifestyle.
Jesus Christ by virtue of His headship over the church, His example for the church and His challenge to the church, calls His people to cross-carrying commitment to His cause. This means a lifestyle of ‘losing one’s life in order to find it.’ This becomes a struggle when a congregation is formed out of a society that sets a high premium on leisure and self-fulfillment. It has been said of North Americans that we tend to ‘worship our work, work at our play and play at our worship.’ Our congregations are assemblies of volunteers whom we desire to serve Christ. “I always want more people, from more diverse functions and places” is not just the cry of those outside the church says Margaret Wheatley. Working with volunteers has dynamics that are different than working with those who are paid to perform. Moving volunteers from being only consumers to also being contributors is a basic challenge of congregational leadership today. Rolf Jensen suggests a key to volunteer engagement when he says “people adopt or retain an idea because they have some motive for doing it.”
Introducing believers to increasingly sacrificial lifestyles is further complicated by the complexity of people’s needs and wants. Congregations are made up of both families and individuals who are often very demanding because of needs that have arisen within their home environments and work stations. Beyond the needs of a somewhat broken society, there are the ‘wants’ of people who have affluence and leisure time that was known only to a few in past generations. It seems that the solution to transitioning people from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness is to assist them in tracking healthy spiritual development together, within the context of Christian community. Again quoting Margaret Wheatley, a “fundamental work of this time (is) to discover new ways of being together.” Most believers desire to make progress along their Christian journey and therefore may be taught to live disciplined interconnected lives that include a sense of fulfillment. Rolf Jensen, author of ‘The Dream Society’ book, writes “love and togetherness (are) two pivotal marketing definitions in the dream society.”
It is also a challenge to bring correction to bear on wayward members of congregations who resent being told to amend their ways in order to maintain a wholesome testimony for the Christ they claim to know. At times, consumerism and impending correction means that there is an increase of church-hoppers. There are those who take flight instead of get right! Mary Beth O’Neill in her book “Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart” muses that “individual responses (include) fight, flight, save the day, placate – the list is endless.” Leaders need to assess how to identify a congregational ‘ethos’ in which the back door is much narrower than the front door of the church. Ownership is a key to retaining persons. “Ownership describes personal connections to the organization, the powerful emotions of belonging that inspire people to contribute” writes Margaret Wheatley in her book entitled “Leadership and the New Science.”
Challenge One of Congregational Leadership Today:Team Building
Challenge One is the building of a leadership team that enjoys cohesiveness and exudes creativity. There has been a generational shift in the predominant style of congregational leadership. The recent past witnessed dominant and sometimes dictatorial leaders who wielded control over congregations who had a limited grasp of information beyond their immediate context. The task today is much more the development of teams of leaders called of God to guide congregations. There is a powerful synergy within a well-functioning team of leaders. Executive Coach Mary Beth O’Neill reminds us that “building relationships and facilitating interactions” is essential. . Furthermore, there is no more strategic investment of a leader’s time than the intentional formation of teams to carry out profitable ministry. The challenge of team building involves the enjoyment of cohesiveness where each is respected for their uniqueness, what Mary Beth O’Neil calls “signature presence.” Just as a signature is unique, so each person’s contribution is unique. All team members are encouraged to achieve increasingly significant ministry impact. It seems that in a friendly team environment, creativity finds solutions to life’s changing situations. Margaret Wheatley, wrestling with a fast-paced world, states “in a quantum world, relationship is the key determiner of everything.” “To have a sense of fun is crucial for visionary leadership” suggests Rolf Jensen. Within a caring and maturing circle of leaders, the ugly specter of leader burnout is less likely to occur. It is also necessary to redefine roles periodically in a changing church environment. This means that the element of flexibility is a valuable commodity within the leadership teams of today.
Challenges of Church Leadership Today
Effective leadership has always been a reality that is never easily definable. Leaders throughout church history have had diverse traits and at times unplanned influence. Many times the best of leaders are those who were the least desirous of leading. There is a somewhat mysterious quality to leadership yet we may discern some essential components active in an environment that is enjoying healthy momentum. Few would debate the need for competent leadership. It is apparent also that we are living in changing times. Robert Dale says, “The times are always changing, and so must we, if we hope to be pacesetters in congregations…our church needs leaders precisely because our world is changing so radically and so swiftly.” Leadership in the twenty-first century has some unique challenges that were unknown to other generations. In just over a century most societies have been caught in the swiftly flowing currents beyond the agricultural into the industrial, technological and informational rivers of life. We have probably entered a new stream which Rolf Jensen defines as the “dream society” where imagination is the major reality that influences people and progress.
The church universal and the locally assembled congregations are very much affected by the times in which we live. Today is the day of population explosion (something like a billion added per decade), globalization, information overload and constant change. Whether churches will be given to fight, flight or faithfulness and fruitfulness will be dependent to a large degree upon the nature of the leadership each congregation is experiencing. In some coming blogs I will draw our attention to six basic challenges I perceive as present realities in leading congregations of believers.