• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Church Leadership in a Time of Change Crossing The Bridge Church Leadership In A Time Of Change Copyright © 2000 by Percept Group, Inc. ISBN: 0-926850-15-6 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed review, without the prior permission of the publisher. For additional printed copies, contact Percept at 1-800-442-6277, or go to www.perceptnet.com and order online. Edited by Jane Roxburgh Cover design and illustrations by Tom Hoyt Printed in the United States of America on Recycled Paper 00 01 02 03 - 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Acknowledgments 7 1 Welcome to the In-Between World 9 2 Developing A Model for Change 23 3 Change Process and The Biblical Material 47 4 Focus on the Transition Phase 53 5 Leading Within Transition 73 6 Transition Themes in the Bible 85 7 Transition, Change and Culture 95 8 Transition, Culture and Leadership 109 9 A Proposal about Change, Culture and Leadership 121 10 An Uncertain, Certain Journey 155 Index 167 Bibliography 171 Welcome to the In-Between World 9 1 Welcome to the In-Between World EADERS, TODAY, ARE AWARE that the world they grew up in is changing L rapidly, indeed, some would even say, a known world is passing away. How and why is this the case? Understanding these questions is much more complex than asking the obvious. All of us could make lists describing those things that have disappeared in the last fifty years and the new ways of living that have taken their place. The following story provides us with a simple, yet profound illustration. One day, I was sitting at my desk, at home, writing. Beside me a window opens out across the lawn onto my North Vancouver neighborhood. The community is somewhat idyllic. All through the summer there are more tourists, than residents, as people travel from all over the world to climb the mountains I can see from my window. Bus loads of people come to walk across the suspension bridge that crosses a deep gorge in the Capilano River where salmon run in the spring. The neighborhood has a variety of houses, peopled by those who have finally made it to the North Shore. But I also recognize that in the busyness of all our lives I hardly know any of my neighbors even after almost five years of living in one of the best neighborhoods. In fact, if the truth be known, with our cars, telephones and rushed lives, I don’t think anyone imagines that we need to get to know one another. What is a neighborhood anymore? It is certainly not the place I see out of my office window. So much has changed over the years. The utopian suburbs we built following the end of World War II have become little more than habitats for our isolated, harried lives. We may dream of conversations across the garden fence with some wise Mr. Wilson in a Home Improvement world, but it’s really not there for most of us. Other things have come between the dream and the reality. 10 CROSSING THE BRIDGE Another evening shortly after the above reflection, my wife and I invited an assorted group of people from our church over for an evening. While most had come from somewhere else in the country within the previous 10-year period, some were long term residents of the North Shore. One of these was a retired university professor whose avocation was geography. He brought with him a photograph of my street— the same one I can see from my window.The photograph showed the street almost fifty years ago. It was a narrow, dirt track in the bush with a single house sitting on one side. As I looked at that picture and thought about my neighborhood today, I was aware of the depth of change that has been sweeping over us since the middle of this century. It has been immense. One evening, Mike was meeting with a church about its future and he was also reflecting on the amount of change from quite another perspective. I could not help wondering to myself if there would be a future for this church. Forty years ago, the community was a bustling suburb of Los Angeles. Young families filled the post-war houses that were being built on every block. But as I walked into the church, I noticed the bars on all of the windows. I noticed that the average age of the church was 65 and the average attendance, once a robust 500, was now 50. The neighborhood still had many young families, but they were not of the same racial/ethnic group as that of the congregation-and few were crossing the street to enter the church. Once a growing and exciting church had now become a mere shadow of its former glory. Much had changed in 40 short years. Several years ago, the former principal of a seminary was asked to return and speak to the graduating student body. He was a tall, distinguished gentleman in every sense of that word. His career had been characterized by a series of successful pastorates and culminated in the role of principal. As he spoke to the graduates that evening, his voice had a troubled, anxious edge. His ministry had been shaped during the 50’s and 60’s. The summation of that ministry was caught, for him, in one defining story that continued to have a great impact on his life. In the late 50’s, he was the pastor of an eminent old First Church in a mid-size city. He described the visitation he did with people throughout the city, the clubs to which he belonged, and the central role he played in that city’s life. He talked of how he was known and Welcome to the In-Between World 11 respected by people from all levels of the city’s social strata. He was not boasting about himself; on the contrary, he was describing a role that had given him great fulfillment and a wonderful identity. One night, the fire chief called the pastor out of bed. The downtown of the city was on fire. It burned all through the night and into the morning. The devastation was enormous. What this retired seminary principal wanted to communicate to the students was that he, a pastor, was called and had an important role to play in the midst of the city’s tragedy. Here, he was telling the students, was the role of pastor in the community, and they should never let go of that model. With great and passionate eloquence, he was describing the world of parish pastor that must have given incredible comfort, strength and identity, not only to himself, but also to the people of his congregation and the city in which he served. What he sought to do that graduation night was instill this image back into the lives of young seminarians because this man suspected that the familiar and much loved paradigm had died. He longed to see his dream of leadership, shaped by a pre-sixties world, return as the primary model for ministry. He believed passionately that if it could only become reality again, many of the church’s problems would go away. Most listening to this man were aware that the world he described had disappeared and would never return. Change continues in all aspects of society. As a school board member in his local community, Mike remembers vividly the night they had their first student expulsion. The school district formed on the Irvine Ranch in 1972 had gone twenty years without ever having a single student expelled. That night in 1992 was only the beginning, and now in this highly acclaimed district, they regularly expel 25 to 30 students a year. He also remembers the first time there was a shooting incident during a lunch break. Irvine, one of the safest cities in America, was not so safe after all. Regardless of where one sits, much has changed. We, as leaders, also have a strong sense of how much we have lost in all the change. That is what we want to talk about in this book. Not just the change—it’s here and it’s real—but the experience of loss and confusion that resides in many of us as we try coming to terms with all that is happening. We can’t hold on to the past. We know that traditional structures disappear; however, these disappearances have cost dearly. We have responses in ourselves to which we must attend, if we want to appropriately encounter the new world that is bearing us into rapidly changing times. 12 CROSSING THE BRIDGE In a very real sense, many are grieving the death of much of what we have known, and yet, must live into this new reality. This experience is common throughout our society today. The church in North America is going through its own death (Regele 1995). Leaders of congregations or denominations are in the midst of massive destabilizing change. We have to address, in ourselves and with our people, these inner responses to massive changes. How do we learn to lead people through the transitions we are all experiencing when the photographs in our hearts no longer correlate with the images of the world we are in today? This book is about leading congregations or denominations through a period of tumultuous transition.

Load more

  168

Copy Link