These are quotes which stood out to me, possibly for use in a sermon someday. Their presence here does not mean I agree with them, it merely shows that I might want to reference them later. The default view is five random selections. Use the tag list on the right to view all quotes relevant to that theme.
I can become discouraged with ministers easily, until I remember that my faith is in the One who calls, and not in the one called.
Philosophy is a game with objectives and no rules. Mathematics is a game with rules and no objectives.
There's a wonderful story about a Chicago bank that once asked for a letter of recommendation for a young Bostonian being considered for employment. The Boston investment firm could not say enough about the young man. His father, they wrote, was a Cabot; his mother was a Lowell. Further back was a happy blend of Saltonstalls, Peabodys, and others of Boston's first families. His recommendation was given without hesitation. Several days later, the Chicago bank sent a note saying the information supplied was altogether inadequate. It read: "We are not interested in using the young man for breeding purposes. Just for work." Neither is God a respecter of persons but accepts those from every family, nation, and race who fear him and work for his kingdom.
Our friend Don Zimmer is back with his monthly installment on books.
As you may remember, Don is a member of our Church Champions Editors
Board and a long time friend. Unlike your truly, he reads deeply and
remembers what he reads. He is my number one expert in finding a book
for the topic to be addressed. This month he follows up his previous
columns on leadership with a discussion on thinking styles and how
they affect our conception of work and the church.
"Some years ago, Bob Dale and George Bullard introduced me to a
relatively new instrument called the Success Style Profile (SSP). The
SSP provides an assessment of how we have learned to think. Over the
next year I gave the instrument to several hundred leaders in the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod at the congregation and judicatory
levels. Everywhere a clear, consistent pattern of thinking was
present. I accepted the pattern as normal, after all, every
organization has its culture and people are shaped by it. Later, as I
gave the instrument to more people in more diverse settings other
patterns emerged.
Variations tended to cluster around organization forms and cultures,
some were slight, some significant. I found myself asking what do
these patterns mean for the processes that must occur within an
organization for it to be responsive to changing environments?
Heifetz spoke of "technical work" and "adaptive work", the former,
work done to accomplish known tasks, the latter, work done toward the
unknown. The observed patterns suggested each organization had a
style that had evolved over time that enabled them to do the known
"technical work." While each was successful in varying degrees, I
found myself asking how can they do the "adaptive work" necessary to
respond to rapid and profound change when some styles of thinking are
clearly under-represented?
It was a short intuitive step to the question, "How does thinking
style relate to our spirituality, prayer forms, worship preferences,
and theology?" I do not purpose to offer an answer, but I believe
that there is clearly a link.
Dr. Corinne Ware's book, Discover Your Spiritual Type and Kent
Groff's, Active Spirituality (Alban Institute) together with my
training as a Spiritual Director have helped organize and further
shape my thinking around this question. The spiritual typology Dr.
Ware's book contains offered me a way of relating spirituality,
prayer form, worship preferences and theology to thinking style. The
instruments provided a way of opening up a dialogue around the
possible relationships. Methodologically, I walk folks through the
SSP experience where I spend some time on brain body research then I
invite them to take Dr. Ware's instrument. We post the results and
talk about our observations. Several things have emerged from these
sessions.
First, people perceive how they express their spirituality as
different from how they perceive their church body expressing its
spirituality. Second, people are mixed in how they view that
difference. For some their church provides a base from which they can
explore while others see their church as unable to support the full
range of their spiritual needs. Third, thinking style is potentially
a major factor in much of what divides us as a the church and if we
can name that perhaps we can reshape the dialogue among diverse
church bodies and help further unbind the latent gifts present within
the church.
Over the years as our organizations have evolved, certain thinking
styles, talents, and behaviors have dictated what goes on in churches
and how it gets done. The "business model" is everywhere present. But
what is good for business is not necessarily good for the church. If
God intended us to be a "body" why is so much of the body excluded
from the processes that shape much of the direction and focus of
churches and judicatories? The answer lies in how we shape those
processes and how we shape those processes is determined by the
prevailing thinking style.
In the early 1990s, I encountered Chuck Olsen's work that eventually
became Transforming Church Boards and later Discerning God's Will
Together (Both published by Alban Institute and the latter co
authored with Danny Morris). Chuck offered a different model for
church boards and committees. It is a model focused on consensus
versus majority rule, on discernment rather than decision, on story
more than data, on listening more than speaking. It was a model that
values the "wholeness" of the body and the process of inclusion more
than "efficiency". The people who tend to do well in contemporary
church organization shape it, and as they do, others who do not do
well self exclude themselves. The result is a process in which the
body of Christ is disproportionately represented by certain thinking
styles. Clearly there are many roles to be played within church
organizations, and not everyone can do everything, but by defining
our church organizational and governance practices as we have we
have, we have systematically excluded the voices and gifts of many.
If we sought to carry out church differently, could we involve more
people from the body in discerning God's will, seeking to follow it,
and in being better stewards of the enormous diversity of gifts that
people have to offer?
Part of the challenge we face in governing churches and judicatories
is how we conceptualize church. When we conceptualize the church as
an organization we tend to emphasize the structure and roles that
define that organization. During the course of planning the program
for a mid-level judicatory pastor's conference, I had the privilege
of spending time with Loren Mead. He was just finishing Transforming
Congregations for the Future (Alban Institute). When I read the book
Chapters 2 and 3 really spoke to me. A short time later I was looking
at a map of the German forces deployed across France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Luxembourg just prior to the Normandy invasion. It hit
me. The relevant issue is where forces are deployed not where they
are based. The military commander focuses on the troops in the field
not just the headquarters and bases that support them. What if we saw
our church-selves as people rather than organizations and roles,
scattered as well as gathered?
What if we paid attention to enlisting, equipping, empowering, and
enabling people to serve where they live their daily lives versus
through congregation activities? Perhaps the most effective point for
communicating the authentic gospel is in the contact that occurs in
everyday life as people connect around pain, needs, and shared
interests, activities and experiences. Is our often-myopic view of
church yet another product of the thinking styles that define our
organizational structure and practices?"
You can send Don some direct feedback at DonaldZ7@aol.com. He will
appreciate your comments and dialog. Don has agreed to be a moderator
at one of our November Team Forums focused on lay persons.
A decade ago, I became involved in leadership development within my
denomination. I soon learned, however, the mental models, language, and
metaphors I acquired, as an Air Force officer and corporate CEO were
inadequate. An aggressive reading program focused on church leadership
was disappointing; most materials spoke to a culture like my own. The
good resources I found were little known and not readily available to
most church leaders. I opened a "bookstore" to pull together resources
available on leadership and offer them at a discount. My quest touched
a need of many.
Today, the market place is both rich and saturated; demand is strong,
and church leaders have good access. Good books abound, but there are
also a lot of "Ho-hummers." A lot of books promise "how to" answers.
While potentially useful in the short term, such books tend to
reinforce dependence on "authority", diminish the deeper learning that
results from the hard work of personal discovery and experience, and
postpone or cover over the real change that needs to occur. My
denomination is littered with congregations that have sought to embrace
any number of dynamic church leaders' materials and failed because
their situation, personality, gifts, and call are not the same. Kurt
Lewin said, "There is nothing quite as practical as a good theory." I
believe that. In this series I will share with you the books that have
provided me "good theory" and concepts, models, language and metaphor,
and practical guidance and those who have simply spoken to my soul.
Robert Greenleaf wrote Servant Leadership, A Journey into the Nature of
Legitimate Power and Greatness or see Seeker and Servant, Reflections
on Religious Leadership, the Private Writings of Robert K. Greenleaf,
by Fraker and Spears. I believe every church leader should read one or
both of these books. Neither are religious both are spiritual. But both
bring the Biblical image of servant as leader into our contemporary
world. The transformative power of Greenleaf's thought is in the
premise that leadership is best understood and evaluated by looking at
the served and asking the question: "Are the served becoming healthier,
freer, wiser, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become
servant leaders." and the paradox of "servant" and "leader". Like many
words in the leadership lexicon of today, "servant" is misused and over
used. In Greenleaf's view a "servant" is not weak or powerless but
power-filled. Control and conformity give way to growth and development.
To understand Greenleaf I believe that you must also understand the
Situational Leadership model Paul Hersey, and Ken Blanchard offer in
Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources (5th
Ed) Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988. Servant leadership is
not a style; it is a commitment to growth and development of people
recognizing that people, their social context, their task at hand, and
their "leadership" all differ. What works in one place will likely not
work in another. Control and conformity may be appropriate but always
as a means and never as an end. The key is continually asking the
Greenleaf question and involving all the gifts present in responding to
the answer. To me this is the essence of the model Jesus offered us. In
The Name of Jesus by the late Henri Nouwen has been equally important
because it helped me spiritualize Greenleaf in ways that spoke to my
soul.
Greenleaf's writings have also encouraged me to see the corporation,
which is so fundamental to the social and economic fabric of our
society, as a legitimate and necessary goal for Christian outreach.
Historically, we in the church have defined ourselves against the state
and society, yet today it is the corporate form that dominates our
lives. Most churches seem uncomfortable dealing with corporations
because it does not fit into the domains of private faith or public
faith. Few writers have ventured into this arena (I will have more to
say later on the need for churches to see themselves with new eyes).
Greenleaf suggests that if we as a society are to care for people in
such a way that they are becoming healthier, freer, wiser, more
autonomous and more likely themselves to become servant leaders then we
will have to do so through the various corporate (institutional) forms
in our society. If such changes are to become reality, then we must
begin somewhere.
Greenleaf singles out colleges and universities, foundations, and
churches as the places to start. Seminaries have an especially
important role to play.
One of my greatest challenges is to find the language and metaphors to
clarify, assimilate, and communicate the ideas and concepts that fill
my life. Models help me make associations and organize my thinking in
coherent ways. The Hersey-Blanchard model for situational leadership
has been foundational. Another important model is the Technical-
Adaptive Work model Dr. Ronald Heifetz offers in Leadership Without
Easy Answers, Harvard University Press 1994. Heifetz writes of senior
government leaders and ordinary people facing major decisions.
Sometimes their work is "Technical" where the problem is understood,
the solution and implementation clear, and the responsibility to often;
however, "Adaptive Work" is required. "Adaptive Work" is undefined work
where continuous learning is required to understand what is happening,
solutions and implementation strategies are unknown, and is it not
clear who is responsible. "Adaptive" work is hard work. It requires
leadership, it requires a commitment to seeing the potential in people
and seeking to develop it, it requires creativity, and it requires a
willingness to honor difference in how we think and the commitment to
enter into dialogue.
The leadership challenge is to connect the source of meaning in
people's lives with the challenge they face. While leadership is not
limited to people with authority, authority is an invaluable asset in
helping an organization work adaptively. Authority enables you to
manage the environment, direct attention, define reality, manage
information, frame issues, choose the decision making process, and
influence the presence and essence of conflict and whether and how to
unleash it. The absence of authority allows you to deviate from the
norms of authoritative decision-making and focus on specific issues.
People who exercise leadership from the "foot of the table" lead across
the boundaries of formal organization in networks. Without authority
you can shape the stimulus but not the responses, spark debate but not
orchestrate it, have a front-line feel but not the broad sense of the
multiplicity of challenges. Leadership must draw attention to an issue
not embody it. Just as leading with authority requires protecting the
voices of dissent; the leader without authority needs to listen. Over
the years I have worked from both the head of the table and the foot
and along the sides.
Heifetz's discussion of leadership with and without authority has been
a powerful insight for establishing expectations and boundaries. I find
the root of the difficulty many organizations have in responding to
change is that they do not differentiate among the type challenges they
face and wind up attempting to apply technical solutions to adaptive
work and vice versa.
Click here for the books mentioned in this article:
Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and
Greatness by Robert K. Greenleaf
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0809125277/leadershipnetworA
Seeker and Servant: Reflections on Religious Leadership: The Private
Writings of Robert K. Greenleaf
Robert K. Greenleaf,Larry C. Spears (Editor),Anne T. Fraker (Editor)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0787902292/leadershipnetworA
In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership by Henri J.
M. Nouwen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0824512596/leadershipnetworA
Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald A. Heifetz
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674518586/leadershipnetworA