Lesson from a hike in the Woods

Today I had a great opportunity to have my morning devotion in Pinnacle Mountain State Park. I finished reading Graham Standish book "Humble Leadership: Being Radically Open to God's Guidance and Grace". (I'll talk about the conclusions of the book in another blog.) Today I was struck by the lessons of leadership in the hike itself.
As I was walking, I was aware that I had to pay attention to three perspectives at the same time. I had to watch the ground and my feet to make sure that I didn't trip and fall. That is also one dimension of leadership, to keep our eyes to the ground to ensure that everyone is safe and well. I also discovered that it is when you are paying attention to the path itself and where your feet are going that you notice the littlest creatures in the forest- like frogs, snakes, turtles, ground squirrel and the lizard in this picture.
At the same time I had to look up see the markers to make sure that I was on the right trail. Of course sometimes the signs were just little marks on the tree and other times they were big easy to spot signs. In leadership, we also have to keep our eyes looking forward to see the signs that God put in front of us to make sure that we are going in the right direction. Sometimes God reveals our direction with clear easy to understand guidance but other times we have to look for markings that are more like the subtle tree markings I discovered on the path. And of course we have to keep our head up to see the beauty and wonder of God's creation. Unless we look up we miss all the beauty and wonder of God at work in the world. This picture is looking toward Pinnacle Mountain with a little bit of the Arkansas River in the foreground. It is a beautiful picture of God's creation and a reminder to me that God did all this without me. Sometimes, we discover Humble Leadership on a hike as well as in a book. Likewise in leadership, we need to look up to see the wonders that God has for us and to realize that God is the creator of all things. Our role, like Adam and Eve, is to care for that creation and for all the wonderful works God is still creating in our world. It was a good morning of looking, walking and learning from the creator.

You had me at Jedi Knights

My oldest son Stuart is introducing his sons to Star Wars this summer while I've been on sabbatical. As long as I have known Stuart (since he was 7) he has been a Star Wars devotee. The first movie we saw together was Star Wars. And so this is a near spiritual experience of sharing from father to sons. I even got to seen "Clone Wars" with the kids last weekend while I was baby sitting.
I have also been a fan of science fiction even before I met Stuart. Star Trek in all its many pertubations was my favorite.
But I was also a fan of the Star Wars Trilogies (both of them) and have even come to believe over the years that Reformed Theologians, like the Jedi Knights, are almost a dying breed trying desperately to preserve the radical message of God's grace revealed in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, as the Jedi Knights strive to preserve "The Force". I have even gone so far as to imagine that the monthly group I meet with to study Karl Barths "Church Dogmatics" are the 21st century incarnation of such modern day Jedi Knights. So you can imagine my delight when I was reading Graham Standish's "Humble Leadership: Being Radically Open to God's Guidance and Grace" and he invoked both a worm hole analogy and a Star Wars analogy in his chapter on Spirit-Led Leadership. His worm hole analogy (borrowed from Bill Easum's "Leadership on the Other Side") was trying to capture the point that Mainline Churches trying to reach out to post-Christian culture is sort of like the Star Trek space ships trying to reach another universe. Unless they discover the "worm hole" it will take them forever. The good news is that we can get there, we just need to find the "wormhole" that connects the two galaxies.
The Star Wars analogy refers to N. Graham Standish's assertion that Humble Spirit-Led Leaders will have to use not only intelligence and emotional intelligence to lead the church in the 21st century but also mystical intelligence. Standish uses the image of Yoda teaching Luke Skywalker to raise his spaceship with the force and Young Skywalker being unable to do it because it's impossible. When Yoda is able to raise the space ship, Luke comments "I don't...I don't believe it." To which Yoda replies "That's why you fail." The mega point that Standish is trying to make here is that we need more than our own power to lead the church when God want's us to lead the church. We need not only intelligence and emotional inteligence but also mystical intelligence. Standish defines mystical intelligence as being aware of God's purpose and God's power and God's presence. For a guy who is reading and writing on Trinitarian Leadership, I must admit that he had me with Jedi Knight.

Humble Leadership is a Unifying Leadership

It has been a good weekend. We had a chance to worship with a small Presbyterian Church Alpine Presbyterian on Sunday. The text was from Mark 8, the story of the disciples wondering where the next meal would be after they had just witnessed the feeding of the 4000. Jesus asks "Do you not yet understand?" The preacher challenged us to hear those words as words spoken to us. And he used several grandchildren stories to illustrate that sometimes a child's faith can be the most profound faith: "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." (Mark 11:15) Then of course we went to Stuart and Megan's house to eat and hangout with the grandchildren. It was a good day.
Of course, it set the scene for my readings on Monday and Tuesday from N. Graham Standish's book "Humble Leadership: Being Radically Open to God's Guidance and Grace". As I am starting to write about Trinitarian leadership as leadership that seek unity in the midst of diversity, his chapter on "Unifying Leadership" was particularly insightful. Standish talked about the divisiveness of the culture in which we live. And he is right, whether you are talking religion, politics, generations or sports. His book is particularly tough on us Baby Boomers who he characterizes as "an individualist generation". He challenges us to think communally about what is good for the whole. "Humble leadership is unifying leadership. Unifying leaders lead people to seek a common good that is rooted in God's good. They are called to put aside their own desires for power, control and dominance and to seek what is good for everyone." (p. 92) He also talks about how we have to embrace 1 Corinthians 12 description of the diversity of the body of Christ in our leadership. "This is a profound statement, because it emphasizes that everyone, even one with whom we completely disagree, has a part in the life of the church. It also suggests that healthy leaders unify that body, finding a way to help all body parts work together." (p. 107-108)
Standish does not suggest that we can do the work of unifying the body of Christ by sheer will or force of personality. Instead he challenges humble, unifying leaders to rely on the Holy Spirit to find this unity. "To grow the member of the church, we leaders have to help the members remember that we are to seek unity in the Spirit. It isn't enough to be unified; we need to form a sort of divine union with each other and with God through the power of the Holy Spirit." Standish is restating what theologican Jurgen Moltmann says in "The Trinity and the Kingdom" when he challenges us to know that our unity, real unity cannot rest in us but is always a unity that is build around Christ by the Holy Spirit. Standish summarizes the principles of unifing leadership as: calling to live out our faith; grounding in God, relationships and humility; and binding to God and each other.

The Great Emergence- A great opportunity to rediscover and share Trinitarian/Incarnational Theology

I just finished reading "The Great Emergence" by Phyllis Tickle and I would commend it to anyone who is trying to get a handle on the most recent changes in the various expressions of the Christian faith in such congregations as Jacobs Well (Kansas City), A Simple Way (Philadelphia) and other Emerging congregations around the country AND the world. She lifts it up as the next reformation of the Christian church and she suggests that this happens every 500 years or so. A short video summary can be seen at thegreatemergence.com presented by the author. She says "The Great Emergence, like the Great Reformation or the Great Schism (between Eastern and Western Christianity) or the time of the Great Gregory or the Great Transformation, is generalized social/political/economic/intellectual/cultural shift." (p. 120) She talks about the variety and diversity of the Emerging Church movement and yet she also states that "All however, share one shining characteristic, they are incarnational. Not only does Jesus of Nazareth incarnate God, but Christian worship must be incarnate as well. It must involve the body in all its senses and take place among people, all of whom are embraced equally and as children of God." (p. 135) Tickle says that the emerging churches are radically Jesus centered, communal, connected electronically to each other on a real time basis, non exclusive and searching ancient Christianity for ancient symbols to reflect this emerging reality.

And even though Tickle talks about this movement as "post-denominational" she is not negative about the life and vitality of denominations as a result of this "great" movement. In fact she spends a good part of her last chapter exploring how this phenomenon fits into the current denominations world that she characterizes as having roughly four quadrants:

Liturgicals (Catholics,Epis)-Social Justice Christians (Presby, Meth)

Renewalists (Pentecostals)-Conservative (Baptists, Evangelicals)

Of course Tickle acknowledges that within denominations there is variety and that no one denomination fits neatly into a box and so there is overlap between these somewhat artificial groupings. She then positions the Emerging Church movement at the center of this denominational landscape suggesting that they are picking and choosing from the various traditions. She also suggests that each of the denominations will in turn learn from the Emerging movement (just as the Catholic Church learned and grew out of the Reformation) and that in response to the the Emerging movement, that the Christian church will in fact grow in size and vitality.

So what does this all have to do with Trinitarian leadership (since that is the current focus of this blog)? I believe that Trinitarian leadership is something that us "Old Reformers" can offer to these new reformers. As I read and reflect and teach on the Emerging Church movement, I also see the incarnational theology shine through but I also see a strong Trinitarian theology as embedded in the leadership of the movement. When Tickle describes the emerging church as "relational, nonhierarchical, a-democratized form of Christianity...moving toward a system of ecclesial authority that waits upon the Spirit and rests upon the interlacing lives of Bible- listening, Bible-honoring believers" I believe that she is talking about ecclesial leadership after the model of the triune God. Characteristics of Trinitarian leadership that I am developing based on Jurgen Moltmann's discussion of the Trinity in his book "The Trinity and the Kingdom" and Miroslav Volf's "After Our Likeness" are:

-1-Unity built on open and inviting communication that integrates the many distinct parts;
-2-Diversity which allows uniqueness and self-differentiation while still works toward a common purpose;
-3-Integrity among the leaders in the leadership community and integrity in what the community says and how it operates;
-4-Mutual Concern and Care which implies an intimate relationship through the Holy Spirit. This allows us to know each other and hold each other even and especially in pain;
-5-Equality of Shared Power and integrated power in place of a hierarchy of held power; and
-6-Mutual Encouragement in which each part of the leadership community builds up and encourages the others.

I do agree with Phyllis Tickle that we can be in conversation with these new and evolving expressions of the Christian witness not as one team competing with another for a market share but rather as a community also formed around Jesus of Nazareth with a rich heritage to share and a thing or two that we might learn together.

Trinitarian Leadership: A Community of Leaders in Christ

What can I do to create a leadership team if I'm not in a big church with a large staff? I still don't really know enough about the Trinity to understand what it has to do with leadership? How can I bring my elders and deacons on board with this idea? What if I'm not too crazy about the whole idea of team to describe ministry groups since teams imply competition?

These are some of the questions that I have heard as I have been exploring, researching and starting to write about Trinitarian leadership during my sabbatical. I have discovered a wonderful collection of academic and theological books on the Trinity and I could read Jurgen Moltmann and Miroslav Volf, Dan Migliore and Shirley Guthrie forever. (And besides that I just love to say their names.) I have also uncovered a number of books that I didn't know about like George Cladis' book "Leading a Team-Based Ministry: How Pastors and Church Staffs Can Grow Together into a Powerful Fellowship of Leaders" and Wayne Cordeiro's "Doing Church as Team". Cladis actually does a very good job of lifting up the Trinity as a model for team building in large church staffs and he describes the whole idea of "perichoretic community" so that readers can understand this technical term that describes how the Father and Son and Holy Spirit interact with each other "in constant movement in a circle that implies intimacy, equality, unity yet distinction and love." (Cladis, p. 4) Cordeiro's book is also a very accessible book to help create a team culture in a church. However both these books and most of the literature seems geared to large churches and their church staffs.

My project will focus instead on creating and nurturing leadership communities in the small to medium sized churches after the model of the Triune God. Notice that I am trying to steer away from the term "team" because in our culture it does imply a competitive group and the whole thrust of this project it to move away from a competitive, authoritarian and individualistic image of leadership to a cooperative, eqalitarian and communal way of leading the church. And I will be focussing on how we can build leadership communities within the church- pastors, elders, deacons and trustees and beyond the church as churches and presbyteries and colleges get together to lead. Our shared worship service with Brotherhood and Wichita State University is an example of Trinitarian leadership model that extends beyond the church walls to encompass several unique communities who share leadership in Christ.

So far I have discovered six Trinitarian characteristics that would allow us to build a leadership community in Christ. They are: Unity built on open and inviting communication that integrates the many distinct parts; Diversity which allows uniqueness and self-differentiation while still works toward a common purpose; Integrity among the leaders in the leadership comminity and integrity in what the community says and how it operates; Mutual concern and care which implies an intimate relationship through the Holy Spirit which allows us to know each other and hold each other even and especially in pain; Equality of shared power in place of a hierarchy of held power; and Mutual Encourage in which each part of the leadership community builds up and encourages the others. These all aspects of the Trinity that Jurgen Moltmann describes in more theological language in his book "The Trinity and the Kingdom".

Let me know what you think. I am hopeful that this book, "Trinitarian Leadership: A Community of Leaders in Christ", might reflect that same kind of collegiality in its writing that it will hopefully reflect in its content. In the next several days I will explore each of these ideas on the blog and will look forward to your feedback. Thanks for your help and your participation in the faith community that lives and worships in the name of the Triune God revealed in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Leading a Team- Based Church

As I have been researching Trinitarian Leadership, Joan introduced me to a book that explores and describes Trinitarian leadership in much the same way that I have been evolving over the past several years. The book "Leading a Team- Based Church: How Pastors and Church Staff Can Grow Together into a Powerful Fellowship of Leaders" was written by a Presbyterian pastor, George Cladis. Cladis after aknowledging the theological contributions to Trinitarian understanding from such theological greats as Shirley Guthrie, Miroslav Volf and Jurgen Moltmann writes "My contribution as a pastor has been to look at ways to live out this theology practically in churches seeking to relate to the postmodern world." His purpose sentence could easily describe my sabbatical study and his book is an outstanding introduction to Trinitarian leadership.

Cladis focusses on the "perichoretic model of God that calls into question the traditional hierarchies of power, control and domination that have formed the basis for church leadership in the past." (p.5) By "perichoretic" Cladis is talking about the Triune God who is in constant communion and conversation with Godself in a movement of intimacy and love and equality and unity and community with real distinctiveness. His book then takes this understanding of God and relates it to leadership in the postmodern world. He identifies seven attributes that contribute to a healthy ministry team: a shared covenant, articulated vision, a life giving culture, collaboration, trust, an empowering spirit and a learning attitute. It is an outstanding book and a must read for pastors who seek a more egalitarian leadership style after the model of the Triune God. Cladis provides a nice blend of practical ministry insights grounded in solid reformed understanding of the Triune God at work in the world.

Conversation Partners in Trinitarian Leadership

As I headed back from the Pastor's School at Hastings, I stopped to visit Jacob's Well in Kansas City. Jacob's Well is an emerging congregation started by Pastor Timothy Keel, who wrote the book "Intuitive Leadership". Our session had studied his book last summer and I was anxious to meet Timothy and to share a conversation around Trinitarian Leadership with him. Well it turned out the he was busy and I was referred instead to Executive Pastor, Deth (pronounced Date) Im. I was initially a little disappointed not to be meeting with the "head pastor" (sorry Deth) until I met Deth and we started to talk. Deth shared a passion and commitment to Trinitarian leadership (even though we're just in the midst of defining what it means)and a wonderful and perceptive insight into what it might mean as it gets lived out in the church. And after all, Trinitarian leadership is not about one person but rather the shared leadership of several persons who articulate, live and grow together in the mystery and ministry of the Triune God.
As I pulled up to Jacob's Well, I was surprised to see a very traditional looking church building, nestled in a quaint Kansas City neighborhood. Deth shared that Jacob's Well had started as shared office space for Timothy in Roanoke Presbyterian Church. It grew to include fellowship space upstairs as Jacob's Well started to worship. Gradually Roanoke Presbyterian let Jacob's Well use the Sanctuary on Sunday afternoons and finally, when Roanoke Church closed in the mid-nineties, they encouraged the Presbytery to sell the building to Jacob's Well. As Deth and I sat in the sanctuary, I felt very much at home in this space which had once housed a Presbyterian Congregation and as Deth and I talked I became more aware that our visions for ministry and Trinitarian leadership were more alike than different. I was excited to see Calvin's "Institutes" in his library along with Miroslav Volf's "Exclusion and Embrace" right next to his Wesleyan theolgians. I noticed Leonard Sweet's "Postmodern Pilgrims" and McClaren's "A New Kind of Christian" and Tony Jones' "The New Christian". In a sense, what my Trinitarian Leadership project is trying to do is to connect these two shelves on Deth's bookcase. Letty Russell's "Church in the Round" was another point of connection for us.
I was fascinated to hear that the planning group I would call the "worship committee" was called the "Kairos Team" at Jacob's Well because it is the group that sets apart a "time of being in worship". I was even more intrigued that the "mission committee" is called the "Koinonia team" to reflect how our participation in the mission of the Triune God shapes and molds us into communities in Christ. Wow! As we talked about how leadership teams can become intimate communities formed around Christ, Deth shared a recent opportunity at Jacob's Well for staff memebers to meet three times a week for prayer and Bible study (lectio divina, centering prayer, praying the offices). We talked about how that activity, could potentially be expanded to include the elder leadership in the faith community. It was a great meeting and a great opportunity to share how we can learn from each other in the broader Christian community and learn and grow together in Christ through this process.