The future of pastoral leadership

discernment for top down leaders means being wise when someone needs your expert advice and giving them good answers.

discernment for the rest of us means being wise when it comes to if we answer at all.

giving an answer, making a call, setting a course, giving advice are often (mostly?) the role of the expert. Pastors, Youth Pastors, and church leaders want to be experts. In a culture that is infatuated with experts, not being an expert is hard. because it means we stop playing the expert. It means we stop giving answers. It means we stop giving advice. It means we stop receiving the responsibility that God has given others. The responsibility that they are often trying to hand us. To find an answer, to spiritually form a child, to give then "the answer" to their problem.

Most pastors feel it's their role to hold their hands out and take these burdens off of the shoulders of others. However, by doing so, we create and enable a barrier between who they are and who they are to be.

Instead of reaching out. The best leadership is discerning when to put your hands in your pockets and refuse to take the responsibilities that belong to others. Of course this can be done beautifully, it's something of an art.

The best leaders in the future will not be known by their will, advice, or problem solving. They will be known by the quality of their questions.

Refuse to Lead

What Pete is saying here, I believe is the way in which we will move to more healthy churches in the Western world. This is what my next book proposal will deal significantly with. This is the nature of Church B. This is the nature of leadership, refusing to enable citizens of the kingdom to give away their responsibility as citizens by leading.
There's way more to this, but this is a good snippet I came across today.

Here's the video.. what do you think?

Come Hang with me in Tulsa in April

April 27-29th my friend Jonathon Reitz (of the Leadershed fame) will be hosting a Leading Church B conference in Tulsa. So much of leadership presented by publishers, conferences and speakers is based on a leadership style few people actually have.

This is Leadership for the rest of us. This is NOT for everyone. Everyone is a participant and you will experience a fundamentally different way of leading people.

If you want more info let me know and I'll send you some info on it!


mark

Riffing on Commitment

This morning I visited a message board of some youth worker friends and saw a conversation about commitment. I thought I'd riff on it for a bit on the message board, then I wondered what the readers of my blog might think. What do you think?

i think this is often about community as well.
I have a couple theories on this, tell me what you think.
It's something of a chicken or egg thing.

Engagement and responsibility it at the core of commitment. People who aren't engaged by feeling a sense of belonging and responsibility for what happens at youth, or the church but do feel that way in other areas of their lives will be more engaged in those other activities. If I'm missing from my basketball team, or cheerleading squad then the team simply can't function as well with out me. I serve an essential function on that team, a unique role and when I'm not there, the team struggles. Whether be a point guard or the person a the base of the pyramid, i feel a sense of responsabilty to be there. In churches were leadership is taken care of, and people give up their responsibility to others, then it gives them space to no longer be engaged.
Youth, families and individuals within our church who aren't engaged in community or see themselves as responsible for their own spiritual well being and the nurture of others quite simply aren't committed to your church. The question then becomes why?

Scenario 1:
On one hand it's a followership issue. People just won't do what we want them to do, or be engaged to the level we think a healthy individual, family, etc should be engaged. In this scenario the leader talks about people outside the room a lot. The leader's job is to somehow leverage influence or to persuade youth, families, indivuals of the benefits of life in the church, or with God etc. This leader either talks like a vicitim a lot, or like a visionary. The victim wonders why everyone outside them won't align with the way things should be, at least from their perspective. The visionary attempts to conform the world to their (read: God's) vision for the church and the world. It seems that only difference between the the victim and the visionary is the amount of confidence and force. I suppose this really isn't a followership issue, it's more of a leadership isn't it? I suppose people value what we teach them to value and if our leadership style is victim or visionary then people aren't really valued in either. The victim resents the people for not going along with their idea. The visionary sees people as cogs in their plan. "Those people will be in community and love each other if it's the last thing I do! WE will be a beautiful church that loves each other and their neighbors!" What people really value, or are committed to doesn't really matter in this view, with the exception of lip service. The visionary church leader sees people as sheep, dumb and in need of serious direction.

Scenario 2:
On the other hand, it's a followership issue. For real this time. That people actually value things, and some might actually value your youth group, and your church. Just in the way's you've taught them to. People who see themselves as responsible for something have a choice. They will either hold on to that responsibilty or they will pass it off to someone else. To hold on to responsibility is be a disciple, to be human to be how we were created. To give away the power and responsibility to someone else is the act of a consumer. The parent who drops their teenager off at your activities but never talks about God might be an example of this. They have give you the power and responsibility to spiritual form their child. They have become a consumer. But before you go off on a "How consumeristic people are..." rant, it should be noted that it takes two people to make a transaction like this and that the more you talk about it, the more you sound like the victim listed about in scenario 1 above. I guess I'm just saying that you freely encourage their action by your action, and probably by your church's action.

That said. You're probably asking the how question by now right? How do we change this pattern? How do we make parent's more responsible? How do we stop enabling them? How do we make people commit or be more accountable.

Friends, How is the wrong question. At least at this point in the game.

How only leads to more of the same. Why? Read the questions I just listed. They are all victim or visionary oriented. They are about people out there, people who must be manipulated or persuaded to fall in line with what I think. More of the same. If you like where you are now, keep asking how. You will never see change, other than superficially.

It begs the question:
What is the role of leadership in the church?
What does engagement look like in the church?
I need to run, but I'm sure there will be more soon...

Toying with an idea

I'm toying with an idea. My good friend David Welch recently suggested this idea and I've been tossing it around and thought I'd get your input.

Folks email me questions pretty often these days wanting some outside perspective to various issues and I respond to every email I get. I give my take and I try to get the takes of others I know. When appropriate I might even spend some time talking with them you) on the phone.

Still others invite me into the church and I partner with them in their own context.

David suggested that I answer some questions that people ask me via video and post them in a video blog post.

What do you think?

I'm really asking here friends. What do you think?

Leadership and Catalyst Quote

"Sometimes I just absolutely love CATALYST and other times I feel so deeply challenged by the whole experience. Just because I feel so messed up emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically by the whole event.
It felt like God was doing spiritual surgery on me on Day 1. What causes me to feel like that you ask? It's a mixture of seeing all the incredible
things so many leaders and visionaries are doing to change the world, the speaker messages, the worship, the environment; just the whole experience -
and then feeling like I'm a disgrace compared to these people who living with total abandon for the Glory and renown of our Savior. Like I'm not doing enough for my King."
- Hervict Jacobs


What stands out to you about this quote?
His last two sentences stand out to me.

Thoughts on Leadership

“No man is satisfied in a swimming bath; he knocks his knees and elbows against its sides; he wants the sea. So with man’s soul, he hungers and thirsts for the ocean, for God; God infinite and Other, different to man, yet working in man…” - Baron F. Von Hugel

"Lust is the craving for salt of a man who is dying of thirst." - Fredrick Buechner


What people say they want, and what they really want may be two different things. The church is a place where people discover there is a sea, and where their brokenness and thirst can be quenched by living water.

As a pastor I carry with me, the fact that I don't want to keep people from the sea, or restoration.

Such a rich quote

Peter Block writes books for business and civic leaders. There's something for us all to learn. I love this little gem.

"We are fascinated with our leaders. We speak endlessly, both in the public conversation and privately, about the rise and fall of leaders. The agenda this sustains is that leaders are cause and all others are effect. That all that counts is what leaders do. That leaders are the leverage point for building a better community. They are foreground while citizens, followers, players, and anyone else not in a leadership position is background. This is a deeply patriarchal agenda, and it is this love of leaders that limits our capacity to create an alternative future. It proposes that the only real accountability in the world is at the top. They are the only ones worth talking about.”
Peter Block, pg 41 Community: The Structure of Belonging