A different kind of leadership

A pastor friend of mine in Moscow reminded me a great quote today and I think it's the perfect way to begin a new year of blogging. This quote comes from Alan Roxburgh's excellent book, The Missional Leader. I read this book when it first came out in 2006, so this quote is a great reminder.

It also comes at a good time because I was having coffee and catching up with a friend who remains fairly active in the Hollywood Church in spite of moving out of the area recently. We were discussing the relative merits of the numerical growth (or lack thereof) of the church. The pressure to "grow" the church is almost irresistible sometimes. We both agreed that if we wanted to pack out the Hollywood Church (it seats approx 300, I think) we could do that. Our group is smart enough and talented enough, and our leadership capacity has grown to the place that we could probably pack the place in a matter of a year or so. We weren't being arrogant. We were just being realistic. But we agreed that this was not the point. And, in fact, the whole character of the Hollywood Church would change such that many who have found the life-giving experience with a life with God would be devastated. Those who are unfamiliar with the missional church and still drinking from the fountain of "church growth" and attractional methods of church development will probably misunderstand what I'm saying here.

Anyway, enough commentary...now the quote.

Today, we give up on congregations that we declare are out of touch with the culture. We run to big, successful places with marquee-name leaders to find out how to be successful. In so doing we are going in exactly the opposite direction from everything we see in the Biblical narratives. We have forgotten that God’s future often emerges in the most inauspicious places. If we let our imagination be informed by this realization, it will be obvious that we need to lead in ways that are different from those of a CEO, an entrepreneur, a super leader with a wonderful plan for the congregation’s life. Instead, we need leaders with the capacity to cultivate an environment that releases the missional imagination of the people of God (21).

If you are a church leader, how do you hear this statement? In what ways do you sense God's Spirit calling you to a different kind of leadership - different than a CEO or "super leader with a wonderful plan for the congregation's life?"

Comments

[Gary Walter]

Ryan, I've been having similar thoughts for the past year. Thinking through this...

Even thinking of growing my church leads me to this conclusion. Currently I pastor about 150 ppl. This is about the average most can carry - my number, being an introvert, is probably lower. For me to grow the church to 300, which is where the conf. would even consider giving me another staff member, well, I'm thinking what is my motivation for working so hard?

But, being a spiritual community that is missional, well, that changes everything. I'm just not sure how yet...

[Billy]

This quote makes me wonder what's wrong with being "successful?" or having people recognize a leader's name as being effective and therefore worth learning from.

While I don't condone the market-driven Christianity that pedals a product-Jesus, I also sense a hint of malicious sarcasm and unhelpful criticism among some "missional" authors.

Please help me, I'm trying to grasp the problem of trying to reorganize (CEO?) how the local church operates. And I don't want to fall into the trap of sacralizing failure with a theology of smallness out of impure motives of envy for those more successful in actually making disciples than myself.

[Ryan Bell]

Hey Billy! There's certainly nothing wrong with being successful. The question is, what is success for the church in our late-modern society? The difference I'm trying to articulate here is not growth vs. non-growth or fetishizing smallness or non-growth. It is the fact that for the church to be successful in its mission today will require different skills than before. The CEO model of pastoral leadership assumes a stable world of modernity where leaders know what needs to be done and get on about doing it. But the church is not in that world anymore.

The point this author is making isn't that churches shouldn't grow or shouldn't be successful at sharing Jesus with their world, but that churches that aren't doing well shouldn't be given up on. The point is that all the resources needed for God's life to emerge in a local church are present in those churches. The task of leadership isn't to go "out there" to the celebrity churches and figure out "how to do it," but to lead the congregation to being attentive to what God is doing right there, in their midst.

[Billy]

I guess it all seems theoretical and full of jargon without practical examples. The assumption, if I hear correctly, is that leaders can't know what needs to be done because "the world" is different than it used to be. Doesn't that sound like two broad generalizations that could be interpreted many different ways? Conservatives, Contemporary, and Emerging minded people could all use that statement and be in essence contradicting each other.

The underlying, unspoken sentiment that I "read" is that what some leaders think they know needs to be done is wrong. And given the progressive context and sources for the discussion, that leads me to assume that whatever traditional churches are doing like having seeker services or holding public evangelistic meetings in neutral halls, or doing door to door literature evangelism to generate personal Bible studies, is all out-dated and ineffective now. And coming from a conservative, traditional background in Adventist ministry of holding "crusades," it sounds like we are throwing out prophecy and Adventist distinctives in favor of the social gospel, and throwing a not-so-subtle glance of spiritual condescension toward IIW, AFacts, and the like. Don't get me wrong, I don't defend all that is done along those lines. Forgive me, because I may be drawing perhaps on several sources outside the original quote you gave and be responding to what I understand "missional" approaches to be advocating. "Missional" strategies, to me, seem to still be at least partially driven by the "market" or "host/audience" preferences and what works, so it doesn't seem to be very high ground to throw stones from.

Also, the assumption on the solution side of being attentive to what God is doing in our midst is classic cliche - no offense. Is that assuming that if a church isn't growing that they should not get "best practices" from growing churches but rather simply pray? Is that assuming that all dying churches need to be revitalized, and we should not let them die gracefully (if that is even possible)? This certainly undercuts a lot of the emphasis on church planting and the "statistics" that "prove" that new churches grow and reach new people with greater health and result.

I know that I am currently re-evaluating everything about what I have previously considered "church." And I find a lot of value in the emerging church literature surfacing in recent years that goes beyond "ancient-future" worship styles to substantive change in missional engagement and incarnation versus the attraction-extraction model of church we have now. BUT, I have serious doubts in the ability of myself to lead that kind of radical change with the churches I currently serve, and in their openness to re-evaluate on such a core level of basic presuppositions. This goes beyond cell/small group strategies, worship styles, sowing-reaping emphasis - to the very "hollow" core of modernism we have embraced, and frankly, it scares me that the very premise that I operate on as a professional minister operating services in a traditional program/building model of church, is so obsolete that to continue in it is futile.

OK, maybe a phone call would be better, you tell me? feedback and straight-talk is appreciated.