leaders are always on

In a piece entitled Five Lessons from 2010 Worth Repeating — Without Repeating 2010, Rosabeth Moss Kanter makes the following point about leaders:

Forget privacy, especially if you're a leader. Leaders are always on...

It's a lesson all pastors need to also learn, however much we might wish it wasn't so.

Lessons from recent history

Gill Corkindale writes that, in the past year, she hasn't needed to "explain how globalization drives change and that leaders must adapt to a fast-changing world" because the lessons have been driven-home by the crisis of the past years. Those lessons she identifies as "to develop new competencies: self-awareness, being able to deal with ambiguity, manage continual change, devolve leadership, and coach their people...[these] are critical to their survival."


How many of those are also applicable to the life of the church and the work of the ministry?

Redefining Greatness

I found this article over at HBR an interesting and helpful read, with insights for both leadership and pastoral care/spiritual formation.

the new leadership

Seth Godin is always worth reading. Often, his musings get me thinking about church life in a new way. Try the following, with that in mind:

When you follow a right path, then, the people following you are happy to bring others along. When you open doors for people (instead of closing them), your followers are more likely to open doors for others. When you are inclusive (instead of excluding), then others seek to include their peers.
For far too long, leadership has been about management and management has been about control. We push those that follow us to fit in, to do as they are told. We decide who is good enough, who is obedient enough, who is acceptable. Many institutions have been built by strong-willed men who think they have the right answer, and aren’t afraid to be bullies if it helps them achieve their goals.
But now, people have a choice. More options in how they spend their day, their money and their passion. And over and over, we see people voting with their feet. Sure, there are the frightened (and angry) that are willing to act out at a rally or carry signs that they don’t actually endorse. But this is the not the behavior of a thriving movement, it’s a desperate reaction from a dying anachronism.

the failure of succession

Colin Hanson makes some fine points in this article - none more so than his suggestion that "Perhaps God isn’t so concerned that churches should pass from glory to glory, if history is any indication."

well said, john ortberg

Reflecting on the search process for a church leader, John Ortberg writes:

But I do have a conviction that when it comes to getting leadership right, 98 percent of the ballgame is relationship. I believe where there is a relationship of joy and commitment and mutual submission and trust and authentic love—then the division of labor issues can flow freely and effectively. But where the relationship is broken, all the org charts in the world can't save it.

Well said, says I.

William Deresiewicz wrote a fascinating piece on leadership and solitude. Part of his intention was to stress the need for leaders to develop the ability to think and to think for themselves. A prerequisite for that, he suggests, is solitude. But he then gives that a subtle twist:

So solitude can mean introspection, it can mean the concentration of focused work, and it can mean sustained reading. All of these help you to know yourself better. But there’s one more thing I’m going to include as a form of solitude, and it will seem counterintuitive: friendship. Of course friendship is the opposite of solitude; it means being with other people. But I’m talking about one kind of friendship in particular, the deep friendship of intimate conversation. Long, uninterrupted talk with one other person. Not Skyping with three people and texting with two others at the same time while you hang out in a friend’s room listening to music and studying. That’s what Emerson meant when he said that “the soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude.”

Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to yourself is by talking to another person. One other person you can trust, one other person to whom you can unfold your soul. One other person you feel safe enough with to allow you to acknowledge things—to acknowledge things to yourself—that you otherwise can’t. Doubts you aren’t supposed to have, questions you aren’t supposed to ask. Feelings or opinions that would get you laughed at by the group or reprimanded by the authorities.

This is what we call thinking out loud, discovering what you believe in the course of articulating it. But it takes just as much time and just as much patience as solitude in the strict sense. And our new electronic world has disrupted it just as violently. Instead of having one or two true friends that we can sit and talk to for three hours at a time, we have 968 “friends” that we never actually talk to; instead we just bounce one-line messages off them a hundred times a day. This is not friendship, this is distraction.

I know that none of this is easy for you. Even if you threw away your cell phones and unplugged your computers, the rigors of your training here keep you too busy to make solitude, in any of these forms, anything less than very difficult to find. But the highest reason you need to try is precisely because of what the job you are training for will demand of you.

I found what he said really helpful. Every pastor needs a friend like that. But it also occurred to me that what he wrote could also be thought of in terms of prayer, too.

(HT: Matt Perman)

keller: some thoughts on approaching the big questions

I previously posted a link to Tim Keller's helpful piece on the big questions facing western churches today.

Here are his thoughts on how to approach those questions. Again, very helpful reading.

A taster....

4. We must develop a far better theology of suffering. Members of churches in the west are caught absolutely flat-footed by suffering and difficulty. This is a major problem, especially if we are facing greater 'liminality'--social marginalization--and maybe more economic and social instability. There are a great number of books on 'why does God allow evil?' but they mainly are aimed at getting God off the hook with impatient western people who believe God's job is to give them a safe life. The church in the west must mount a great new project--of producing a people who are prepared to endure in the face of suffering and persecution.

Here, too, is one of the ways we in the west can connect to the new, growing world Christianity. We tend to think about 'what we can do for them.' But here's how we let them do something for us. Many or most of the church in the rest of the world is used to suffering and persecution. They have a kind of faith that does not wilt, but rather grows stronger under threat. We need to become students of theirs in this area.

start with a small church

Some very interesting words from Tim Keller to young ministers on where to start in ministry: a small, country church (please remember: he is speaking USA...). As part of his advice he says,

Young pastors should not turn up their noses at such places, where they may learn the full spectrum of ministry tasks and skills as they will not in a large church. Nor should they go to small communities looking at them merely as stepping stones in a career. Why not? Your early ministry experience will only prepare you for 'bigger things,' if you don't aspire for anything bigger than investment in the lives of the people around you. Wherever you serve, put your roots down, become a member of the community and do your ministry with all your heart and might. If God opens the door to go somewhere else, fine and good. But don't go to such places looking at them only as training grounds for 'real ministry.'

The whole thing is well worth a read.

an important question

On a recent Q&A, someone asked John Piper, "What role do you think your temperament plays in determining your view of God and the kind of Christianity you live out?"

That's a great question. It's one that I need to reflect on (but without getting too stuck inside my own navel).

For Piper's (very helpful) answer, go here - first video, about 6 minutes in.

true authority

Sometimes a single sentence can work so much in a person. I came across this one by Oliver O'Donovan here and feel it worthwhile sharing here. He said,

All authority arises from mediation of reality.

I guess you'll want to read the context but you don't particularly need to; the context is an application of the single point he is making. It really made me stop and think; maybe it will you too.

when you should take a risk

You do not evaluate a risk by the probability of success but by the worthiness of the goal. We were willing to fail because the goal we sensed was so urgent and strategic.

Ralph D. Winter