I got a reply to my previous post, and the writer wanted some background, so I rejoined with this:
My observations on 'leadership' come from years of ministry and advanced formal study in management.
The problem as we conceptualise the body of Christ (thus different from the pre-incarnation references to God's people) in terms that gives sense to 'leadership' is that we run, I think, the very risk that Mintzberg identifies as fatal to an enduring practice in any organisation, where one, or even a small group is stuck out the front or on a pedestal and isolation between leader and lead is created: the word itself does that; and renders everyone else a follower, induced to passivity; against how I think the biblical injunctions on church life would work.
The induction to passivity leads pretty quickly to the church coalescing around the 'priesthood' and ministry, the ministry of all believers, ceases to be the central motif of church life. It also gives the 'leader' an impossible job to do. Isolating this person from the coalition of mutual service that is in situational flux in the paradigmatic church. That is we take different roles with respect to one another as circumstances adjust. I've seen many a home group 'leader' feeling overburdened by the false responsibility they think they have, when if their service had been characterised, as it truly was, as 'convening', ministering or even just helping, their and the group life would have been simpler and more effective.
But, I think what disturbs me about the slide from talk about ministry to talk about leadership over the past 30 years, in my observation, is that we adopt organisational terminology which points away from the gospel. Thus my use of terms about my own experience above, which are community centric terms, not 'me-centric', I hope, and I hope my efforts have been genuinely of this manner, and the list I suggested in my first email to you. So, not 'youth leader' but youth minister/worker, not children's 'leader' (if there are any children's leaders, they are their parents), but children's worker, teacher...etc.
As I composed this list, I reflected on my admiration for my late father's trade union work. His union adopted terms for the service roles they had that reflected their beliefs about the way things should work. Oddly enough the 'leader' of the smallest unit (called a chapel) was the 'father'. They had organisers, delegates and similar roles, because they were all equally workers, and no one 'led' them!
So too in the church. If we are serious about our profession, I think that we must organise congruently with this profession. As soon as we say that there are leaders ('archon', is, I think the Greek equivalent word, and not used of church life in the NT) we say that there are followers; but we only follow Christ. Paul is clear on that as he teaches against party spirit; if we say there are leaders and followers, we also say that we have leadership, not community-ship (a coining by Mintzberg that I particularly like).
Thus, as I read the list regarding healthy church life...which list I've worked with in another denomination, I think, if a church has 'good leadership' that is expressed in the natural reading of the phrase, ministry will inevitably break down, the 'pastor' and elders will burn out and the church will dry up, the idea is a problem both terminologically and instrumentally. But what if a church was characterised by a resilient network of ministry groups? Much better I think, and very much what chimes with the NT church life exhortations.
A couple of references that may be of interest:
http://complexityandmanagement.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/hello-world/ and quite a few other posts
http://oss.sagepub.com/content/24/6/961.abstract (I can send you this article if you don't have access)
http://www.faithandleadership.com/multimedia/ronald-heifetz-the-nature-adaptive-leadership
25 November 2011
20 November 2011
Why Leadership?
I read with interest you piece on the healthy church in the current issue of Together.
Lists that motivate action are always helpful, and one could probably not disagree with your nine points, even though we would all probably give the phrases differing understandings.
But, I do disagree with one of them: point 2 "empowering leadership". I think that there is much wrong with this notion from many perspectives.
I will, however, be brief, and argue that I don't find this concept in the New Testament at all. All I find there is a charismatic community: joint 'leadership' at work, if we must still use this term. It is a great concern that we've imported into our conceptualisation of church, and rather uncritically, the worldly concept of 'leadership'. And its not even uncontested in the world of business organisation, whence it came.
Refer to this article by Henry Mintzberg, for instance: http://www.oxfordleadership.com/journal/vol1_issue2/mintzberg.pdf, and this one:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c917c904-6041-11db-a716-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=8d70957c-6288-11db-8faa-0000779e2340.html#axzz1bDm1PwMc
What the concept of leadership does in a church is instantly disempower everyone, no matter how 'empowering' it sets out to be. The paradox is, that if a 'leader' wants to empower, they must think that they have the power to give out. I don't think that this is the case scripturally, or in terms of the sociology of congregational organisations, such in your denomination.
With the joint exercise of ministry, a healthy church will not have a 'leader', someone who has the ideas, gives out power, forges into the future, because we are lead as a church by the Holy Spirit. I would not want to usurp this role.
Now, its a pity that our adherence to the scriptures does not permeate the way we think about ourselves as organisation. Our language should reflect our beliefs. We don't have leaders, we have organisers, coordinators, helpers, facilitators, teachers, convenors, moderators (a good concept in the Presbyterian church that has morphed into 'leader' unfortunately), delegates and above all, ministers: servants of the people of God. And we don't have that awful oxymoron, the 'servant-leader' which is a trick of business rhetoric and has no real meaning within a church context.
Lists that motivate action are always helpful, and one could probably not disagree with your nine points, even though we would all probably give the phrases differing understandings.
But, I do disagree with one of them: point 2 "empowering leadership". I think that there is much wrong with this notion from many perspectives.
I will, however, be brief, and argue that I don't find this concept in the New Testament at all. All I find there is a charismatic community: joint 'leadership' at work, if we must still use this term. It is a great concern that we've imported into our conceptualisation of church, and rather uncritically, the worldly concept of 'leadership'. And its not even uncontested in the world of business organisation, whence it came.
Refer to this article by Henry Mintzberg, for instance: http://www.oxfordleadership.com/journal/vol1_issue2/mintzberg.pdf, and this one:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c917c904-6041-11db-a716-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=8d70957c-6288-11db-8faa-0000779e2340.html#axzz1bDm1PwMc
What the concept of leadership does in a church is instantly disempower everyone, no matter how 'empowering' it sets out to be. The paradox is, that if a 'leader' wants to empower, they must think that they have the power to give out. I don't think that this is the case scripturally, or in terms of the sociology of congregational organisations, such in your denomination.
With the joint exercise of ministry, a healthy church will not have a 'leader', someone who has the ideas, gives out power, forges into the future, because we are lead as a church by the Holy Spirit. I would not want to usurp this role.
Now, its a pity that our adherence to the scriptures does not permeate the way we think about ourselves as organisation. Our language should reflect our beliefs. We don't have leaders, we have organisers, coordinators, helpers, facilitators, teachers, convenors, moderators (a good concept in the Presbyterian church that has morphed into 'leader' unfortunately), delegates and above all, ministers: servants of the people of God. And we don't have that awful oxymoron, the 'servant-leader' which is a trick of business rhetoric and has no real meaning within a church context.
10 November 2011
Don't know...maybe
Mick Jensen, in a recent article in Eternity magazine claimed that it's OK for Christians not to be certain about everything.
Well, of course, but by what epistemological slight of hand do we extend that to the Bible and overturn its literary clarity?
For instance, Michael was asked a while ago if he thought that Noah's flood occured. His answer? "Maybe".
Well, where did 'maybe' come from? On what basis does he set aside the biblical information for some other information? and where does this hermeneutical project draw its lines?
I have a fairly good feeling that he would think that uncertainty about the basic doctrine of the creation has a similar status: that is, the uncertainty is acceptable. Only this time we're not considering a trifle, but something that is basic about God, us and what connects us.
Mc'Neill puts it nicely, talking of Calvin:
Calvin de-abstracts the God which I think idealist views such as I think MJ entertains make increasingly theoretical and detached from the real interactions grounded in his word-acts in Genesis 1. The creation is about connection, its deconstruction evaporates this and isolates man from God, undoing the connection that is patent in the text.
So here, I think the Bible expects us to have certainty. If we want uncertainty, we can only achieve that by an arbitrary epistemological move, a move, I think, against the revelatory capacity of the Spirit, and one that muddles the historical stream of relations between God and man.
I've also talked about this in the four moves between God and man.
Well, of course, but by what epistemological slight of hand do we extend that to the Bible and overturn its literary clarity?
For instance, Michael was asked a while ago if he thought that Noah's flood occured. His answer? "Maybe".
Well, where did 'maybe' come from? On what basis does he set aside the biblical information for some other information? and where does this hermeneutical project draw its lines?
I have a fairly good feeling that he would think that uncertainty about the basic doctrine of the creation has a similar status: that is, the uncertainty is acceptable. Only this time we're not considering a trifle, but something that is basic about God, us and what connects us.
Mc'Neill puts it nicely, talking of Calvin:
Throughout his thought a judgement of the nature of man accompanies the doctrine of God; theology is linked with anthropology. God is not for a moment conceived merely as the author and ruler of the universe, but always as Creator and Redeemer of man. God's resources answer man's need.
Calvin de-abstracts the God which I think idealist views such as I think MJ entertains make increasingly theoretical and detached from the real interactions grounded in his word-acts in Genesis 1. The creation is about connection, its deconstruction evaporates this and isolates man from God, undoing the connection that is patent in the text.
So here, I think the Bible expects us to have certainty. If we want uncertainty, we can only achieve that by an arbitrary epistemological move, a move, I think, against the revelatory capacity of the Spirit, and one that muddles the historical stream of relations between God and man.
I've also talked about this in the four moves between God and man.
6 November 2011
2 November 2011
Unam Sanctam
In the Bull of 1302, Pope Boniface said:
Now, PB was talking about Manichaeans, but the observation applies eminiently to the philosophy of origins. He was right, Moses in scripture conveys a unitry principle of and in creation: God's speaking in wisdom and love producing one entire creation de novo: no room for alternative principles, such as idealism, materialism or naturo-mysticism. When attempts are made to mix the unified creation with materialism, we get an attempt at two principles going at once: incoherent, crazy and undoing Christ, who is the creator!
I have to wonder at people like our esteemed Archbishop, who think that the notion of the two mixing is somehow rational! Of course Christ diluted is Christ eliminated. Not Good Peter!
..he pretends that there are two prinicples, which doctrine we judge to be false and heretical because, as Moses testifies, God created heaven and earth not in several but in one prinicple.
Now, PB was talking about Manichaeans, but the observation applies eminiently to the philosophy of origins. He was right, Moses in scripture conveys a unitry principle of and in creation: God's speaking in wisdom and love producing one entire creation de novo: no room for alternative principles, such as idealism, materialism or naturo-mysticism. When attempts are made to mix the unified creation with materialism, we get an attempt at two principles going at once: incoherent, crazy and undoing Christ, who is the creator!
I have to wonder at people like our esteemed Archbishop, who think that the notion of the two mixing is somehow rational! Of course Christ diluted is Christ eliminated. Not Good Peter!
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